Abstract
A growing body of research is beginning to identify characteristics that influence or are related to helping professionals’ integration of clients’ religion and spirituality (RS) in mental health treatment. This article presents Namaste Theory, a new theory for understanding the role of mental health practitioners’ RS in clinical practice. Using Glaser’s (2008) formal quantitative grounded theory approach, this article describes an emerging theme in the author’s line of work—particularly that practitioners’ intrinsic religiosity is significantly related to their consideration of clients’ RS—and explores the findings of related, interdisciplinary studies. The Hindu term, Namaste, meaning, “the sacred in me recognizes the sacred in you”, provided a framework to explain the emerging theme. Specifically, Namaste Theory introduces the concept that as helping professionals infuse their own RS beliefs/practices into their daily lives, deepening their intrinsic religiosity and awareness of what they deem sacred, they tend to consider and integrate clients’ RS beliefs/practices, and what clients consider sacred as well. In order words, as the helping professional recognizes the sacred within him or herself, s/he appears to be more open to recognizing the sacred within his/her client. Future directions for research, as well as practice and education implications, are discussed.
Highlights
A growing body of research is beginning to identify characteristics that influence or are related to helping professionals’ integration of clients’ religion and spirituality (RS) in mental health treatment
Though numerous definitions exist for RS, spirituality can be defined as “the search for the sacred”, whereas religion is “the search for significance that occurs within the context of established institutions that are designed to facilitate spirituality”
The results suggested spirituality had the largest effect size (β = 0.42, p < 0.001) related to the practitioners’ integration of RS
Summary
A growing body of research is beginning to identify characteristics that influence or are related to helping professionals’ integration of clients’ religion and spirituality (RS) in mental health treatment. Using Glaser’s (2008) formal quantitative grounded theory approach, this article describes an emerging theme in the author’s line of work— that practitioners’ intrinsic religiosity is significantly related to their consideration of clients’ RS—and explores the findings of related, interdisciplinary studies. Namaste Theory introduces the concept that as helping professionals infuse their own RS beliefs/practices into their daily lives, deepening their intrinsic religiosity and awareness of what they deem sacred, they tend to consider and integrate clients’ RS beliefs/practices, and what clients consider sacred as well. Do a majority of Americans consider RS important in their lives (Pew Research Center 2015), but clients are often expressing a preference for their RS to be included in mental health treatment (Harris et al 2016). Given that RS were removed from many professions’ curriculum between the 1920s and early 1980s due a variety of reasons (Canda and Furman 2010; Koenig 2012), and many professions continue to report receiving
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