Reflections on Doing Counseling and Christian Family Therapy.

Reflecting on his long career that integrated medicine, therapy, and Christian theology, the author shares his insight to help future students to have a simple framework of doing counseling, family therapy, and relating to the Christian faith. This article offers his personal views on how to do therapy, and proposes a way of looking at a Christian theory of personality, and towards a Christian theory of marriage and family therapy.

Understanding religious attachment among christians seeking spiritually integrated psychotherapies: A mixed methods study.

OBJECTIVE: This mixed methods study aimed to understand ways of viewing and experiencing religious attachment among Christians in spiritually integrated psychotherapies. METHOD: In total, 190 Christian-affiliated clients completed narrative responses about religious and parental attachment along with validated measures of spiritual and psychological functioning toward the start of treatment. RESULTS: An inductive content analysis revealed ten ways in which clients were viewing and experiencing God. Although painful themes were expressed, clients more frequently discussed comforting themes related to religious attachment. Additional analyses demonstrated convergence with parental attachment and quantitative measures of spirituality and mental health. CONCLUSION: Religious attachment appears to primarily provide a sense of strength and comfort for Christians seeking care. Findings also indicate clients view and experience God in similar ways as their parents or caregivers. As such, assessing and affirming clients' faith may facilitate positive changes in how they view and experience themselves and others in treatment.

Renovating an Overbusy Lifestyle: An Invitation to Rest.

Nurses often juggle multiple roles and responsibilities that can result in an overfull life. An overwhelmed schedule can lead to unintentionally becoming distanced from Jesus. The author suggests that true self-care includes proper balance of one's spiritual life with God. Three interventions can rebalance an overwhelmed life: seeking regular quiet time with God, prayer discernment about schedule decisions, and recognizing contemplative moments each day.

Subjective Quality of Life, Religiousness, and Spiritual Experience in Greek Orthodox Christians: Data from Healthy Aging and Patients with Cardiovascular Disease.

The goal of this study is to examine subjective quality of life-life satisfaction, religiousness, and spiritual experience in healthy younger and older adults, as well as in older patients suffering from severe cardiovascular disease, while examining the role of marital status, employment and socioeconomic status, existence of social network, urbanicity, education, depression, and personal opinion about the country's current socioeconomic situation. Results revealed that there are no age differences and that the role of demographic variables as predictors of religiousness, spiritual experience, and quality of life-life satisfaction don't seem to be very strong. Marital status, employment, and religiousness moderately predict quality of life-life satisfaction. Quality of life-life satisfaction, religiousness, and spirituality are not strongly interconnected in this Greek Orthodox Christian sample. Future cross-cultural research should further investigate the role of other psychological and social parameters that may have a stronger predictive role in quality of life of older adults.

Perceptions of Health Promotion and Maintenance Among Latinos in Faith Communities.

Faith communities provide a place for Latino congregants to discuss health information. A pilot study using focus groups and semistructured interviews explored how Latino faith community members define the meaning of health and examined their perceptions and attitudes surrounding health promotion and maintenance. Four themes emerged that reflect participants' health beliefs, with faith as a uniting force. Results support the faith community as a means of fostering health promotion for Latinos.

Reflections on the Spiritual Lives of Caregivers of Spouses with Dementia: Receiving Grace.

Observations from research on the spiritual lives of persons caring for their spouses with dementia provide insight into the spirituality of caregivers. The author relates her personal journey of spirituality with findings from narratives of caregivers and the results of grace, joy, and trust. The lived experiences of caregivers who express faith in Jesus enable them to rest and love amid their caregiving. These insights can be useful when applied to nursing care and nursing education.

Prayer in Marriage to Improve Wellness: Relationship Quality and Cardiovascular Functioning.

This study examined daily partner-focused petitionary prayer (PFPP) on relationship communication and quality as well as novel indices of cardiovascular functioning in a sample of 90 adults. PFPP was compared to waitlist and meditation conditions over a 4-week period. Aortic hemodynamics via pulse wave analysis were assessed before and after the intervention. Factorial repeated measures analyses indicated that for those in the prayer condition, there were significant improvements in coronary perfusion, decreased left ventricular work, and increased coronary blood flow. Additionally, the perceived positive aspects of one's relationship improved for those in the prayer condition. Similar changes did not occur in waitlist and meditation conditions. Findings suggest that daily PFPP improves relationship quality and cardiovascular efficiency via improving protective cardiovascular mechanisms. Practical implications are briefly discussed.

Religiosity/Spirituality and Mental Health Outcomes in Mothers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Mediating Role of Positive Thinking.

