ORIGINAL PAPER Towards Body–Mind–Spirit Integration: East Meets West in Clinical Social Work Practice Pamela Pui-yu Leung Æ Cecilia Lai-wan Chan Æ Siu-man Ng Æ Mo-yee Lee Published online: 3 March 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract Contemporary trends in clinical practice are moving more toward an integrative approach that views the mind, the body and the spirit as inter-connected entities. There is an increasing interest in approaches that utilize physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual components in assessment and treatment. This paper presents an integra- tive body–mind–spirit approach in clinical social work practice which is informed by the Eastern philosophical traditions of Daoism, Buddhism, and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Our work with a bereaved elderly woman is presented to illustrate how the three key intervention principles: (1) promoting a dynamic balance within the individual through multi-modal intervention; (2) fostering strengths; and (3) facilitating meaning-making can be effective in helping people in a clinical setting. Keywords Clinical social work Á Body–mind–spirit Á Eastern approaches Á Holistic healing Á Integrative practice Clinical social work practice has traditionally heavily uti- lized knowledge from psychotherapy in providing treatment for individuals and families. Conventional psychotherapy, as influenced by the medical model, adopts a more spe- cialized approach in assessment and treatment. Psycho- analysis focuses on intra-psychic forces, cognitive theories emphasize thoughts, and behavioral therapy deals with observable behaviors in understanding and treating indi- viduals’ problems. There is an implicit assumption about the linearity of change underlying different therapeutic inter- ventions. What is being suggested is that by identifying the cause of the problems, practitioners can effectively help people to resolve them by using specific therapeutic tech- niques suggested by the theories which they espouse. Under the influence of the ecological perspective (Germain and Gitterman 1980) since the 1980s, social work profession has adopted a more holistic view in conceptualizing a client’s problem and the change process. It is recognized that there is a dynamic interplay of biological, psychological and social domains in human behaviors (Germain and Gitterman 1996). Within the social work profession, there has been an increasing awareness regarding limitations of an increas- ingly specialized, compartmentalized approach to clinical social work practice that downplays the role of body pro- cesses and spirituality (Bullis 1996; Canda and Furman 1999; Carroll 1998; Kepner 1993). It has been recognized that conventional approaches have become inadequate for meeting the challenges of human needs in the twenty-first century. Contemporary problems like domestic violence, addiction, burnout in the workplace, etc. are multi-dimen- sional issues that call for an integrative approach capable of honoring the physical, cognitive, emotional, social and spiritual experiences of individuals in the process of assessment and treatment. There has been a growing interest in recent years in integrating and synthesizing Eastern and Western models in therapy (Walsh 1989; Welwood 2000; Wilber 2000). This paper presents an Eastern integrative body–mind–spirit (I-BMS) approach which draws on both P. P.-y. Leung (&) Á C. L.-w. Chan Á S.-m. Ng Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, 13/F, KK Leung Building, Pokfulam, Hong Kong e-mail: pamelalt@hku.hk P. P.-y. Leung Á C. L.-w. Chan Á S.-m. Ng Centre on Behavioral Health, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong M.-y. Lee College of Social Work, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA 123 Clin Soc Work J (2009) 37:303–311 DOI 10.1007/s10615-009-0201-9