Celebrity Worship: Critiquing a Construct

McCutcheon, Lange, & Houran (2002 ) proposed the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) to identify celebrity worshipers, useful for identifying individuals who are overly absorbed or addicted to their interest in a celebrity. Problematic is the absence of a conceptual definition for celebrity worshiper and how this term relates to use of the term fan. Currently, these terms are most often used as if they were synonyms ( Haspel, 2006 ; Maltby, Day, McCutcheon, Gillett et al., 2004 ; McCutcheon, Lange, & Houran, 2002 ). Sampled groups of serious fans contained many individuals who met none of the criteria for celebrity worship, as identified by the CAS. The use of celebrity worshiper as a synonym for fan appears to be conceptually flawed.     

Psychotherapy and Religion: Rapprochement or Antithesis?

Religion and psychotherapy have long maintained separate directions, currently manifested in four viewpoints: orthodox, atheistic, neutralist, and moderate. Although each therapeutic viewpoint is distinct, each contains the seed for rapprochement. The need for a rapprochement that provides professional psychotherapy capable of addressing religious issues is clearly voiced by laypersons, who are clients or potential clients, and by members of the clergy and psychotherapeutic professions. Increasing numbers of ministers now receive professional preparation for pastoral counseling. It is timely for those in the counseling professions to consider seriously specialized education and certification in religious counseling for secular psychotherapists.