Spiritual Transcendence and Mental Health of Psychotherapists and Religious Professionals in a Hungarian Adult Sample

In this study we examine whether components of spiritual transcendence can explain individual differences in mental health in a Hungarian adult sample (N = 583), with a special focus on the associations in two subsamples, religious professionals and psychotherapists. Using the Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS), we found that religious professionals presented higher Prayer Fulfillment and Universality than psychotherapists; however, members of both professional groups scored higher than other professionals on these dimensions. By contrast, psychotherapists were superior to religious professionals in Connectedness. Moreover, higher Universality predicted better mental health, even after controlling for gender, age, profession, and basic personality traits. No interaction effects were found between profession and the subscales of the STS. Results suggest that the potential mental health benefits of spirituality, especially in form of a universal view of existence, are equally present in both specific professions and in the general sample, whereas the professions themselves still reflect differences both in spirituality and in well-being.     

The Practice of Integrity for Mental Health Professionals

Summary

The focus of this article revolves around accuracy and honesty in the mental health field. Integrity, both professional and personal, is the foundation of all mental health professionals' functioning. Honesty, fairness, and respect for others are necessary ingredients to professional behavior. Mental health professionals avoid misleading other individuals with regard to professional training and other areas of expertise. In professional roles, they clarify as early as feasible the nature of the expectations and activities in which they are engaged.     

Health Beliefs,Religious Values,and the Counseling Process: A Comparison of Counselors and Other Mental Health Professionals

A. E. Bergin (1985) studied the religious values and beliefs of mental health professionals and the relationship of those values to the counseling process. This study replicated Bergin's research with a sample of professional counselors. Differences were found in each of 10 beliefs areas and 10 values areas between the total sample in both studies. Within-group differences revealed greater similarities between professional counselors and social workers and marriage and family therapists and greater differences between counselors and either psychologists or psychiatrists. Implications for counseling and counselor training are discussed.     

Exploring Well-Being among Mental Health Professionals in India

An exploratory mixed methods study was designed to understand the construction and experience of happiness and well-being among Mental Health Professionals (MHPs) in India. Through non-probabilistic sampling techniques, 17 MHPs were selected from three government hospitals in a city in North India. Qualitative interview data were triangulated with scores from the Mental Health Continuum-Long Form (MHC-LF). Analysis showed that despite happiness being a desirable and pleasurable state, participants rarely devoted time thinking about it. Happiness was a multidimensional phenomenon which affected personal, interpersonal, social and environmental realms. Happiness was synonymous with contentment and satisfaction and was understood as the opposite of unhappiness. Although recognised as a universal phenomenon, happiness had a subjective and individual-specific understanding, experience and manifestation. Data from the MHC-LF provided scores on overall well-being, and emotional, psychological and social well-being, and indicated that 14 participants had flourishing mental health, and three were moderately mentally healthy. The personal and professional lives of the MHPs were closely intertwined and impacted well-being in multiple ways. Certain temperamental qualities, personal insight from the field, supportive interpersonal relations and management of time, work, thought, behaviour and affect were protective factors of well-being. Additional responsibilities at work, negativities in client narratives, stigma and myths associated with the profession, biases from other professionals, lack of opportunities for personal development and growth, insufficient infrastructural and human resources were threats to well-being. The findings of the study have implications for policy, education and training, and practice for mental health practitioners.     

Ethics in the Teaching of Mental Health Professionals

Summary

It is the position of the authors that mental health professionals-in-training must be well versed in the ethical/legal matters of clinical practice. Indeed, most graduate programs in the field of mental health require formal training in Ethics. The California School of Professional Psychology (Alliant International University) San Diego campus has developed a model that requires (a) an ethics course integrated with the student's on-campus supervision in the Fall and Spring semesters at the practicum level, focusing on the American Psychological Association's Ethics Code (2002) and California's Licensing Laws; and (b) an advanced ethics course (in the fourth year of training) that focuses on the integration of ethical and legal issues in clinical practice and providing a knowledge base of sound ethical judgment. Syllabi for these two courses are included.     

