How Christian Spiritual and Religious Beliefs Help and Hinder Counselors' Empathy Toward Clients

The critical incident technique was used to examine how counselors' religion and spirituality help and hinder counselor empathy toward clients. Twelve counselors holding Christian beliefs identified 242 helping and 25 hindering incidents that formed 14 helping and 3 hindering categories. Categories reflected counselors relying on a natural connection to their spirituality, drawing from empathic roots in their religion or spiritual experience, and using commonalities shared with clients as a means of empathizing. Implications for research, counselor education, and counseling practice are discussed.     

Integrating Spiritual Experiences in Counseling

Although the spiritual dimension is an integral part of psychotherapy, most mental health professionals lack the necessary training for working with spiritual experiences therapeutically. The experiential focusing method developed by Eugene Gendlin (eg., 1969, 1981) offers a key tool for counselors to help clients integrate their spiritual experiences in counseling. In this article, the author offers a definition of the spiritual experience, outlines the focusing method, presents examples of its application, and discusses the implications of using focusing to help clients integrate spirituality in counseling.     

Influence of Counselor Spirituality and Training on Treatment Focus and Self‐Perceived Competence

Spirituality is a potential area of concern for counseling clients. This study presents the empirical results of a survey completed by 572 counselors to determine if counselors' spiritual beliefs, experiences, or training had an impact on their focus of therapy or self‐perceived competence. A counselor's personal spirituality, spiritual experience, and spirituality training did significantly influence treatment focus as well as self‐perceived competence to counsel a client with spiritual concerns.     

Reconciling Spiritual Values Conflicts for Counselors and Lesbian and Gay Clients

Counselors and lesbian and gay clients experience parallel values conflicts between religious beliefs/spirituality and sexual orientation. This article uses critical thinking to assist counselors to integrate religious/spiritual beliefs with professional ethical codes. Clients are assisted to integrate religious/spiritual beliefs with sexual orientation.     

Application of Yoga as a Spiritual Practice to Enhance Counselor Wellness and Effectiveness

In this article, we explore potential benefits of yoga, an ancient Indian tradition for spiritual growth and development, for counselors. Counselors use themselves as instruments to support clients and are constantly exposed to the traumatic experiences of clients, which may leave them susceptible to secondary traumatic stress or compassion fatigue (Shallcross, 2011). Yoga can help counselors not only in achieving holistic wellness but also in developing a way of being consistent with the characteristics of an effective counselor. Furthermore, yoga, as a spiritual practice, can empower counselors to embark on a spiritual journey driven by their own personal experiences.     

Exploring the Meaning of Spirituality and Its Implications for Counselors

This article is one counselor's personal exploration of the nature of spirituality and its relevance to counseling practice. The personal and immediate experience of the spirit is emphasized as the foundation of any counselor's effective engagement of this issue with clients. Those clients whose encounter with the spirit is sudden and nonconsensual have a particular need for counselors who are knowledgeable of the processes of spiritual emergence and emergency.     

Atheism and Nonspirituality as Diversity Issues in Counseling

Counseling professionals have begun to realize that, in order to be as effective as possible, counselors must explore and understand the spiritual and religious beliefs of their clients. The literature on client belief systems and diversity, however, does not include discussion of individuals without religious or spiritual beliefs. The purpose of this article is to (a) suggest that atheism and nonspirituality should be included in the multiculturalism conversation and (b) offer ways that counselors might effectively help and nurture such clients.     

The Only Way Out Is Through: The Peril of Spiritual Bypass

Given the increased attention to spirituality in the counseling literature, with a primary emphasis on helping clients find their spiritual path, it is important for counselors to be aware of one potential pitfall of the spiritual path, namely spiritual bypass. Spiritual bypass occurs when clients seek to use their spiritual beliefs, practices, and experiences to avoid genuine contact with their psychological “unfinished business.” The purpose of this article is to define spiritual bypass, discuss the necessity of healing at the cognitive, emotional, and physical levels, as well as at the spiritual level for holistic wellness, and provide examples of clients in spiritual bypass.     

Walking in Beauty: An American Indian Perspective on Social Justice

The purpose of this article is to introduce “walking in beauty,” an American Indian spiritual perspective related to social justice that emphasizes beauty, harmony, connectedness/unity of experience, and imagination. Walking in beauty includes 3 processes: embodiment, creativity, and appreciation of the sublime. Recommendations are offered for counselors to walk in beauty with their clients. This way of being is viewed as a path to social justice.     

Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Client Spiritual Development: Counseling Implications

The spiritual development of sexually traumatized clients is an important area of concern for counselors. In this paper, spirituality is defined, and its relevance for counselors who work with childhood sexual abuse survivors is discussed. Impact of abuse on client spirituality is described, and several suggestions are given for assessment and intervention approaches that address spiritual issues as part of the counseling process.     

