Spiritual Competencies for Clinicians

I will be presenting a 2 hour seminar at Penn Foundation today on Spiritually Informed Practitioners: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities. Over the last year or so I have been part of a multi-faith working group, Standing on Sacred Ground, that has been thinking about how to educate mental health practitioners to recognize, value, and work with the faith of clients (rather than see it as something automatically pathological or insignificant). Given the historic divide between mental health and faith communities (there have been haters on both sides) few clinicians have much training in understanding faith, religion, and spirituality beyond “be respectful.” Thus, religiously committed individuals often have had their faith marginalized or pathologized.

This presentation will look at roots of the historic divide, explore the complex relationship between faith and recovery, provide opportunities for MHPs to examine their own biases, and examine several key spiritual competencies needed for adequate provision of care.

Interested in the slides, check them out: Spiritually Informed Care.