Integrating Spirituality with Counseling
By Dr. Margaret Page-Culver

It has sometimes been my experience that clients and therapists alike are uncomfortable bringing up spiritual issues during therapy sessions. Yet, in a recent survey dealing with this issue 81% of respondents preferred to have their own religious practices and beliefs integrated into the counseling process. The overriding question for therapists is how to do this. How can therapists tap into an individual's openness to transcendence without violating the spiritual traditions or denominational choices of those seeking healing in a therapeutic setting?

The following areas of exploration are ones that I have found helpful in my own practice. While they only scratch the surface of the question of spirituality, they are offered here as a basis for ongoing discussion and reflection.

• How have issues such as grief and trauma wounded the spirit?
• How have generational  family patterns been affected by the religious involvement or choices of its members? How have interfaith marriages or denominational changes impacted other family members? How was that dealt with?
• Have sexist or heterosexist religious biases caused suffering to clients or to the members of their families? What sources of strength were called upon to deal with this?
• Can clients think of any religious rituals (i.e., bar of bat mitzvahs, baptisms, confirmations, weddings, etc.) that have been life-giving for them? Do clients want to pass these rituals on to their children? Why? Why not?
• How, in the past, have clients and their families dealt with illness, death and dying? What questions do these realities raise regarding the client's own mortality?
  

I would welcome any feedback on these issues from past or current Affordable Counseling Connection clients or therapists.