Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2006

Abstract

As various mental health professions are increasingly open to incorporating the client's spirituality into the therapeutic process, therapists now more than ever feel greater freedom to discuss topics that heretofore may have been perceived as off limits. Yet, inviting discussion about a client's spirituality within the context of therapy is fraught with danger due in large part to the subjective nature of such a deeply personal, life changing, and in today's world, political aspect of human experience. This chapter invites the therapist to consider one's ethical obligations to the client before attempting to utilize a client's spirituality as a therapeutic tool. Specifically, the therapist is invited to engage in a self-examination process in which one's clinical and spiritual orientations are articulated as part of a process of safeguarding against a pejorative, reactive, and/or prescriptive use of spirituality in the therapeutic setting.

Comments

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in The Therapist's Notebook for Integrating Spirituality in Counseling I on 2006, available online: https://www.routledge.com/The-Therapists-Notebook-for-Integrating-Spirituality-in-Counseling-I/Helmeke-Sori/p/book/9780789029911

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