Religious and spiritual issues in counseling and therapy: Overcoming clinical barriers

Abstract

Clients bring various religious and spiritual beliefs and practices to counseling and therapy. Some of these are healthy, others less so. Unfortunately, despite advances in knowledge and education about spiritual and religious practices, therapists may not adequately attend to these dimensions of their clients’ lives. In this article, barriers to effectively addressing religion and spirituality within counseling are examined and ways of addressing these obstacles are explored. Positive ways of dealing with religious and spiritual issues in counseling include three crucial components: the acquisition of knowledge, increasing self-awareness, and developing new counseling skills.