VISTAS Spirituality and Counseling Issues

VISTAS Online is an innovative publication produced for ACA by Dr. Garry R. Walz and Dr. Jeanne C. Bleuer of Counseling Outfitters, LLC. Its purpose is to provide a means of capturing the ideas, information and experiences generated by the annual ACA Conference and selected ACA Division Conferences. Papers on a program or practice that has been validated through research or experience may also be submitted. This digital collection of peer-reviewed articles is authored by counselors, for counselors. VISTAS Online contains the full text of over 900 proprietary counseling articles published from 2004 to 2017.



Spiritual Integration in Counseling Training: A Study of Students' Perceptions and Experiences

Wen-Mei Chou and Pamela A. Bermender

2011

The need for counselor education programs to provide training for spiritual/religious integration increases in importance if polls continue to reflect that Americans value a sacred domain in their lives and a desire to address the sacred domain in counseling. Kahle and Robbins (2004) highlight that counselors have the power to help, as well as the power to harm, when incorporating the sacred in counseling sessions. They stress the importance of counselor training that develops competencies for addressing the sacred through learning from research, from clients, and from serious selfreflection. While incompetent application of spiritual or religious integration can be harmful to clients, Hage (2006) also identifies that avoidance and disregard of the client’s spiritual or religious resources is also potentially harmful to the therapeutic outcome.

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