This study examines associations between dimensions of religiosity/spirituality (R/S) and anxiety symptoms in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Mothers' positive ways of thinking and romantic relationship satisfaction were examined as mediators of associations. The extent to which child ASD symptom severity and maternal broad autism phenotype (BAP) behaviors predicted interactions with religious community members was also examined. Seventy-three Christian mothers of a child with ASD completed online surveys. Higher levels of spirituality were associated with viewing their child with ASD as providing a positive contribution to the family. These positive views were, in turn, associated with less anxiety symptoms. Mothers of children with more severe ASD symptoms also reported greater negative interactions with members of their congregation.

Anxiety as a Main Cause of Church Conflicts Based on Bowen Family Systems Theory.

I propose that an examination of churches with Bowen Family Systems Theory suggests that ineffective handling of anxiety within the church as a system is a main cause of conflicts within congregations. In this paper, by examining two case studies with Bowen Family Systems Theory, I demonstrate that inattention to anxiety within the church as a system is a main cause of conflicts within congregations. I will then propose pastoral strategies to address church conflicts.

Integrating clients' religion and spirituality within psychotherapy: A comprehensive meta-analysis.

Some religious or spiritual (R/S) clients seek psychotherapy that integrates R/S values, while others may be reticent to disclose R/S-related aspects of struggles in a presumably secular setting. We meta-analyzed 97 outcome studies (N = 7,181) examining the efficacy of tailoring treatment to patients' R/S beliefs and values. We compared the effectiveness of R/S-tailored psychotherapy with no-treatment controls, alternate secular treatments, and additive secular treatments. R/S-adapted psychotherapy resulted in greater improvement in clients' psychological (g = 0.74, p < 0.000) and spiritual (g = 0.74, p < 0.000) functioning compared with no treatment and non R/S psychotherapies (psychological: g = 0.33, p < 0.001; spiritual: g = 0.43, p < 0.001). In more rigorous additive studies, R/S-accommodated psychotherapies were equally effective to standard approaches in reducing psychological distress (g = 0.13, p = 0.258), but resulted in greater spiritual well-being (g = 0.34, p < 0.000). We feature several clinical examples and conclude with evidence-based therapeutic practices.

A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experience of Spiritual Conversion in a Neo-Charismatic Evangelical Context.

Hermeneutic phenomenology was used to illuminate the lived experience of posttraumatic, born-again conversion among members of a Neo-Charismatic Evangelical church (n = 11). Data were analyzed using a six-step process that yielded six core constituents: (1) Catalysts for transformation; (2) Courses of spiritual conversion; (3) Relationship with God; (4) Receiving the love of God; (5) Transformed by the love of God; (6) Changes in relationships. The essence of the phenomenon was confident knowing. Methodological rigor was maximized via maintenance of an audit trail and memo-writing. Findings highlight the essence of a spiritual conversion experience that is central to the faith and lives of many people, but remains poorly understood. The insights provided can build understanding of conversion among mental health providers, thereby reducing avoidance of the topic and promoting informed assistance for individuals experiencing a conversion process.

A pilot study: Considering spirituality in an inclusive model of practice in clinical audiology.

BACKGROUND:  A patient-orientated approach in medical clinical practice is emerging where patients and practitioners are considering and including the spiritual, emotional and psychosocial aspects of the individual. This practice is an important change in health care, specifically in the field of audiology as a holistic view of the patient now alters the perspective on the management of individuals with hearing impairments. Objectives: This article explored the experiences of a participant who reported supernatural healing of his sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Hence, this study focuses on the consideration of spirituality in the inclusive model of care. Method: An exploratory, qualitative narrative inquiry was used to obtain data from a single pilot case study of a 27-year-old man who reported healing of his permanent profound hearing loss. Results: Four themes were identified within the narrative obtained: prayer and faith, deaf culture, identity and purpose. The participant stated that he believed that he was partially healed to fulfil his purpose in life. The partial healing allowed him to belong to the deaf community and the hearing world simultaneously. Conclusion: South Africans live in a diverse society where most people accept spirituality as part of their search for meaning in life. Health care for individuals should therefore consider the person as a holistic being more than a medical entity. The exploration of narratives of individuals who report supernatural healing of a SNHL will assist health care practitioners and audiologists in managing individuals in an inclusive manner. This pilot study thus has implications for policy and practice in health care contexts.

