Critical analysis and evaluation frameworks

¶ … Frame, M.W., (2001). The Spiritual Genogram in Training and Supervision. The Family Journal. 9 (109): Retrieved from: http://www.sagepub.com/thomas2e / study/articles/section4/Article87.pdf

When dealing with family counselling issues, spiritual issues often arise depending on the culture and belief systems of the individual or family. Often it is beneficial to have an understanding of the entire family structure -- which can be tailored to meet the needs of the specific professional (medical, social, familial, or spiritual). One way to do this is through a pictorial display of relationships, called a genogram, used primarily to identify repetitive patterns of behavior or hereditary tendencies (McGoldrick, et.al., 2008).

Frame (2001) takes a bit different approach to the use of genograms. Instead of simply looking at familial relationship or generational relationships, the spiritual genogram identifies affiliations, events and conflicts within family organizations based on spiritual matters. It can be used as both a tool and training template to help both the counsellor and the individual make more sense of their own religious heritage while examining their own spiritual growth potential.

The article is well-researched and scholarly. The material is qualitative in focus, and deals with relationships and understanding of past family issues in line with current spiritual questions or crises. The material is presented in a pscyho-social manner as a tool for counsellors to unlock another dimension of a person's life. Because of the qualitative nature of the instrument, however, there are no hard and fast rules for either interpreting the results or what results may be uncovered. The individual nature of the instrument is part of the power -- for discussion, to provide a graphical way to understand relationships, and to get the individual to think about ways in which their own spiritual attitudes may have been shaped by family heritage. This is certainly buttressed by the use of peer-reviewed and scholarly source materials, as well as actual qualitative data presented as a guide and/or template example.

Hess, D. (2012). The Impact of Religiosity on Personal Financial Decisions. Journal of Religion and Society. 14 (2): Retrieved from: http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2012/2012-17.pdf

The impact of religion on individual and familial attitudes is a complex social and psychological issue. Because there is such a wide variety of personal preference regarding religiosity, and an even wider continuum gulf, personal financial decisions are some of the most difficult to quantify based on personal attitudes. Additionally, there are different expectations that arise depending on one's faith -- certain dogmas strongly insist on certain percentile tithes, others are less rigid. Some ask that members disclose their income, others allow for this to be more private (Allitt, 2005).

Hess (2012) specifically looks at whether people in areas of higher than average religious norms may have credit scores, lower debt, lower incidents of bankruptcy or foreclosures, and generally higher financial acuity and security. The results show that there seems to be a correlation between high religious culture and a stronger degree of ethical behavior, a lower likelihood of risk. Adopting this lower level of risk and higher fiscal and ethical behavior, these households tend to have lower credit card balances and a system to manage their money in a more conservative manner.

This study was quantitative in focus, and used a database of over 600,000 respondents and interviews, cross-tabulating the results based on religious affiliation, importance of religion in one's daily life, and whether the household attends religious services regularly. A series of hypotheses were tested with the expectation that persons in areas of high religiosity would have less debt, fewer credit cards, and higher credit scores. All the hypotheses were proved to be true, which should prove valuable to political action groups, investors, banks, and demographers.