The Role Of Religion In Spiritual Therapy

In the pre-secular past, professionals in the field of psychology labeled religion as incorrect, blasphemous, and even dangerous. This has vastly changed with modernity and secularism and has resulted in the acceptance of diversity in religion and consequently in the culture of psychologist’s cliental. Studies have supported the benefice of spiritual therapies and as people are no longer of one religions faith, it has become more and more vital that therapists educate themselves in a variety of religions and cultures, as these will impact the outcome of therapy. However, in post-secular society, there happens to be a rising population of people with no religious affiliation and to use religion in therapy for these individuals would be impractical.

In the United States, unlike most of the world, religion is not on the decline and most of the population is religiously affiliated (Bruce, 1996). With the increasing popularity of religion and spirituality therapy and growing number of religion and spirituality clinical psychologists, Joshua and Jan Hook, Everett Worthington Jr., Don Davis, David Jennings II, and Aubrey Gartner conducted a study examining the effectiveness of such therapy. The researchers completed 24 different studies in the areas of depression, anxiety, forgiveness, eating disorders, schizophrenia, alcoholism, anger, marital issues, and psychological problems. The religion and spiritualties they addressed were Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, and generic spirituality. The researchers found Christianity effective for depression, alcoholism, forgiveness, marital issues, general psychological problems, and eating disorders. Islam was effective for depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. Taoism was only effective for anxiety, Buddhism for anger and general spirituality was effective for eating disorders and anxiety. The study concluded that in general, religion and spiritual therapies were positively effective and incorporating the therapy into already secular therapy is at least as effective as the secular therapy alone. However, so far there was not much evidence comparing

The goal in this process it seems was not so much to determine the truthfulness of the client’s beliefs, as it was to determine the extent to which their beliefs affect their cognitive, emotional, and physical wellbeing (Hodge, 2013). Hodge’s assessment consisted of two parts, a short, preliminary assessment and a longer more extensive assessment. The latter would only be conducted if the former deemed the person to be religious and therefore it would be necessary. If not, the therapist could move on to more relevant topics in their client’s life. If the first assessment did find religion relevant, the second assessment would be vital to gain knowledge about the clients’ spiritual beliefs and experiences and how they related to the client’s problems and eventually solutions. Hodge concluded that, as religion and spirituality are critical features of many peoples’ lives, it is essential to assess clients in order to fully understand them and treat them in the most effective and individualizes way possible (Hodge,