The Development of the Spiritual Focus in Counseling and Counselor Education

Abstract

This article summarizes the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling's (ASERVIC's) history with the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the Summit on Spirituality. It includes comments on the importance of spirituality in counseling and the rewarding aspects of infusing spirituality into counseling from the perspectives of Mary Thomas Burke, Eugene Kelly, and Judy Miranti. The article concludes by exploring issues related to fusing spirituality with counseling and presents recommendations.

Spiritual and Religious Competencies: A National Survey of CACREP‐Accredited Programs

“…This meeting was the first Summit on Spirituality (Miller, 1999). An outcome of this meeting and four subsequent sessions held at ACA national conferences and Association for Counselor Education and Supervision conferences was a description of spirituality and the development of a series of competencies.…”

“…These competencies address four knowledge domains: (a) general knowledge of spiri-tual phenomena, (b) awareness of one's own spiritual perspective, (c) understanding of clients' spiritual perspective, and (d) spiritually related interventions and strategies (see Appendix). In addition, participants in the Summit on Spirituality supported efforts to include training on spiritual and religious issues in the CACREP standards and to surveyACA members to determine their needs and concerns (Miller, 1999). Young, Frame, and Cashwell (1998) surveyed a random sample of 600 ACA members regarding the perceived importance of the competencies for addressing spiritual issues and how capable they believed themselves to be in each of the skill and knowledge areas.…”

Religiosity, Spirituality, and Mental Health in Portugal: A call for a conceptualisation, relationship, and guidelines for integration (a theoretical review)

“…From this point of view a [multi]culturally competent mental health professional must, first of all, be aware of his/her own cultural background, as well as its client's cultural background. Most importantly, this professional must acquire specific knowledge and skills to accurately and effectively attend to client's needs and expectations (Sue, Arredondo & McDavis, 1992;Arredondo et al, 1996;Hage et al 2006;Metzger, Nadkarni & Cornish, 2010;Vieten et al, 2013;ACA, 2014).…”

“…Nonetheless, later works and in a much broader definition, understanding and view of a person, other dimensions were introduced in order to include age, sex/gender, sexual orientation, spiritual/religious identification, among others (APA 1 , 2003;Hage et al, 2006;Metzger et al, 2010;Vieten et al, 2013). This inclusion allowed the emergence of new trends in the practice of psychology, such as psychological practice with older adults ( It is important to highlight, however, that this status was not earned only under the multiculturalism agenda.…”

Spiritual and Religious Considerations of Michigan Counseling Association Members

“…While the usefulness and ethical importance of separating these domains is clear, the current resurgence of professional discussion on these topics suggests that religion and spirituality are not so cleanly addressed in artifi cial isolation (Burke et al, 1999;Burke & Miranti, 2001;Hickson, Housley, & Wages, 2000;Kelly, 1995;Miller, 1999). It is important to note this larger social discourse which separates religion and spirituality from public life.…”