Author: Karla J. WestPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Counseling psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 103
Book Description
A holistic model of counseling includes spirituality as an inherent human dimension and component for multicultural awareness (Walker et al., 2004; Hoogestraat & Trammel, 2003). Although there has been movement toward inclusion of spirituality in counselor education and training programs, research on counseling students' competencies of spirituality is virtually nonexistent. Core competencies of spirituality is defined as an understanding of the spiritual phenomena, an awareness of one's own spiritual perspective, an understanding of the client's spiritual perspective, and knowledge of spiritually related interventions and strategies. A new instrument, the Spirituality in Counselor Education and Training Survey was developed by the researcher to measure counseling students' agreement of core competencies of spirituality, inclusion of spirituality in their education and training programs, their personal spirituality, and the importance of spirituality in professional practice. The Religious Ideology Scale and Scientific Ideology Scale (Eckhardt, Kassinove, & Edwards, 1992) was also used in this study. The measures were administered to 55 counseling students in three CACREP accredited graduate programs in Idaho. Descriptive and correlational analyses were used to examine relationships between counseling students' self-ratings on core competencies of spirituality and subscale measurements of (1) ratings of inclusion of core competencies of spirituality in their counseling education and training programs, (2) ratings of personal spirituality, (3) ratings of importance of spirituality in professional practice, (4) attitudes toward religious ideology, and (5) attitudes toward scientific ideology. Results indicated that high agreement with Core Competencies of Spirituality is positively correlated with the first four of the five subscales and negatively related to the fifth subscale. Results of this study will help in identifying key factors and specific guidelines related to inclusion of spirituality in counselor education and training programs, and assessment of counseling students' development/competency levels of core competencies of spirituality.
