Psychotherapists' spiritual,religious, atheist or agnostic identity and their practice of psychotherapy: A grounded theory study |
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| Authors: | Danielle Magaldi-Dopman Jennie Park-Taylor Joseph G Ponterotto |
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| Institution: | 1. Lehman College, Counseling, Leadership, Literacy, and Special Education , Bronx, USA danielle.magaldidopman@lehman.cuny.edu;3. Fordham University, Division of Psychological and Educational Services , New York, USA |
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| Abstract: | Abstract In this present grounded theory study, 16 experienced psychologists, who practiced from varied theoretical orientations and came from diverse religious/spiritual/nonreligious backgrounds, explored their personal religious/spiritual/nonreligious identity development journeys, their experiences with clients' religious/spiritual content in psychotherapy sessions, and how their identity may have influenced the way they interacted with religious/spiritual material during sessions. Results revealed that psychologists' spiritual/religious/nonreligious identity is conflicted and complex and that their academic and clinical training did not provide sufficient opportunity to examine how this may affect their therapeutic work. A tentative grounded theory emerged suggesting that psychologists both identified with and were activated by clients' spiritual/religious conflicts and their internal experiences about the spiritual/religious content, both of which presented significant challenges to therapeutic work. |
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| Keywords: | spiritual identity religious identity grounded theory |
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