How and why Muslim counsellors integrate spiritual and religious elements implicitly into counselling practices in Malaysia: A qualitative exploration

Abstract

Implicit incorporation of spiritual and religious elements in counselling has turned into a practice among several counsellors, but issues may arise when clients demand it in an explicit manner. As such, this study investigated how and why counsellors integrate spiritual and religious elements implicitly into counselling practices. With that, 13 registered counsellors were selected as participants for this study. They were interviewed and the data gathered were analyzed by using the constant comparative analysis. The results revealed that counsellors avoided highlighting the aspects of spiritual and religion at the initial part of their counselling session, but embedded them slowly and obscurely so as to prevent unprepared clients from being resistant, feeling uncomfortable, getting confused, as well as to hinder any sensitive issue related to spiritual and religious elements. Furthermore, the study points out that the central implications are the need to create a culture of openness and to boost confidence among counsellors to integrate the spiritual and religious aspects in an explicit manner. On top of that, competence among counsellors can be further enhanced with appropriate theoretical considerations and personal challenges. This does not only improve the effectiveness of treatment, but also protects the clients and enables consistency in work. Keywords: spiritual and religion, integration, counselling, implicit