Clinical Round Table 16 - On the Front Lines of Clinical Training: Developing Skills for Addressing and Integrating Spirituality/religion into Cognitive Behavioral Therapies

A growing body of literature has affirmed that clients’ experiences of their religion and/or spirituality have distinct implications for their overall mental health – implications that can be beneficial and/or deleterious. As religion and spirituality (R/S) play a central role in many people’s lives, patients may want to discuss R/S in their treatment. However, despite a growing consensus between patients and psychologists about the value of R/S in therapy, a lack of knowledge and clinical training in this area poses a significant barrier to the widespread integration of R/S into psychotherapy. This clinical roundtable aims to address this discrepancy and provide practical examples of the implementation of R/S into empirically supported treatments. The primary goals of this clinical roundtable are: 1) present current research on R/S and evidence-based psychotherapies, 2) discuss R/S interventions to incorporate R/S into treatment, 3) describe the approach of R/S issues in treatment. Each of the panelists will present R/S interventions within a cognitive behavioral therapy (Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy frameworks), and highlight the approach using a case example and future directions in applied research towards R/S treatment integration and dissemination.