We, the students and trainees of Father Summerton have decided to launch this website to share with the world what we are receiving.
Oswald Summerton SJ
Father Oswald Summerton is a healer, therapist and spiritual guru. He has been present at turning points in the lives of people of different nationalities, cultures and social groups, helping them in times of trauma, conflict and trouble. He has facilitated children and grown-ups in moments of great distress, at critical junctures of goal-setting and problem-solving, as well as during changes in career, vocation and lifestyle. Having spent more than a decade supporting addicts and their families in post-rehabilitation recovery, he has accompanied people through grief,
loss and family crises.
Educationist, spiritual director, musician, choir-master, record-breaking athlete, an expert in psychodrama, monoacting and giving effective sermons, Father Summerton wears many hats with ease and aplomb. He is a radical innovator who can lead you to serene pools of peace, and havens of happiness. He rocks the boat
and survives to steer it into calm, quiet waters. Father Summerton has taught us to analyse injustice at the micro and macro levels, and to be part of larger social movements for peace, justice, equality, human dignity and the sharing of resources. He has taught us to seek out and care for the lost, the rejected, the misunderstood and the abandoned.
Affectionately called “Os” by his students and admirers, his legendary sense of humour and his Ram Singh stories (metaphorical fables created especially for breaking therapeutic blocks and soft-peddling confrontation), have helped people the world over. Os has worked to gear psychotherapy and counseling beyond the sphere of personal freedom and fulfillment, to community freedom and interpersonal harmony which dissolve prejudice and hierarchical arrogance. Within education he has helped teachers set their sights on the larger issues of saving the earth, teaching their students to give up narcissistic dreams of self glory and develop a vision of healing human tragedies and wounded communities.
In his work at Transactional Analysis Centre for Education, Research and Training (TACET), he heals the healers, trains the trainers, cares for the caretakers, re-parents the parents and gives guidance to spiritual directors. He works with holistic personality integration and healing the inner-Child.
His spirituality is inter-denominational and inter-religious and is focussed on deep surrender to the will of God. He has taught many the art of group spiritual discernment and the ability to recognise the sacred in everyday life.
Those who have beneffited from his teaching range from cloistered nuns in Cleveland to de-addiction communities in Chennai.
(Photo: Os, 2002)