Attributional Biases in Psychiatric Patients, a Religious, and a Control Group in the Assessment of a Hallucinatory Experience: The "White Christmas Test". / Sesgo atribucional en pacientes psiquiátricos, religiosos y un grupo control en el juicio de la experiencia alucinatoria: la tarea del White Christmas test.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the auditory hallucinatory experience in a clinical sample of patients with psychiatric symptoms (e.g. Schizophrenia), a religious group (eg. Christians) and a "control" group (with no mental disorder and non-religious). The sample consisted of individuals of both sexes. The patient sample was recruited in two psychiatric hospitals of Buenos Aires City, the religious from an evangelical cult, and people with no religious beliefs or previous psychiatric symptoms (control group). The Hallucinatory Experiences Questionnaire and the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory Feelings and Experiences were the measurement tools used. The White Christmas Test was also administered in order to assess the degree of vivid imagery hearing based on a version of signal detection paradigm in which the subjects think that they hear a song in the background of white noise. The results showed that patients showed greater attributional bias (compared with evangelicals and the control group), but the religious group also tended to show greater bias (although less) than the control group. In addition, patients tended to show greater schizotypal and hallucinatory experiences compared with the evangelicals and the control group, but surprisingly, the control group showed higher negative schizotypy than the religious group, which indicates that religious practices could help reduce the negative effects of schizotypy.

Older, Seriously Ill Veterans' Views on the Role of Religion and Spirituality in Health-Care Delivery.

OBJECTIVES: To describe older Veteran's perspectives on the current delivery of religious or spiritual (R/S) care. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with older veterans with advanced stage cancer, heart failure, or pulmonary disease to elicit views on when, how, and by whom religious and spiritual care is preferred. RESULTS: The sample (n = 17) was largely male (94%), non-Hispanic white (52.9%), Christian (82.3%), and most had at least some college education (64.7%). Participants shared diagnoses of cancer (47%), heart failure (35.2%), or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (17.6%). As a group, participants had moderate religiosity. Themes relevant to the study goal of improving VA care delivery are as follows: (1) process of R/S engagement, (2) timing of R/S engagement, and (3) awareness of services. Veterans discussed the need for VA providers to accommodate diverse spiritual beliefs, importance of screening for spiritual needs, inclusion of family spiritual support, need for higher visibility of services, use of nonchaplains for R/S support, and times when R/S is important. DISCUSSION: Veterans recognize the diversity of their fellow veterans and note the opportunities and challenges in providing R/S support in the VA care setting. The findings have implications for quality improvement in VA care including efforts focused on enhanced outreach to veterans, bolstered education for staff, and more nuanced approaches to R/S support.

Spirituality and religiosity of non-directed (altruistic) living kidney donors.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To describe the spirituality and religiosity of 30 non-directed (altruistic) living kidney donors in the USA and explore how they may have affected their motivations to donate and donation process experiences. BACKGROUND: The rise in non-directed donors and their ability to initiate kidney chains offer a novel approach to help alleviate the overextended kidney transplant wait list in the USA. However, little is known about the non-directed donors' motivations, characteristics and experiences. DESIGN: We conducted a qualitative-dominant study and used a grounded theory approach to analyse data. METHODS: Thirty participants completed in-depth interviews between April 2013-April 2015. Three analysts independently read and coded interview transcripts. Grounded theory techniques were used to develop descriptive categories and identify topics related to the non-directed donors donation experience. RESULTS: Sixteen of the 30 non-directed donorss discussed the topic of spirituality and religiosity when describing their donation experiences, regardless of whether they were actively practising a religion at the time of donation. Specifically, three themes were identified within spirituality and religiosity: motivation to donate, support in the process, and justification of their donation decisions postdonation. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study are the first to describe how spirituality and religiosity influenced the experiences of U.S. non-directed donorss and may help improve non-directed donors educational resources for future spiritual or religious non-directed donors, and the overall non-directed donors donation experience in efforts to increase the living donor pool. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Spirituality and religiosity are often overlooked yet potentially influential factors in Western medicine, as demonstrated through the experiences of Jehovah's Witnesses and their religious restrictions while undergoing surgery and the beliefs of Christian Scientists against taking medications and receiving medical procedures. Understanding needs of non-directed donors specifically with spirituality and religiosity can better position kidney transplant centres and teams to improve predonation screening of non-directed donor candidates and provide support services during the donation process.

Celibate Gay Christians: Sexual Identity and Religious Beliefs and Practices.

The purpose of the study is to explore the experiences of gay Christians who choose celibacy. Chief milestone events, beliefs and attitudes toward God and faith, as well as participants' experiences of church climate toward gay Christians were assessed through a structured interview. Eight interviews were analyzed, using grounded theory methodology and consensual qualitative analysis to identify several salient themes.