Socially Just Religious and Spiritual Interventions

This insightful work answers essential questions in family therapy by exploring the ethical use of religion and spirituality in the clinical context. Its justice-informed framework explores how to employ the spiritual as a source of resilience and empowerment as well as counter harmful spiritual and religious influences in situations that cause families and couples stress, particularly relating to gender, sexuality, race, culture, and identity. Powerful case studies show therapists and clients collaborating on meaning-making and comfort in the face of longstanding conflict, acute and chronic illness, estrangement, and loss. Coverage also explores the ethical responsibilities of determining whether beliefs are helpful or harmful to client mental health and offers guidelines for therapists navigating personal biases regarding faith.

This vital text:

·         Spotlights the influence of an often-overlooked aspectof mental health

·         Provides detailed examples of religion and spirituality across diverse families and issues

·         Outlines practical strategies for integrating helpful aspects of clients’ relationship with the sacred into treatment

·         Offers a framework for countering harmful aspects of clients’ religious beliefs or practices

·         Includes interventions used with couples, parents/children, and other family units

·         Adds a socially just perspective on the spiritual dimension of mind/body concerns

·         Encourages readers’ professional development and self-reflection

Addressing critical issues where belief frequently takes center stage, Socially JustReligious and Spiritual Interventions is an invaluable resource for family therapists, psychotherapists, and other professionals pursuing a socially just, clinically relevant approach to spiritual and religious therapeutic integration.

• attachment based therapy
• religious disaffiliation
• infertility and perinatal loss
• infidelity treatment
• medical family therapy
• social justice counseling
• Asian American Christians
• Family Therapy with Black Clients
• Justice-informed Therapy
• Infant-caregiver Relationship
• White Evangelicals
• Family Intergenerational Relationships
• LGBTQIA+ Family Relationships
• Clinical Practice within Transgender Communities

• Marriage and Family Therapy Program, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, USA

  Elisabeth Esmiol Wilson, Lindsey Nice

Elisabeth Esmiol Wilson Ph.D., LMFT is an Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Training at Pacific Lutheran University. She has an MA in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care and practiced as a spiritual director before becoming a family therapist. Her research focuses on couples’ experiences of gender, power and spirituality, and on clinical training issues including attending to larger contextual issues and integrating client feedback into treatment. She enjoys running an active private practice focusing on sexual and spiritual issues in couple therapy and continues to practice as a spiritual director.

Lindsey A. Nice Ph.D., LMFT, RN is an Assistant Professor and Clinic Director at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. Before becoming an MFT, she worked as a nurse at a small hospital in OR, and still enjoys learning about the intersection of physical, mental, and relational health. Her research interests include medical family therapy, religion and spirituality in therapy, MFT pedagogy, experiential teaching interventions, and relational equality. In her free time, she enjoys working on the 1930's farm she and her husband are renovating.

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