Cultivating a spiritually integrative psychotherapy approach with youth: An exploratory qualitative study.

Abstract

This exploratory qualitative study investigated the experiences of 11 clinicians who self-reported that they integrated spirituality into psychotherapy processes with children and adolescents. In-depth interviews, follow-up participant checks, a focus group, and collaborative analysis procedures were used. The data were analyzed employing a grounded-theory method, resulting in a conceptual model that described the central category, spirituality is important, and the remaining major categories, barriers that stifle spirituality, building spiritual awareness, understanding clients' spiritual cultures, and providing spiritually congruent interventions. Each category of the conceptual model has been identified and illustrated by narrative data. A visual representation of the conceptual model is provided to explicate the relationships between the central category and the other major categories. Implications for psychotherapy research and practice are addressed.