How to Use Prayer in Counseling Sessions

Counseling and Prayer Christian Prayer in Counseling "Christian Clients' Preferences Regarding Prayer as a Counseling Intervention" is a quantitative study by Weld and Eriksen (2007) in the Journal of Psychology and Theology. Their study used a survey of counselors and their Christian clientele with a Pearson and Fisher approach to quantifying the data. The implications of the analysis are used to discuss the counselor-patient relationship in terms of prayer, expectations, secularity, race, gender, and a variety of other factors.

The researchers note a lack of scholarly research on the subject of "client expectations about prayer in counseling" and attempt to fill a portion of that gap analyzing a survey of Christian clientele and their counselors (Weld, Erikson, 2007, p. 328). In the light of recent laws regarding counselors' respect for clients' religious beliefs, specialty counseling has developed that includes a Christian/spiritual approach to healing.

Weld and Erikson (2007) acknowledge that prayer has been shown to have beneficial effects in counseling and what they aim to achieve with their study is to provide insight into how prayer as an intervention may be utilized more effectively, in the light of ethical, religious, and secular sensitivities. The results of the study showed that more than four-fifths of patients wanted to pray out loud as part of their counseling session and that they wished that their counselor would introduce the topic as a sign of "getting" the patient.

These same clients expected prayer to be an effective tool in the healing process, and they also saw prayer as efficacious even outside of the counseling session (meaning they wanted their therapist to pray for them outside of the session and not just with them during the session). The researchers concluded that all therapists should be sensitive to their clients' wants and needs as doing so helps to builder a stronger therapist-patient alliance.

That said, they urge caution in broaching the subject or promoting prayer too much, as anything but a delicate balance can easily "turn off" the client if the therapist appears to go too far one way or the other (towards spirituality or secularism). Understanding the client and his/her expectations, therefore, is essential. Reflection My response to the article is that effectively highlights the need of counselors to consider the expectations of clients who approach therapy with a spiritual perspective.

Counselors should be prepared to handle such clients and know how much prayer and what kind of praying should go into the session. The study's design and methodology were suitably structured to deliver quantifiable results which helped the researchers analyze the data. This particular article was interesting precisely because it is a quantitative study, providing the exact method and formula to be used for any researcher who wished to replicate the study.

It would be an interesting study to replicate with a different religious group as the survey sample, for instance, among Muslims or Hindus or Jews. I would like to read other work by these authors but also others about the role of spirituality in counseling. West (2004) has a study entitled "Spiritual Issues in Therapy -- Relating Experience to Practice," which appears to be relevant to the topic. As specialization continues to grow, spiritually-oriented counseling specialists may be in demand among other fields.

Understanding the field and how different approaches to spirituality are effective would be a beneficial endeavor. Application For a depressed person who came to me for counseling, I would follow the advice of this study and try to get to know the patient before beginning any sort of prayer activity. First, I would ask if the person was religious of if he or she had any particular inclination towards prayer as a form of intervention.

We might discuss the subject of prayer and what researchers in the past have indicated about it and whether or not it can be an effective approach to therapy. If the person were inclined to pray or had expectations of prayer being helpful, we would then discuss methods and how we might use prayer effectively in the session. The important thing to do would to set parameters so that both the client and I know what is expected of us both.

Once parameters have been set -- say, for instance, we agreed to begin and end each session with a prayer to God -- it would.