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What do Christian Counselors Recommend?

Christian Spirituality: What to do Between Sessions




People are used to getting recommendations when they seek treatment. Physicians, nurses, and therapists offer materials to improve health and well-being outside the office setting. Counselors and Psychotherapists vary in what they recommend to their clients.

In this post I summarize another finding from our 2014 survey of Christian counselors and psychotherapists. My quest has been to identify what might be unique about Christian counseling and psychotherapy. My colleague, Chris Arnzen and I listed several possible items then provided a space for clinicians to add other items they recommend for their clients.

In the table, I identified common practices by adding together the percentages for recommended activities rated Sometimes + Often + Most of the time. So, as you can see, the most frequent recommendation is some type of Christian Literature.

Interventions: What do Christian clinicians recommended clients do between sessions (homework)?

Recommendation
Common
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Most
1 Read Christian literature
78.57
7.14
14.29
42.86
29.41
6.30
2 Pray about issues
76.05
10.92
13.03
36.13
26.47
13.45
3 Daily meditation
65.97
18.07
15.97
39.92
15.13
10.92
4 Read Bible
63.45
13.87
22.69
47.06
10.50
5.88
5 Attend church
62.61
17.65
19.75
36.55
15.97
10.08
6 Spiritual journal
52.10
24.37
23.53
36.97
11.34
3.78







7 Keep prayer journal
43.70
28.99
27.31
33.61
6.72
3.36
8 Centering prayer
38.98
42.80
18.22
26.69
8.05
4.24
9 Seminar / workshop
35.71
32.77
31.51
29.83
3.78
32.77
10 Christian videos
21.85
47.48
30.67
18.49
1.68
1.68
11 Theophostic prayer
11.89
74.89
13.22
10.13
0.88
0.88

Table note.

Common is defined by a practice used at least sometimes by 50% or more of the respondents. The list is ordered by percentage of use. The number responding was 238 for all items except centering prayer (236) and theophostic prayer (227). I included links for the two prayer types in case you have not heard of them.

Resources
You will find many resources on the web. Here’s a collection from the Methodists in the UK
http://www.methodist.org.uk/deepening-discipleship/spiritual-practices/devotion/resources


Related Posts

Part 1  9 Beliefs of Christian Counselors

Part 2 The controversial values of Christian Counselors and Psychotherapists

Part 3 Assessment of Spirituality




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