Counseling Students' Perceptions of Religious/Spiritual Counseling Training: A Qualitative Study

As the United States becomes more diverse, the religious and spiritual values held by members of society become more diverse as well. This is also true of students in counselor education programs because they are representative of society at large, although the myriad religious and spiritual values of the counseling student population have yet to be studied. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2008), nine in 10 individuals believe in God or a universal spirit, six in 10 individuals believe that God is a person with whom they can have a relationship, seven in 10 individuals believe that they are certain of God's existence, and six in 10 believe that their religion's sacred text is the word of God. Religious affiliations in the United States include Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Flindu, other faiths, and other world religions (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2008). Historically, however, themes of religion and counseling were not integrated (Richards & Bergin, 2000) or were viewed negatively (Watts, 2001), leaving counselors inadequately equipped to work with individuals with diverse religious and spiritual beliefs. Furthermore, many clients who consider themselves religiously conservative are concerned that their beliefs will be judged or devalued by a counselor who does not share their same belief (Bomsheuer, Henriksen, & Irby, 2012; Richards & Bergin, 2000; Watts, 2008). Pargament (2009) noted that many counselors are trained in understanding mental health functioning and various mental health disorders, but they are not adequately trained to integrate the religious and spiritual values of their clients into counseling sessions and may lack an understanding on how these approaches may help to improve the mental health functioning of their clients. Therefore, it is necessary that counselors understand how a clients' spirituality and faith shapes their perspectives on themselves, others, and the world around them in order to effectively incorporate religious and spiritual values into counseling (Watts, 2000). Counselors are expected to respectfully and sensitively attend to the diversity of their clients (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014). Additionally, the accreditation standards of the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP, 2009) define spirituality as "a sense of a relationship with or belief in a higher power or entity greater than oneself that involves a search for wholeness and harmony" (p. 63). This definition is applied to two standards. The first standard is found in Addiction Counseling, Prevention, and Intervention, Section C.4, which states that counselors "understand the role of spirituality in the addiction recovery process" (p. 19). The second standard is found in Student Affairs and College Counseling, Diversity and Advocacy, Section E. 1, which states that counselors "understand postsecondary student development in a multicultural society, including characteristics such as immigrant status, disability, extreme ability or talent, cultural background, spirituality, and family situation" (p. 49). Based on the prevalence and influence of religion and spirituality in U.S. culture, as well as the expectation from the AC A Code of Ethics and CACREP standards for counselors to provide culturally sensitive and ethical counseling, preparation for addressing religious and spiritual issues in graduate counselor training programs needs to continue. Clinical Application of Religious and Spiritual Beliefs The majority of clients who present themselves for counseling services have a religious foundation or spiritual beliefs (Cashwell & Young, 2011; Richards & Bergin, 2000), and these orientations should be included in the therapeutic assessment process (Everts & Agee, 1995; Johansen, 2010). Training counseling students to sensitively and respectfully discuss religious and spiritual beliefs with their clients can potentially provide counselors with a greater understanding of the meaning and importance attributed to clients' religious and spiritual views. …