Religious preferences, beliefs, and practices are all things that will likely be encountered, regardless of one’s line of work. Religion affiliation for some is a passive association carrying less weight in their day-to-day living but for others it is a very real and integral part of their lives; shaping how they handle situations, personal preferences, and attitudes about health care. Educating healthcare providers about various religions not only allows them to be more culturally competent in their respective fields but also will help guide them in practical implications for health care about the needs of those they serve.1
Gillian, R. and Furness, S. (2005). The role of religion and spirituality in social work practice: views and experiences of social workers and students. 36(4):617-637.
McMinn (2011) establishes the topical history of integrating psychology and theology, and promptly transitions to the necessity of inclusion for spirituality into counseling sessions; he cogitates three queries: Will this aid in establishing a healthy sense of self? Will this aid in establishing a healthy sense of need? Will this aid in establishing a healing relationship? (McMinn, 2011, pg. 32). These three components cater to psychological and spiritual health. Christian counseling helps the client move away from need, a faulty sense of self, and relationships to “an assured sense of self, a cognizance of human need and limits, and revealing interpersonal relationships with others and most importantly, God” (p. 59). McMinn (2011) provides intervention tools needed for effective therapy. However, amid the six challenges, counselors can see the risks in implementing the suggested tools with: defining relevant ethical standards, establishing a scientific base, confronting dominant views of health, expanded definitions of training, blurred pers...
Cunningham, M. (2012). Integrating Spirituality in Clinical Social Work Practice: Walking the Labyrinth (1 ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education Inc.
Religion and spirituality is a major essential part of one’s’ health. They have included things such as prayer in healing, counseling, and the use of meditation. Spiritual issues make a difference in an individual’s experience of illness and health. With spirituality, the health care providers can learn to support the values for the art of healing. The health care provider must have respect for their patient’s religion. (Larry Dossey. Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine. Harper Collins, San Francisco. 1993.)
The start of this article focuses on a Christian client named George who is plagued with feelings of worthlessness, depression, low self-esteem, and suicide. His mother had also battled depression, and his father had an abusive relationship with alcohol, which caused his father to have verbally and physically abusive altercations with George and his mother. The abusive experiences that George was exposed to as a child paved the way for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as an adult (Garzon, 2005). With all of these factors present in this client’s life, a treatment plan was created that involved scripture interventions. The author made sure to touch on the fact that every client is unique in the hopes that counselors would be aware that one type of scripture intervention might work for one client and not work for another. The article highlights three guiding values when considering these types of interventions; “respect for the client’s autonomy/freedom, sensitivity to and empathy for the client’s religious and spiritual beliefs, and flexibility and responsiveness to the client’s religious and spiritual beliefs.”(Garzon, 2005). ...
The importance of considering an individual's spirituality and the confusion over definition have been emphasised by the interest shown in this subject over the past decade. A working definition to help to reduce confusion was presented at the College of Occupational Therapists' annual conference in 2004 and it was felt that it would be useful both to review the attitudes and practices of occupational therapists in this area and to evaluate how they assess and meet spiritual needs. It appeared that practical spiritual needs were often thought of only in terms of religious and cultural traditions or rituals and, as a result, the potential of everyday meaningful occupations was not considered fully. Therefore, the use of occupation was reviewed in relation to meeting spiritual needs. Finally, the perceived barriers to incorporating spirituality into practice were investigated. The review showed that: (1) Although a majority of participants recognise the importance of spirituality to health and illness and the potential benefits to treatment, the number of therapists actually incorporating spiritual needs into daily practice does not demonstrate this recognition; (2) Some occupational therapists feel confident about addressing and assessing spiritual concerns explicitly, but this tends to be situation based and dependent on factors such as client-therapist relationship, therapist awareness of spiritual issues and the expression of spiritual need by the client; (3) Further exploration of the potential of everyday occupations that address the spiritual needs of both religious and non-religious clients needs to be undertaken; and (4) Spirituality needs to be addressed more fully in undergraduate occupational therapy programmes (Johnston...
Spiritual assessments are being integrated by many health institutions such as hospitals, home health care, long term facilities, and behavioral health settings. In each of these areas comes a point in a patient’s health journey which they may call on other entities for support. Facilitating these needs for patients enhances the outlook on medical treatments. According to Hodge (2013), "Administering a spiritual assessment, as part of a larger bio-psycho-social-spiritual assessment, provides a more holistic understanding of clients' realities, which in turn provides the basis for subsequent practice decisions (p. 223)." Spiritual assessment tools are beneficial for health care workers to identify earlier in a patient’s care how spiritual support can be incorporated in their care plans. Every patient should be made aware the line of communication in this essential topic is open with their health providers. In doing so it helps create a better trusting patient provider relationship.
Worthington, E. L. Jr., Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., & McDaniel, M. A. (2011). Religion and spirituality. In J. C. Norcross (Ed.), Psychotherapy relationships that work (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press
Many personality disorders may experience spiritual distress, in particular, clients who have borderline personalities. Lack of spirituality causes clients with borderline personalities to have instability with their emotions and their actions. This makes them at risk for spiritual distress as evidence by challenged beliefs and no value system. As nurses, we must help clients who have borderline personality disorders understand how important spirituality is and how it has an effect on their lives. Nurses must display an understanding and accepting attitude, and encourage the client to verbalize any feelings including those of anger or loneliness. Expected outcomes that nurses would like to see in clients with borderline personality disorder facing spiritual distress would be that these clients would express hope and value in their belief system, and express a sense of well-being. (Gulanick & Myers, 2007). Before we can help clients who have borderline personalities, we as nurses must understand our own value and belief system and never impose these values on our clients. By understanding our own values and beliefs, we are more equipped to help clients with borderline personalities who encounter spiritually distress.