Religious Doubt and Mental Health Across the Lifespan

The current study examined the connections among religious doubt, mental health, and aging in a nationwide sample of individuals 18 years and older (N = 1629). Findings indicate that that religious doubt emerging from the recognition of suffering and evil in the world has a deleterious impact on mental health. Results also show that as people grow older, religious doubts continue to be associated with psychopathology, but the magnitude of this association becomes weaker across age categories. In other words, the impact of doubt on mental distress declines as one ages. These effects were found across various measures of mental distress, including depression, general anxiety, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoia, hostility, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Findings are explored within the context of psychosocial development and the experiential trajectory of religious maturity.     

精神卫生工作者面临的困境及其对策

目前国内的精神卫生工作者不能满足社会的需要,认为精神卫生工作开展难度大、职业发展前景不乐观、工作的特殊性和职业满意度低等社会心理因素是导致目前这种状况的主要原因,提出规范精神卫生服务行业,政府增加投入、普及精神卫生知识和工作人员自我调节等措施干预目前这种困境.     

Being Examples to the Flock: The Role of Church Leaders and African American Families Seeking Mental Health Care Services

Within the context of Black churches, African American clergy have a significant role in the delivery of mental health care services for parishioners and their families. Working toward better linkages between faith-based communities and more formal mental health care could help to provide more culturally sensitive and timely mental health care for African American families. Using a salient part of an integrative model (Davey and Watson in Contemp Fam Ther 30:31–47, 2008), the roles Black church leaders have historically played for African American families seeking outside mental health care services are considered. We additionally provide an example of a recent collaborative partnership with a Black church that points toward some promising directions for future research and clinical collaborations between the field of couple and family therapy and the Black church community.     

Regulating Research for the Decisionally Impaired: Implications for Mental Health Professionals

Mental health professionals, in fulfilling their different roles, often become involved with research protocols involving decisionally impaired current or prospective human subjects, many of whom are elderly. The opening section of this paper briefly describes the present regulatory environment regarding human subjects research, followed by an overview of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process. There then ensues an enumeration of some of the general criticisms of the current regulatory scheme that have been enunciated recently. Particular concerns concerning decisionally impaired persons as research subjects are then addressed, referring when applicable to the recommendations made by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) in its 1998 report on this subject and the implications of those recommendations for mental health professionals.     

Ethical and Legal Considerations in the Training of Mental Health Professionals

Summary

A discussion is provided regarding ethical and legal considerations that relate to the training of mental health professionals. A training program which emphasizes a proactive approach to identifying and resolving potential ethical and legal problems, and their close connection with clinical issues is described, as are the responsibilities of supervisors and supervisees in such a program. For illustrative purposes, a training vignette and a clinical vignette conclude the article.     

The Interprofessional Collaborative Practice: Clergypersons and Mental Health Professionals

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among variables identified in research literature as obstacles and benefits to interprofessional collaboration-- academic education, interprofessional education, teamwork and communication skills, and trust---as it relates to the participation of clergypersons in interprofessional collaborative practice. The sample consisted of ordained Christian clergypersons in Florida who voluntarily completed a survey questionnaire. Standard and stepwise multiple regression was applied to analyze the data. The model accounts for 25% of the variation of interprofessional collaborative practice. Results also revealed that the education variables explained significantly 20% of the variance of interprofessional collaborative practice.     

Religious Life-Styles and Mental Health: A Follow-Up Study

This study is part of a longitudinal research project designed to discover more about the relations between religious involvement and mental health. It represents a 3-year follow-up on a group of religious young adults. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and by means of a psychological test battery. The results are discussed.     

