Spiritual / Faith-Based Counselling Course

SFB-400 Spiritual / Faith-Based Counselling

This course in a nutshell:

Discussion Topics: Integrating spiritual and religious beliefs and concepts (such as open and closed religious and spiritual systems and wellness) into the counselling process. 

Skills: You will learn to use interview skills, exploration, and wellness assessment forms to clarify religious and spiritual symbols, practices, community, and beliefs relating to client problems, solutions and transitions. You will explore your own belief system as it relates to your role in spiritual counselling, psycho-education and wellness.

Course Objective:  

The general aim of this course is to provide students with knowledge related to the use of a Spiritual/Faith-based systems within the counselling process. Skills will be introduced and practiced in the following areas: 

  • Interviewing and ethical considerations
  • Incorporating client’s spiritual belief’s and practices, 
  • Treatment planning 
  • Intervention and counselling approaches 
  • EvaluatIon, measurement of treatment outcomes 

COURSE CONTENT:

This course has been designed for students interested in incorporating religious, and/or spiritual themes into their work as counsellors, chaplains or clergy. The information provided will give you an understanding of the interface between counselling and spirituality. Students will draw practical and personal conclusions from the investigation of spiritual and religious beliefs of their clients in relation to the counselling process.

The course will focus on three areas of study:

  • Spirituality and religion in counselling – competency-based strategies
  • Theoretical counselling approaches best suited for exploring and incorporating client beliefs
  • Personal, professional exploration and ethics – open and closed systems of the person as counsellor

The course draws on literature from various disciplines such as counselling psychology, sociology, religious studies, and forms of spirituality. You will develop competencies relating to learning and incorporating diverse belief’s systems into the counselling process. This integrated approach is useful and applicable with a variety of pastoral and spiritual counselling situations and with diverse populations and cultures.

Spiritual and faith-based counselling has been used to resolve or manage concerns in areas such as: 

  • Loss and grief
  • Anxiety and depressive symptoms
  • Conflicts in lifestyle and relationships 
  • Maladaptive or addictive behaviors 
  • Parenting strategies
  • Setting life and career goals 
  • Change and transitions
  • Anger management 
  • Youth and family dysfunction

Interviewing, treatment planning and related skills for working with individuals, children, adolescents, couples, families, and groups will be addressed. You will have the opportunity to apply spiritual counselling skills during role-play exercises and case study analysis. The course is geared to providing practical information that can readily applied to a wide variety of counselling situations which include exploration of the religious and or spiritual elements of a client’s life.

You will also explore your own values, beliefs, and religious/spiritual convictions in order to ascertain how these variables may reflected in your own counselling style. 

PORTFOLIO OF JOB SKILLS

What you will learn:

Your level of proficiency and competence with the skills introduced in this course will deepen as you proceed through the program. Upon graduation from the Diploma or Certificate program, you may include the following list of skills as part of your Professional Portfolio.

Opportunities will be provided for you to develop therapeutic skills to assist clients to clarify the problem, set goals, and explore religious and spiritual implications of the problematic areas of their lives. You will gain knowledge and proficiency skills in the following areas:

  1. Knowledge of Spiritual/Faith-based approaches to treatment. 
  2. Ability to isolate problem thoughts and behaviors and clarify specific problems related to spiritual values and beliefs in the assessment phase of counselling. 
  3. Ability to incorporate counseling skills such as advanced empathy, and active listening throughout all phases of the counselling process. 
  4. Ability to apply the spiritual/religious focused model of counselling to a wide variety of disorders such as anxiety disorders, mood disorders, interpersonal conflicts, damaged self-esteem, unresolved losses, maladaptive behaviors, guilt, and addictions. 
  5. Experience using a variety of forms, questionnaires, and inventories specific to Spiritual/Faith-based counselling and wellness 
  6. Knowledge of the step-by-step counselling process that explores religious beliefs collaboratively with clients. 
  7. Review the ethical and legal implications of working with clients in a Spiritual/Faith-based counselling model. 
  8. Apply the concepts of a “no-harm contract”, and other safety protocols in the development of treatment plans with your clients. 
  9. Recognition of potential counter-transference issues, or professional limitations to be addressed in supervision.