Factor your clients' religious beliefs into their therapy! A recent Gallup poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans surveyed said they would prefer to receive counseling from a therapist who is religious. The Power of Spirituality in Therapy: Integrating Spiritual and Religious Beliefs in Mental Health Practice addresses the apprehensions many clinicians have when it comes to discussing God with their clients. Authors Peter A. Kahle and John M. Robbins draw from their acclaimed workshops on the integration of spirituality and psychotherapy to teach therapists how they can help clients make positive life changes that are consistent with their values and spiritual and/or religious orientations. The Power of Spirituality in Therapy combines psychotherapy, spirituality, and humor to examine the “pink elephants” of academia-Godphobia and institutional a-spiritualism. The book explores the “learned avoidance” that has historically limited therapists in their ability—and willingness—to engage clients in “God-talk” and presents clinicians with methods they can use to incorporate spirituality into psychotherapy. Topics such as truth, belief, postmodernism, open-mindedness, and all-inclusiveness are examined through empirical findings, practical steps and cognitive processes, and clinical stories. The Power of Spirituality in Therapy includes: To Be (Ethical) or Not to Be? WHAT is the Question? To Believe or Not to Believe? That is NOT the Question! The Deification of Open-Mindedness Learning From Our Clients In God Do Therapists Trust? and much more! The Power of Spirituality in Therapy is an essential resource for therapists, counselors, mental health practitioners, pastoral counselors, and social work professionals who deal with clients who require therapy that reflects the importance of God in their lives. This guide will help those brave enough to explore how their own spiritual beliefs and/or biases can create problems when working with those clients.

Reflecting the increasing recognition of the importance of the spiritual in healing, Spirituality and Art Therapy is an exciting exploration of the different ways in which the spiritual forms an essential, life-enhancing component of a well-rounded therapeutic approach. The contributors are leading art therapists who write from diverse perspectives, including Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and shamanic. They explain how their own spiritual and creative influences interact, finding expression in the use of art as a healing agent with specific populations, such as bereaved children, emotionally disturbed adolescents, and the homeless. The relationships between spirituality and visual art, art therapy and transpersonal psychology are examined. Story and image are interwoven in the spiritual journeys of therapists and clients, and suggested creative exercises make this an accessible, practical resource for those who desire to understand and execute an holistic method of therapy. Arguing that art therapists can mediate between the sacred and the mundane, this pioneering book is an affirmation of the transformative power of art therapy.

This insightful work answers essential questions in family therapy by exploring the ethical use of religion and spirituality in the clinical context. Its justice-informed framework explores how to employ the spiritual as a source of resilience and empowerment as well as counter harmful spiritual and religious influences in situations that cause families and couples stress, particularly relating to gender, sexuality, race, culture, and identity. Powerful case studies show therapists and clients collaborating on meaning-making and comfort in the face of longstanding conflict, acute and chronic illness, estrangement, and loss. Coverage also explores the ethical responsibilities of determining whether beliefs are helpful or harmful to client mental health and offers guidelines for therapists navigating personal biases regarding faith. This vital text: · Spotlights the influence of an often-overlooked aspect of mental health · Provides detailed examples of religion and spirituality across diverse families and issues · Outlines practical strategies for integrating helpful aspects of clients’ relationship with the sacred into treatment · Offers a framework for countering harmful aspects of clients’ religious beliefs or practices · Includes interventions used with couples, parents/children, and other family units · Adds a socially just perspective on the spiritual dimension of mind/body concerns · Encourages readers’ professional development and self-reflection Addressing critical issues where belief frequently takes center stage, Socially Just Religious and Spiritual Interventions is an invaluable resource for family therapists, psychotherapists, and other professionals pursuing a socially just, clinically relevant approach to spiritual and religious therapeutic integration.

Does my life have any deeper meaning? Does God really care about me? How can I find and follow my moral compass? What do I do when my faith is shaken to the core? Spiritual trials, doubts, or conflicts are often intertwined with mental health concerns, yet many psychotherapists feel ill equipped to discuss questions of faith. From pioneers in the psychology of religion and spirituality, this book combines state-of-the-art research, clinical insights, and vivid case illustrations. It guides clinicians to understand spiritual struggles as critical crossroads in life that can lead to brokenness and decline--or to greater wholeness and growth. Clinicians learn sensitive, culturally responsive ways to assess different types of spiritual struggles and help clients use them as springboards to change.

Spirituality is an important part of many clients’ lives. It can be a resource for stabilization, healing, and growth. It can also be the cause of struggle and even harm. More and more therapists—those who consider themselves spiritual and those who do not—recognize the value of addressing spirituality in therapy and increasing their skill for engaging it ethically and effectively. In this immensely practical book, Russell Siler Jones helps therapists feel more competent and confident about having spiritual conversations with clients. With a refreshing, down-to-earth style, he describes how to recognize the diverse explicit and implicit ways spirituality can appear in psychotherapy, how to assess the impact spirituality is having on clients, how to make interventions to maximize its healthy impact and lessen its unhealthy impact, and how therapists can draw upon their own spirituality in ethical and skillful ways. He includes extended case studies and clinical dialogue so readers can hear how spirituality becomes part of case conceptualization and what spiritual conversation actually sounds like in psychotherapy. Jones has been a therapist for nearly 30 years and has trained therapists in the use of spirituality for over a decade. He writes about a complex topic with an elegant simplicity and provides how-to advice in a way that encourages therapists to find their own way to apply it. Spirit in Session is a pragmatic guide that therapists will turn to again and again as they engage their clients in one of the most meaningful and consequential dimensions of human experience.

Spirituality has long been regarded as "off-limits" in clinical practice, leaving family therapists and counselors uncertain as to how to approach it. Yet the majority of families regard religion as important in their lives, and research has begun to document the psychological and health benefits of faith and congregational support. Further, many who seek help for physical, emotional, or interpersonal problems are also in spiritual distress. Filling a crucial void, this volume explores the influences of faith beliefs and practices on suffering, healing, and health. Leading family therapists describe how attending to this vital dimension of human experience can inform and enrich therapy, illuminate spiritual sources of distress, and help clients tap into wellsprings for resilience and growth.

Increasing numbers of professionals in the fields of psychology and therapy are seeking to incorporate elements of spirituality into their therapeutic oeuvre, addressing not only mental and emotional issues, but also the soul. This book discloses how indigenous traditions can be adapted to offer practitioners a highly effective repertoire of insights, psycho-spiritual approaches and therapeutic tools. The underlying concepts and world-views of indigenous and contemporary shamanism are explained and tied in with current developments in psychology and science. After clarifying altered states of perception, concepts of integrative wholeness of mind, body, soul and spirit and transformative shamanic 'healing' approaches, the book goes on to outline concrete contemporary tools and techniques that can be applied directly to work with clients. It presents research, examples and case studies throughout. This will be enlightening and compelling reading for psychologists, therapists, counsellors and coaches looking for profound insights and innovative methods of practice that cater for the whole human psyche, reaching beyond contemporary Western mind and body approaches.