Collaborating with Students' Spirituality. (2004)

Spirituality provides an opportunity for collaboration between school counselors and students around student diversity and development. North America in general and counseling in particular are now emerging from the limitations of worldviews that led to avoidance of spiritual topics. The biggest restriction of school counselor-student collaboration is the counselor's belief that restriction exists. ********** The word Gloom popped into my head, as Mark slumped into the chair across from me. Everything about him seemed dour. His clothing was dark and his brown hair was unkempt (not in the fashionable sense). Most noticeable, though, was the sagging, expressionless look of his face and the dullness in his eyes. I thought, kid looks I immediately knew that the mounds of paperwork and academic advising I had scheduled for the afternoon would get bumped. Mark was depressed. His disclosures and, with his permission, the information provided by his mother about his behavior at home all suggested his being chronically unhappy. Mark also said something that really stuck with me. When I asked directly if he was unhappy, he responded, not happy very often. Well, almost never. But I feel that God put me on earth for special reason of some sort. I clarified, You feel like you have purpose for being here?.... Yes, he replied, a special purpose. I asked, Have you figured it out yet? Mark answered, Not yet. I'm waiting for that day to come. I knew about the crucial roles that external support systems play in students' lives (Aoki & Turk, 1997; Moos, Cronkite, & Moos, 1998), yet the internal support system of spiritual belief was different for me. While my own spiritual beliefs were important to me, I did not really consider their place in the fives of the students with whom I worked. This fictitious vignette (based on an actual incident from McWhirter, 1993) illustrates common yet often overlooked resource for counselors and students: spirituality. For most of the history of counseling, spirituality has been ignored, discounted, or considered source of clients' problems (Campbell, 1975; Ellis, 1980). However, researchers and clinicians have acknowledged spirituality as core consideration in the lives of many people (Bergin, 1980; Jones, 1994). It follows, then, that omitting spirituality from any role in counseling might compromise the quality of services given to students. It is dimension of human diversity that can no longer be overlooked. As influential as spirituality might be, it is an aspect of human life that has not been well researched as such. Related aspects of religion and values have been researched great deal, and these studies help counselors understand the probable effects of spirituality. For instance, most citizens of the United States say religion is important. A 44nation survey found that 50% of the people in the United States sample said one highly visible expression of spirituality, religion, was very important in their lives, one of the highest percentages in the survey (Albright et al., 2002). Other surveys have found that 80% to 90% of U.S. citizens believe in spirituality that included god or gods. The vast majority of these citizens espouse some form of Christianity (Steere, 1997). In the United States, then, spirituality in some form is central consideration for most citizens; this is reasonably the case for K-12 students as well, since most are influenced by family and community values and religions (Bee & Boyd, 2003). The probable impact of spirituality on school counseling is not yet subject of concerted study. A related subject, values, has been researched and those findings could be most instructive about the influences of spirituality. More than 30 years ago, the research of Truax (1966) demonstrated that values of client-centered counselors influenced the therapeutic relationship and affected clients, even though the theory championed the importance of counselor neutrality or being nonjudgmental (Rogers, 1961). …