Collaboration between Science and Religious Education teachers in Scottish Secondary schools

The article reports on quantitative research that examines: (1) the current practice in collaboration; and (2) potential for collaboration between Science and Religious Education teachers in a large sample of Scottish secondary schools. The authors adopt and adapt three models (conflict; concordat and consonance) to interrogate the relationship between science and religion (and the perceived relation between these two subjects in schools) (Astley and Francis 2010 Astley, J., and L. J. Francis. 2010. “Promoting Positive Attitudes towards Science and Religion among Sixth-Form Pupils: Dealing with Scientism and Creationism.” British Journal of Religious Education 32 (3): 189–200.10.1080/01416200.2010.498604 [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The findings indicate that there is evidence of limited collaboration and, in a few cases, a dismissive attitude towards collaboration (conflict and concordat and very weak consonance). There is, however, evidence of a genuine aspiration for greater collaboration among many teachers (moving towards a more robust consonance model). The article concludes by discussing a number of key factors that must be realised for this greater collaboration to be enacted.     

Religious Belief and Mental Health in Lay and Consecrated Italian Teachers

There is compelling evidence that teachers and clergy are stressful occupations. This study aimed to compare the rate of job strain and burnout among lay and consecrated teachers and to study the effect of religious coping on the mental health of these two groups. A cross-sectional survey study was carried out in Catholic kindergarten, preschool and primary schools of an Italian Congregation of nuns, in South Italy. The Italian versions of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator Survey (MBI-ES) scale, of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and a study-specific questionnaire with sociodemographic variables and indicators of subjective (self-reported religiosity) and objective (prayer personal and church attendance) religiousness were used. Data were analyzed according to the guidelines for data processing and an analysis of the scales used. The participation rate of this study was 88 %. There was a significant difference between two groups in religiousness and job strain/burnout scores (lay teachers were the most affected group). Moreover, religiousness scores had a positive correlation with personal accomplishment, job satisfaction and perceived performance and a negative correlation with emotional exhaustion, turnover intention and morbidity psychiatric. Therefore, according to religious coping’s research, prayer personal and church attendance can be recommended as two of the ways to prevent job strain and burnout in the teacher work.     

The Hmong in the United States: An Overview for Mental Health Professionals

Since Laos fell to the communist Pathet Lao, many Hmong people have relocated to the United States. Because of the vast cultural differences, the Hmong have had a notoriously difficult time adjusting to life in the United States. In view of the many problems faced by Hmong Americans, it is likely that many of them will seek or be referred to non-Hmong professionals for various counseling services. This article provides an overview of Hmong culture and a history of their migration to the United States. Specific adjustment and mental health problems are noted and suggestions are provided for designing appropriate counseling interventions for Hmong Americans.     

The Ethics of Supervision and Consultation: Practical Guidance for Mental Health Professionals

Studies of academic dishonesty typically rely on potentially inaccurate self-reports or on actual behavior during less realistic tasks. Eliminating the drawbacks of such approaches, we assessed cheating during completion of actual coursework via electronic records of online behavior. Thirty-six college students completed unproctored, online quizzes. The majority of students responding to a follow-up questionnaire reported that they never considered consulting online sources during the quizzes. Computer logs reveal that although some students accessed relevant online information during the quizzes, many did not: 6 instances over 72 quiz attempts are attributable to 3 or 4 individuals. Although online environments may offer more opportunities for academic dishonesty, electronic records of online activity provide a valuable and objective means of detecting such dishonesty.     

Religious Leaders and the Environmental Crisis

Despite the presence of forward‐looking religious leaders at higher levels, there is little recognition and understanding among local‐level leaders about climate change and the irreversible impacts of global warming. This article illustrates this lack of insight among religious leaders and provides suggestions to increase their awareness of the environmental crisis and its solutions. It uses as examples Islamic teachings that Muslim muftis can use to protect the environment, and emphasizes religious leaders’ influence, roles, and responsibility in establishing justice for the earth, for the next generations, and for all creation. Although most of the facts and examples in this article are from a Middle East and North Africa Region and Islamic perspective, its arguments can be applied generally.     

Problems Caused for Mental Health Professionals Worldwide by Increasing Multicultural Populations and Proposed Solutions

Psychiatric disorders on a global scale, combined with rapid national population diversification, demand that mental health professionals worldwide become more informed about the realities of diagnosing and treating a multicultural patient population. Recommendations are offered to enable such professionals to most efficaciously diagnose and treat patients from diverse sociocultural backgrounds.