Spirituality And Religion In Social Work: Respondent Definitions

After reading Alan Keith-Lucas’s book, “So You Want to Be a Social Worker,” I felt like I had found a lot of timeless truths. I say that because whenever I read it, I pictured being in a black and white movie listening to an old man talk about societal behaviors that still hold true today. The first two chapters discussed a lot about our beliefs and what those are, along with the common ground we share with non-Christians. Then the book goes on to discuss how we can use our beliefs to understand the nature of human beings. One of my favorite things he says is, “He or she doesn’t see people as “naturally good” or “naturally bad,” but as fallible creatures, who by the grace of God, are able sometimes to transcend themselves” (Keith-Lucas, 1985, p. 11). Keith-Lucas also mentions that social work and the Bible can connect to an extent that is useful to us. One way he mentions the two connecting is when he talks about love being the answer. In the second portion of the book there are a lot more Christian views applied to the social work realm of things, which include the views of sin, suffering, and the difference between spiritual and material needs. When discussing sin, Keith-Lucas added a lot of context to how the church use to view sin in two categories of “hot-blooded” and “cold-blooded,” which I thought was really interesting. I never knew the church use to have real categories for sin. And the sections about suffering and witnessing to others

The benefits of religious counselling is it’s proven efficacy Nathaniel (2005) that illustrates clients as experiencing a greater feeling of closeness within the

4. Hodge, D. (2001). Spiritual assessment: a review of major qualitative methods and a new framework for assessing spirituality. Social Work , 203-214

Social Work is a career defined as “work carried out by trained personal with the aim of alleviating the conditions of those in need of help or welfare”. Social work varies in several fields, social workers work as part of multi-disciplinary teams with child welfare organizations, adoption and foster care agencies, hospitals, schools, prisons, mental health institutions, and more. Social work may leave the impression that it’s an easy field because it is assumed that all social workers do is serve others and manage paperwork but that is only a small chunk of the job. Social workers must deal with the ethical and emotional aspect of helping others. As a social worker, it is critical to comply with the National Association of Social Workers

The idea of preference for mental health services coming from a prior relationship was discussed in this study. This is an interesting idea to evaluate further in meeting the needs of this people group and respecting the counselor ethics code on dual relationships. When evaluating the relationship with religious counselors the positive feelings were found to come from positive preexisting relationships. An evaluation of social support in this population is needed as this study found that the social networks were a strength that participants received from their religious participation.

Well, even though there seem to be a lot of empirical precedents that suggest a “positive association between religious involvement and beneficial outcomes, existing outcomes research in faith-based settings have treated the faith in faith-based services as a contextual factor rather than a programmatic one” (Ferguson, Wu, Spruijt-Metz, & Dyrness, n.d.). According to Fisher and Ragan (2003 & 2004), there are multiple studies conclude that faith-based services are effective, yet relatively few aim to identify the specific faith components related to successful outcomes . It is crucial for us to operationally and conceptually delineate what the faith

Mark R. McMinn’s (2011) Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling establish a way to bring Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality to Christian Counselors. He introduces a replica of how to integrate the three disciplines in the counseling office. The purpose of the book is to instruct counselors how to integrate categories of Psychology, Theology and Spirituality into Christian Counseling. McMinn (2011) contends that many challenges both professional and personal face Christian Counselors on the frontier of intradisciplinary integration. (Intradisciplinary integration is the new emerging frontier for Christian Counselors).

Hope Haslam Straughan Within the social work profession, there is a growing movement affirming that spirituality and religious beliefs are integral to the nature of the person and have a vital influence on human behavior (Hugen, 1998). Canda (1988) identifies spirituality as a basic aspect of human experience, both within and outside the context of religious institutions. If a social worker is going to approach a person in a holistic manner, he or she must be willing to consider each person as a wondrous compilation of bio-psycho-social-spiritual elements. In this way, workers will have an extremely broad base from which to approach the strength and resiliency in the people with whom they interact.

Spirituality has been in and out of healthcare and has proven effective every time that it is used. Implementing spirituality into healthcare allows for faster recovery times, better interpersonal relationships with their healthcare providers, and a more holistic approach to healthcare. Several approaches to analyzing it have proven it to be effective but is often not taught when educating future nurses. Through the barriers and the controversy spirituality remains as an important aspect of a patient’s recovery process.

The inclusion of spirituality into occupational therapy has the potential to bring the personal dimension of a therapist's spiritual faith or belief into clinical practice. This opinion piece highlights the connection between spirituality and the shadow and identifies the need for reflection on this dynamic relationship. The shadow is discussed in relation to the need for increased awareness and the development of safe parameters when considering the inclusion of spirituality and the therapeutic use of self in clinical practice (Collins, 2007).

As a future psychologist, my therapeutic orientation will consist of use of Depth psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavioral therapy (CBT), faith-based Counseling, Rational Emotive Behavior therapy (RBT) and Gottmans couples-based therapy. Integrating spirituality and religion into therapy can result in a positive, revealing, and healing results. I am more convinced than ever of just how imperative this is process is. I would also recommend that if possible counselors and therapists take some courses in Christian counseling, to familiarize themselves with the process and understanding from a Christian perspective.

“connected.” XX did not elaborate further, and reported that his religion and spirituality are “very personal” to him.

Spirituality is a transformative process that better helps us understand the internal processes of ourselves. In turn, it helps client and social worker understand how we cope with things such as death, life, hope, and healing. Through history, spirituality in social work has brought light to treating the person as a whole which also means that it has become important for social workers to also understand themselves. Presently, we continue to develop practices to help us understand our clients better through their spirituality, which is the focus in the article “Contemplative Spaces in Social Work Practice,” by Carolyn Jacobs.

Spirituality is important because it “… actually transcends the categories of individual functioning and environmental systems. Spirituality can shape beliefs and provide strength during times of adversity, and the link to a faith community can be a tangible sourge of assistance and social support” (Hepworth, Rooney, Rooney, Strom-Gottfried 2017, p. TBD). In assessing clients, it is critical that we make sure that clients have a support system. A support system can be defined in all sorts of ways, one of which is spirituality. Keeping a client’s spirituality in mind during the assessment phase is also important because it allows us insight into why clients believe the things that they do. If a client believes something that sounds alarming to us as a social worker, we might ned to step back and say, “Wait a minute… what is client’s spiritual or religous background? Is there anything in this area that might explain those beliefs?”. If so, that would be a definite aide in avoiding pathologising behavior that might otherwise be explained by looking at other areas of the client’s background. Just because a client’s background is different from the social worker doing the assessment does not mean it is necessarily pathological or maladaptive, and we must keep this in mind while doing each and every client

To begin, Elliott starts out his discussion with defining what religion and spirituality is. It’s important to distinguish between the two, because they are different things. As stated in the article, “Religion entails spirituality but spirituality does not necessitate religion, hence personal values can derive as powerfully from a secular spirituality as a religious one.” (Elliot, pg. 93) He goes on to state the importance of the degree of someone’s religious affiliation. Where two people can both be religious, it could affect one’s life more than the other. Recognizing our client’s R/S is crucial, because it could be essential to their well-being and if not addressed correctly could feel like an attack against their identity and break the trust they have in their social