Simone de Oliveira Ferreira (photo), from São Sepé, in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, is a psychologist with an MBA in People Management and a Master Degree in Education. She is also a writer and an active member of the local Spiritist Movement, volunteering at two Spiritist Centres in the Brazilian city of Florianópolis, where she has lived for the past 15 years: Sociedade Espírita Tereza de Jesus and Centro Espírita Sem Fronteiras, which operates online only. As a volunteer, she provides counselling, or fraternal assistance, to people in need. She is also a public speaker and takes part in radio and TV programmes. Simone has recently published a book, as she explains in the following interview:

How did you find Spiritism?  

I was born into a Catholic family and as a teenager I began questioning Catholicism as it wasn’t able to provide me with the answers to certain questions. I began looking around for new ways of understanding human problems and dealing with my uneasiness. Around 1996, my elder sister gave me and my mother copies of The Gospel According to Spiritism. I also came across The Spirits’ Book, and it all made a lot of sense to me then. I began by doing the Gospel in the Home and then joined study groups and got more and more involved in the Spiritist Movement. 

Where does your interest in Psychology come from? 

I was always actively involved in volunteer work and because of my passion for social psychology, I volunteered in school therapy groups, community organisations and prisons. As a result of that work with inmates, I got involved with forensic psychology and I learned a great deal there, producing forensic reports and training workers with a focus on mental health. That’s something that’s still a big part of the work I do in my private practice. What encourages me to carry on in this beautiful profession is the possibility of seeing people beyond their labels, beyond their suffering and traumas, encouraging them to understand that they have a lot of power in them.  

How do you think the information you now have on Spiritism and psychology interact in your personal and professional life? 

I’m more careful when I step into “holy ground,” which is the other one. In both fields of knowledge, free will is a key element and helps me get a better understanding of the choices we make and human actions. It sets limits and makes us have more respect for individuality. So, the two different lenses available to help understand human beings (Spiritism and psychology) encourage me to be more tactful and to have more compassion and alterity.    

Tell us about your new book . 

It deals with self-esteem, personal empowerment and protagonism. It’s aimed at waking women up to the powers they have, as in a misogynistic and racist society those powers are often left in a dormant state or are curtailed. I include in the book personal experiences and many others from my 26 years as a psychologist, intertwined with theory and exercises that I have developed or adapted for my work with patients. 

Is there anything you would like to share with us from all your experiences in the Spiritist Movement? 

I would like to mention the divine support that I get in my daily tasks in my personal challenges. I highlight the (re)encounters with so many dear people who support us along the way and the (re)encounters that have a healing purpose, with those people whose hearts are yet not totally connected to ours. They help us, notwithstanding, become better people and exercise our compassion. There is something else that has always drawn my attention: the absence (or relatively low numbers) of black people in Spiritist Centres. Also, the silence of the Spiritist Movement about this situation and about issues such as structural racism and racial supremacy. That reminds me of question 799 of The Spirits’ Book: “In what way can Spiritism contribute towards progress? [...] Destroying the prejudices of sect, caste and colour, Spiritism teaches them about the great solidarity that must unite them as brothers and sisters.” We must stress that simply not carrying out bad deeds and acting with timidity does nothing towards individual and collective progress. Look at questions 642 and 932 of the same book. There is, therefore, a great deal to be done, especially when we look around us and see all the alarming data about oppression, inequality, exclusion and violence. 

Is there anything else you would like to add?