Prayer In Counseling

Prayer In Counseling

Abstract

The purpose of this review is to highlight the emerging importance of Christian clients expecting and seeking spiritual intervention from their respective counselors. Due to the centuries long controversy on overlapping religion and modern science, possible ethical issues, differentiating values and multicultural sensitivity of the clients have to be taken into careful consideration. The preferred method for such intervention for majority of the Christian clients was found to be prayer. This study also served to scrutinize the viewpoint of secular and religious counselors and therapists regarding the use of spiritual technique in counseling.

Summary

Prayer is thought to be one of the most powerful tools used for spiritual intervention and guidance. Most clients expect active and audible prayer to be included in their sessions, and for their respective therapists to pray for them even after their sessions. The core point of this survey was to highlight the need of majority of the clients participating in counseling sessions in respect to their religious beliefs. Furthermore, this article explored the different methods of conducting prayer that may be used with counseling, enlightening the most appropriate and spiritually motivating methods. The ages of the focal clients ranged from 18 to 77 with females being the majority in 1 church counseling center and 6 private practices (Weld & Eriksen 2007).

As majority of the U.S citizens say they believe in God and the rest claim to believe in a 'higher power' (Gallup Organization, 2008), it falls upon the therapists and counselors pursue spiritual methods like prayer to satisfy their clients' needs. To this end, two distinct techniques were used to monitor clients and therapist's opinions, needs and wants. The first one, 'the Brief Therapy' was used for the therapists' purposes. The brief therapy serves to monitor and enlighten the therapists to each client's wishes and needs regarding his/her sessions. Such surveys permit therapists to build a running profile for each individual client, allowing them to build and maintain healthy and open relationship with their clients while fulfilling their religious and spiritual needs.

The next method, 'Prayer Survey' consists of sets of numbers intended for the clients, allowing them to grade their respective therapists and their sessions. A question on such a survey might be, 'I want my therapist/counselor to pray audibly or for a longer period within my sessions.' These studies also served to emphasize that no particular religious group required or wanted spiritual counseling more than the other and further gave emphasis to the individual's desire for audio prayers. Studies proved that an astounding 82% of the clients expressed the need for audible spiritual therapy (Weld & Eriksen, 2007).

However, this study had a single limitation regarding the instrumentation technique. The surveys were found to be invalid because of the length and lack in inspiration along with being time consuming, given to clients during their first visit. Nevertheless, an important point to note is that the outcome of each session was more successful if the client's beliefs and inspiration were of a spiritual ...