The Integration of Clients' Religion and Spirituality in Social Work Practice: A National Survey

Abstract

This article describes the results of a cross-sectional study of licensed clinical social workers' (LCSWs') views and behaviors related to integrating clients' religion and spirituality in clinical practice. A total of 442 LCSWs from across the United States who advertised their services on the Internet provided anonymous responses to an online administration of the Religious/Spiritually Integrated Practice Assessment Scale. The results indicate that LCSWs have positive attitudes, high levels of self-efficacy, and perceive such integration as feasible, but report low levels of engagement in integrating clients' religious and spiritual beliefs into practice. Moreover, two variables emerged as significant predictors for LCSWs' overall orientation toward integrating clients' religion and spirituality in practice: practitioners' intrinsic religiosity and prior training (prior course work or continuing education). Implications and next steps for social work education and continuing training efforts are discussed.

Namaste Theory: A Quantitative Grounded Theory on Religion and Spirituality in Mental Health Treatment

“…While various practitioner characteristics did not have a significant relationship with their views or behaviors related to integrating clients' RS in many studies above (Oxhandler et al 2015), it is worth exploring other mechanisms that support RS integration. For example, in Oxhandler and Giardina (2017), though 44% of practitioners freely mentioned that their personal RS helped them to assess and integrate clients' RS, 56% did not include this.…”

“…For example, though age of the practitioner, age of client served, region of the country, gender, years of practice, and degree of burnout were not significantly related to integrating clients' RS (Oxhandler et al 2015), that does not mean these characteristics are not relevant for some practitioners when it comes to considering clients' RS. Other characteristics that could potentially impact RS integration include: (1) practitioners' views of God/Higher Power as benevolent, critical, distant, or authoritative (Froese and Bader 2010); (2) their previous experience with RS organizations; (3) whether or not they work in a secular or religiously-affiliated setting; (4) the types of presenting clinical issues in their practice; (5) the amount of time allowed with each client; or (6) the clients' views of RS.…”

“…The initial seed for this theory emerged after conducting a three-pronged study of a national survey of licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs) to better understand their views and behaviors surrounding the integration of clients' RS into treatment (Oxhandler et al 2015;Oxhandler and Giardina 2017;Oxhandler and Parrish 2016). The author began identifying practitioners' intrinsic religiosity (IR) as an important characteristic among those integrating clients' RS in practice.…”

“…The second study explored the responses of this administration of the RSIPAS, and included a regression analysis to identify practitioner characteristics that predict their views, behaviors, and overall orientation toward integrating clients' RS (Oxhandler et al 2015). Interestingly, there were no significant relationships between practitioners' RSIPAS score and their age, race, region in the US, gender, age of clients served, years in practice, or degree of burnout.…”

The Religious and Spiritual Beliefs and Practices among Practitioners across Five Helping Professions

“…For clinical social workers, though education is the second largest predictor of practitioners' views and integration of clients' RS (Oxhandler et al 2015), one-third of accredited masters in social work programs over the last decade have offered a course on RS and social work (Moffatt and Oxhandler 2017) despite half of practitioners reportedly being prepared to integrate clients' RS (Oxhandler et al 2015). Similarly, only one out of four accredited clinical psychology programs offer a course on RS (Shafer et al 2011).…”