Faith in counseling : experiences of counselors as they navigate and make meaning of religious or spiritual difference between counselor and client.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development, 2019.The impact of religion and/or spirituality (r/s) on client well-being has been well recognized within the field of counseling, and attempts have been made to create training opportunities that help counselors attend to the faith resources of their clients (Cashwell & Young, 2005; Gingrich & Worthington, Jr., 2007; Hage, Hobson, Siegel, Payton, & Defanti, 2006; Hall, Dixon, & Mausey, 2004; Souza, 2002). The literature is clear in its recognition that counselors must become aware of their own religious and/or spiritual (r/s) perspectives in order to appropriately address r/s in counseling (Miller, 2003; van Asselt & Senstock, 2009; West, 2000; Young & Cashwell, 2011) and refrain from imposing their faith values on their clients (Gubi, 2001; Lijtmaer, 2009; Meissner, 2009). While the number of research studies that address the integration of r/s into counseling are growing, less research attention has been focused on the ways in which counselors' own r/s perspectives affect their work with clients, particularly when clients ascribe to a different r/s worldview (Gingrich & Worthington, Jr., 2007; Hage et al., 2006; Magaldi-Dopman, Taylor & Ponterotto, 2011; Morrison & Borgen, 2010; Souza, 2002; van Asselt & Senstock, 2009). Also of interest and absent from the literature is the way counselors attempt to integrate their own r/s experiences and allegiances with the ethics of the profession. The present research project redresses these critical gaps in the existing research. Seventeen counselors from the United States and Canada participated in a hermeneutic phenomenological interview study. Focusing on counselors' experiences of working with clients whose r/s was different from the counselors, the research questions were twofold: (1) what are the processes experienced by counselors when the counselors' or clients' r/s are different from one another and (2) how do counselors make meaning of these experiences? The data revealed a variety of topics related to these questions; however, of particular interest, and the focus of this dissertation, were the ways in which counselors integrated their own r/s into their work with clients while attempting to abide by the ethics and competencies of the profession. Findings described the integration of counselor r/s within the experience of the self-of-the-therapist, the practice of r/s self-disclosure, and the ways in which counselors experienced and worked through triggering events when their r/s values were significantly different from those of their clients