Contact: Grant Madsen, (801) 378-9206 [email protected]
BYU psychology professors promote tolerance, understanding to fellow mental health care professionals with Handbook of Psychotherapy and Religious Diversity
PROVO, Utah -- When Margo's pastor suggested she receive counseling to treat her anxiety attacks, she never suspected the mental health therapist would run roughshod over her cherished religious beliefs.
After explaining to the therapist that faith and prayer helped her cope with her problem, he snickered, saying that religion is "magical thinking" and that she needed to face reality.
"Insensitivity like that happens more often than you'd think," says Scott Richards, a Brigham Young University psychology professor and co-editor of the American Psychological Association's new Handbook of Psychotherapy and Religious Diversity. "And it happens more often than it should."
To prevent disrespect of religion from discouraging patients from seeking professional help, Richards and fellow BYU psychologist Allen Bergin have compiled a handbook that informs health care practitioners about the various beliefs, rituals and traditions of the people who may comprise their client base. Additionally, the 518-page text is a symbolic victory in the professors' crusade to promote spirituality to their peers as an important part of treating mental illness.
"There's a great deal of healing that can happen if a therapist can respectfully and sensitively tap into the power of a patient's belief system," says Richards. "It makes sense that if you're going to work with people of different faiths you need to understand what they believe."
Margaret Schlegel, acquisitions and development editor for the APA, says the book is a worthy extension of the duo's earlier work, the influential A Spiritual Strategy for Counseling and Psychotherapy, which is being used by several university graduate programs as a textbook.
"I think the handbook has even more potential to make a difference than their first book, which was marvelous. The second book has such a broad scope that people who want a grounding in a variety of religious issues will find it very useful," she says.
And Schlegel should know. As a mental health counselor, she has been in several situations where the handbook would have come in handy.
"I've had people sitting in my office before, and I felt like I just didn't know enough about their religion. At those moments I would have loved to have had the handbook on my shelf as a resource," she says.
Released in January, the book explains the history and beliefs of over two dozen religious denominations and faiths -- from Catholicism and Hinduism to Native American traditions and African spiritualist movements. Chapter authors, each respected health care professionals active in the faith they detail, describe in context clinical therapies and interventions that are most in line with an adherent's belief system.
For example, the book suggests that when dealing with Catholic clients, it's important for therapists to "avoid displacing, usurping or undermining the authority and credibility of their clients' religious leaders." For Protestants, spiritual interventions should be avoided unless the therapist first determines that clients are interested in integrating religious issues into their treatment. Once that is established, the handbook urges therapists to ask clients which of their religious traditions might be useful to include in therapy.
Other sections of the book provide important dos and don'ts.
Don't schedule a therapy session for Seventh-Day Adventists late Friday afternoon or early Saturday morning -- the time between sundown Friday to sundown Saturday is their Sabbath. Do resist dictating solutions to Hindus by letting them take responsibility for their treatment -- the Hindu is typically raised with a deep respect for authority figures; suggestions by a therapist would be eagerly accepted, perhaps inadvertently eclipsing a client's real problems.
The book is the second by the professors dedicated to the topic of spirituality and is viewed by many as significant progress in the history of a profession that has traditionally eschewed religion, says Richards. "To have the APA, which most people regard as a pretty liberal organization, publish a book that openly talks about God and spirituality really excites us," he says.
Richards and Bergin, both members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, along with Wendy Ulrich, a psychologist in Michigan, wrote the handbook's chapter about their faith. But helping psychology get a feel for a religious organization like the one they belong to hasn't always been easy.
"When we first interjected our assumption some years ago that spirituality needed to be seriously addressed in treatment it provoked resistance and ridicule," says Bergin, who put his professional reputation on the line when he began to express the importance of spirituality to his peers.
Says Richards, "Because he was so well known and respected in the profession, Dr. Bergin ruffled some feathers when he began to write about religious issues. In speaking of the professional attitude toward religion at that time, one prominent psychologist commented that, 'Anybody who tries to talk about religion in psychology is labeled a meat head, a mystic and a touchy-feely sort of moron.'"
Even today, many psychologists view religion as a neurosis, says Richards. "Some actually confront religious thinking and tell clients it's unhealthy. Others simply change the subject to something else."
It's a perception that the long-time colleagues have been -- and are still -- trying to combat.
"It's ridiculous for mental health professionals to ignore the fact that people are religious and spiritual. That needs to stop. It's time to be more sensitive and to work in a complete way with them," said Richards.
Michael Dawson, an ordained Presbyterian minister and pastoral counselor in Claremont, Calif., says the book will help train clinicians to be more aware of religious matters in clients' lives.
"Therapists are beginning to realize that not only do they need to take ethnicity, culture and socioeconomic status into account, but they need to look at religion and spirituality as well. All of those things influence the way a person looks at the world," he says, explaining that the handbook functions much like an encyclopedia.
"It makes it easier for the clinician to consider a person's faith because the information is all in one place, it's readily accessible," he says. "Very quickly you can gain a perspective on a person's faith and spirituality."
It's a perspective that Bergin, who retired in July after encouraging the acceptance of spirituality for 25 years, is happy to see being adopted.
"I feel victorious, like this has been a great victory in a long struggle," he says. "And I feel relieved. Seeing the handbook published makes me feel more secure about retiring. I feel good knowing that important progress has been made."
Contact: Scott Richards, (801) 378-4868
Allen Bergin, (801) 756-2363
Margaret Schlegel, (202) 336-5786
Michael Dawson, (909) 624-1762
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