Category: Workforce Development / Training / Supervision
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,Captari, L. E., Hook, J. N., Hoyt, W. T., Davis, D. E., McElroy-Heltzel, S. E., & Worthington, E. L. (2018). Integrating clients’ religion and spirituality within psychotherapy. A comprehensive meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74, 1938-1951
, ,Joseph Currier, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Professor, Psychology
University of South Alabama
Mobile, Alabama
Michelle Pearce, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
University of Maryland, Baltimore
Hanover, Maryland
Serena Wong, Ph.D.
Psychologist
St. Joseph's Health Care London | Western University
London, Ontario, Canada
Joseph Currier, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Professor, Psychology
University of South Alabama
Mobile, Alabama
Michelle Pearce, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
University of Maryland, Baltimore
Hanover, Maryland
Edward Selby, PhD
Associate Professor
Rutgers University
Piscataway, New Jersey
Gina Magyar-Russell, N/A, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Loyola University Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland
Religion and spirituality are moving to the center of evidence-based practice and mainstream mental health care. Research indicates: (1) Spirituality plays a powerful role in many peoples’ identity, relationships, and well-being; (2) many clients want clinicians to discuss their spirituality; and (3) treatment utilization, engagement, and outcomes can be enhanced when clinicians honor client’s spirituality. However, lack of graduate training in spirituality represents a critical barrier to spiritually competent care. Because most faculty, students, and clinicians do not receive standardized training, they might not appreciate the cultural and clinical relevance of spirituality, feel unsure how to address their clients’ spirituality, and even perpetuate bias against spirituality. This creates inequity and exclusion in both our mental health education system and our clinical care.
In this symposium, we will provide an overview for why the practice of mental health care would be strengthened by including training in spiritual competency during graduate school. This overview will include how such training can improve inclusivity in educational and clinical settings; allow educators, clinicians, and clients to better connect with their values and sense of meaning and purpose; and reducing barriers to care for marginalized populations. We will reference our prior work demonstrating that a brief online program—Spiritual Competency Training in Mental Health (SCT-MH)—is effective in fostering increases in attitudes, knowledge, and skills associated with spiritually competent care among mental health providers (Pearce et al., 2019; 2020). We will then describe a multi-site study in which a hybrid version of SCT-MH was integrated into 20 required clinical graduate courses for mental health students across the United States. Next, two of our instructors from the study will share their experience of integrating the spiritual competency curriculum into their courses. We will conclude with a summary of the presentations and a discussion with the audience, answering questions and providing practical information on how they can incorporate this training material into their courses.