Facilitating Spiritual Meaning‐Making for the Individual With a Diagnosis of a Terminal Illness

Despite increasing acknowledgment of the importance of addressing the spiritual dimension in the therapeutic process, there is still limited energy devoted to fostering in counselors the awareness, knowledge, and skills needed to facilitate the spiritual well‐being of their clients. This deficit is most dramatically felt when working with individuals who are diagnosed with a terminal illness. In this article, counselors are encouraged to recognize the value of incorporating the spiritual domain in their work and are offered some strategies that can be used to promote meaning‐making when working with clients with limited life expectancy. The use of rituals and expressive activities is highlighted.     

Advocating for Atheist Clients in the Counseling Profession

Atheism is a controversial topic, with individuals who identify as atheist reporting high rates of discrimination. Despite increasing literature discussing religious/spiritual views and beliefs, few scholarly discussions of atheism in the counseling field can be found. Counselors need to be made aware of the issues facing atheist clients and educated on the best interventions to use in collaborative work with clients. Counselors should also be prepared to advocate for atheist clients in multiple domains. This article aims to explore the relevant literature around atheism, identify implications for counselors, and provide a path to advocacy for counselors in their work with atheist clients.     

Addressing Spiritual Issues in Secular Counseling and Psychotherapy: Response to Helminiak's (2001) Views

D. A. Helminiak (2001) suggests that counselors who work within the framework of a client's chosen religious or spiritual perspective are illegitimately responding to spiritual issues in counseling. In contrast to this position, this article affirms that spiritually sensitive counselors who work within the religious or spiritual framework of clients can practice both ethically and effectively and can generate useful research examining the relationship between spirituality and successful therapeutic outcomes.     

Spirituality and Dream Work in Counseling: Clients’ Experiences

The authors suggest that focusing on dreams in counseling may be a useful framework to explore clients’ spiritual values and beliefs. Because little is known about how spirituality and dream work are integrated in practice, the purpose of this article is to document how some counselors and clients work on spirituality and dreams. Responses of clients who focused on dreams from a spiritual perspective are described and discussed. Relevant clinical issues that counselors may encounter are identified. Recommendations are made for counselors who wish to integrate spirituality and dream work in counseling.An earlier version of this article was presented at the Semi-Annual Meeting of the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists, Salt Lake City, Utah, April 2004.     

The trend toward spirituality in the workplace: overview and implications for career counseling

The author provides career counselors with an overview of the trend toward spirituality in the workplace and examines its potential pros and cons for workers. The growing openness in organizations to explore work from a spiritual perspective provides a new tool to the career practitioner. Career counselors can help clients draw on their spirituality as another resource for negotiating the increasingly complex world of work.     

Religious Diversity From a Jewish Perspective

The exploration of spiritual and religious diversity may receive less attention in counselor education than is warranted, resulting in counselors who are unprepared to deal with spiritual and religious issues in counseling. This trend could have a negative impact on Jewish clients, as well as on other religious clients, who feel that issues related to their identity are ignored. The Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (2001) has recognized that religious diversity is an integral component of the multicultural counseling movement, but counselor education and training programs, as a whole, still need to embrace this standard.     

Spiritual Issues in Counseling: What Do Students Perceive They Are Being Taught?

Client religious and spiritual practices have recently emerged as beneficial to both mental and physical health. However, graduates of counseling programs indicate that they have not been adequately trained to address religious and spiritual issues with clients. This exploratory study focused on the perceptions of counselors‐in‐training regarding what messages they received about these issues during their training programs, as well as their potential behaviors when working with clients. Results indicated that potential behaviors are not always consistent with what they are taught. Implications for training and future research are discussed.     

A Model for Addressing Spiritual Issues in Counseling

The hesitancy on the part of counselors and psychotherapists to approach the spiritual concerns of clients has been widely discussed in the literature. Among the various reasons given for the reluctance of counselors and other therapists regarding spiritual matters is that such issues have not been a part of traditional training models. A counseling and psychotherapy training model is proposed here that is both continuous and developmental in nature. The model contains discrete yet continuous levels of learning; Learning Level III is concerned with emergent spiritual issues. The holistic epistemology of Gregory Bateson is used to derive guiding theoretical principles for the training model.     

Step by Step: Avoiding Spiritual Bypass in 12‐Step Work

With spirituality as a cornerstone, 12‐step groups serve a vital role in the recovery community. It is important for counselors to be mindful, however, of the potential for clients to be in spiritual bypass, which likely will undermine the recovery process.     

Entering the Sacred: Using Motivational Interviewing to Address Spirituality in Counseling

Despite the salience of spirituality in the lives of many clients, counselors are often hesitant to explore spiritual issues in counseling, largely out of a valid concern of imposing values on the client. Motivational interviewing provides a framework within which a counselor can both assess spirituality and facilitate client exploration of spiritual issues without fear of imposing values.