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Professional counselors completed a survey assessing their attitudes regarding inclusion of client spiritual and religious issues into multicultural training and practice. Most respondents agreed that spiritual and religious issues should be included in counselor training and that this content could be integrated successfully into existing instruction regarding multicultural counseling. Multicultural Education 3 Perceptions of Professional Counselors on the Inclusion of Spiritual and Religious Issues in Multicultural Education A large body of research has consistently found that individuals’ spirituality/religiosity is positively associated with their psychological well-being, identity development, crisis coping, social functioning, and life satisfaction (e.g., Oman & Thoresen, 2005; Richards & Bergin, 2005; Tan & Dong, 2001). Further, a recent national survey found that over 90% of those sampled reported some form of spiritual belief, and over 50% indicated that religion is a very important part of their lives (Gallup, 2008). These findings suggest that clients’ spiritual and religious worldviews are relevant to their mental health and would appear to warrant the “same level of respect and sensitivity as any other ethno-cultural aspect of a client’s life . . . [such as] ethnicity, gender and culture” (Eck, 2001, p. 266). Indeed, the American Counseling Association (ACA) Ethics Code (2005) explicitly indicates that counselors must be aware of, respect, and understand individuals’ spiritual and religious backgrounds. Hence many scholars have advocated for counselor training to include information relevant to client spirituality and religiosity (Burke et al., 1999; Cashwell & Young, 2005; Hage, Hopson, Siegel, Payton, & DeFanti, 2006; Pate, & Bondi, 1992; Smith et al., 2007; Young, Wiggins-Frame, & Cashwell, 2007). The 2009 Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) Standards now specify inclusion of client spirituality as one of the diversity factors to be addressed in training of counseling practitioners. The Standards define multicultural as “a term denoting the diversity of racial, ethnic, and cultural heritage; socioeconomic status; age; gender; sexual orientation; and religious and spiritual beliefs, as well as physical, emotional, and mental abilities” (italics added, p. 60). Furthermore, as stated in the 2009 Standards, the multicultural components of counselor educators should include spiritual/religious issues. Multicultural Education 4 Additionally, scholars (e.g., Fukuyama & Sevig, 1999; Hage et al., 2006; Smith & Richards, 2005) have recommended incorporating spiritual and religious diversity into multicultural counseling competency instruction and evaluation. Although the literature encourages and professional standards now mandate integration of spiritual /religious issues into counseling training programs, the extent and breadth of the support from professional counselors is unclear. Therefore, the first purpose of our study was to investigate professional counselors’ perceptions of including topics relevant to spirituality and religion in counselor education. That is, how do professional counselors feel about the inclusion of spiritual and religious issues in CACREP’s (2009) definition of multiculturalism? The second objective of our research project was to assess professional counselors’ views on how spiritual/religious content could be included in existing multicultural training. Given the position taken by ACA and CACREP, how can integration of spiritual and religious issues best occur in counselor education? Previous research has indicated that an individual’s attitudes are often influenced by their affiliations and training (e.g., Eitle & Steffens, 2009; Baker-Ericzén, Mueggenborg, & Shea, 2009). Hence, a secondary purpose of the research was to explore whether the participants religious and multicultural commitment and previous training would influence their attitudes towards inclusion. Previous research has focused primarily on program directors’ attitudes (e.g., Pate & High, 1995; Young et al., 2002); however, we assumed that for professional education in spirituality and religion to increase, support for such training must come from a broad community of counselors. If professional counselors have major concerns about the integration of this content into counselor education and into multicultural components of that training specifically, then the implementation of the recent CACREP standards (2009) may be superficial Multicultural Education 5 at best or potentially counter-indicated at worst. Even if the majority of professional counselors comply with the CACREP standards, identifying and addressing counselors’ specific concerns should help improve the quality of the integration intended by those standards. The concepts of spirituality and religion were considered simultaneously throughout this project. The term religion reflects institutional affiliation, and the term spirituality reflects personal experience. Further, there is considerable debate in the literature regarding the definition of the terms spirituality and religiosity as well as the conceptual similarities and differences between these two terms (see for example, Schlehofer, Omoto, & Adelman, 2008). These debates highlight the complex nature of these concepts and make it difficult to assess just what is being measured when either of these terms is being used as different individuals may hold differential understanding of these terms. However, despite these differences, conceptually and methodologically these terms do tend to overlap substantially and thus may be used in combination for maximum inclusiveness (Schulte, Skinner, & Claiborn, 2002). Both the ACA Ethics Code (2005) and the CACREP standards (2001, 2009) have consistently paired these terms. Moreover, it seemed highly unlikely that any counselor education program would purposefully separate spirituality and religion into different coursework. The two concepts would likely be taught in a single setting if they were taught at all. Hence for the purposes of this study we were solely interested in the ramifications for multicultural components of counselor education, rather than the particular philosophical or ideological distinctions between spirituality and religion. Our overall aim was to evaluate professional counselors’ beliefs about both spiritual and religious issues and their integration into multicultural components of counselor education (CACREP, 2009).

Addressing religious and spiritual diversity in graduate training and multicultural education for professional psychologists.