Teaching Christian Integration in Psychology and Counseling Courses

Abstract

In the last 45 years, psychologists, counselors, academicians, and pastors have developed a wide variety of models describing the relationship between Christianity and clinical psychology/counseling. Some espouse no interaction between the fields (e.g., nouthetic counseling. Adams, 1970), while others advocate for a meaningful interaction (e.g., integration, McMinn & Campbell, 2007). Some models expand on how one defines science (e.g transformational psychology, Coe & Hall, 2010) and others on how one conceptualins psychology itself (e.g., Christian psychology, Johnson, 2007). For the sake of reading simplicity, the term in this special edition encapsulates the models that advocate for some form of meaningful engagement between psychology/counseling and Christianity. We recognize, however, the distinctiveness of these various models embedded in the term as we use it here. Integration models are now leading to operation-alized clinical strategies that are garnering empirical support (See Evidence-Based Practices j'br Christian Counseling and Psychotherapy, Aten, Johnson, Worthington, & Hook, 2013). Novel new intervention strategies likewise merit exploration (See Transformative Encounters, Appleby & Ohlschlager, 2013). This is an exciting time for those advocating for a meaningful relationship between Christianity and mental health treatment. One wonders, however, if the progress in models arid intervention strategies has left behind some important aspects. Meaningful questions remain. Psychology and counseling have numerous specialized bodies of knowledge captured in specific courses. What resources are available for instructors to make them more effective in teaching integration in these courses? Garzon and Hall (2012) observe that current resources are almost nonexistent or quite dated in this area. Over time, the Journal of Psychology and Theology (JPT) has taken the lead in providing resources. One course-specific exploration of teaching integration identified in the literature occurred with JPT's 1995 special edition on undergraduate teaching (volume 23, issue 4). In 2009, JPT published another special edition, this time with a focus on new research in how students learn integration and explorations of how to reach integration in graduate education contexts such as classroom learning, non-traditional environments (online), statistics, and clinical supervision in internship. More recently, Devers (2013) published an article in JPT encouraging the use of embodied integration, a pedagogical strategy building on the idea that the brain relies on bodily states and actions to inform cognition. Accordingly, this special edition of the JPT builds on these resources with a focus on course-specific integration at both the undergraduate and graduate psychology and counseling level. Current Integration Learning Theory and Research Course-specific integration must begin with present theories on how students learn integration. Randall Sorenson's theory of how students learn integration stands out as the lone well-articulated and researched model in the literature (Sorenson, Derflinger, Bufford, & McMinn, 2004). Basing his ideas on attachment theory (e.g., Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1988; Main & Solomon, 1986), he proposed that students learn integration best through attachment-based mentoring relationships with professors. These relationships, to Sorenson, are the primary mediating pathway that facilitates significant integration learning (Sorenson et al.). Professors who desire their conceptual ideas about integration to be absorbed must seek to. develop meaningful relationships with their students. Research has supported Sorenson's ideas (Sorenson, 1994, 1997; Sorenson et al., 2004, Staten, Sorenson, & Vande Kemp, 1998). These studies have found that students value getting a sense of a professor's spiritual journey or on-going personal relationship with God. …