Religious and Spiritual Question Concerning Mental Health Professionals

At least one of the psychiatric units I was in asked my religious preference. But they didn't ask if it was an issue with the treatment they were offering.

I've been blasted and called entitled here on PC by someone for wanting my T to have LGBTQ training and for being wary of her because she's Christian. Even though I come from a very homophobic society where lots of Christians are prejudiced towards LGBTQ persons and seek to deny us civil rights. My T is Christian of not sure what denomination, and I come from a Christian denomination which sees LGBTQ persons like myself as abomination. I'm now an atheist.

So to me it was very important to know what my T believes in the area of LGBTQ persons and I asked her outright in our first session because I've experienced a lot of rejection by Christians. I also had a openly Christian psychiatrist who suggested I seek conversion therapy, and had another therapist who was Christian ask invasive questions for me to "prove" my sexual orientation. My country is very HOMOPhobic. Not as bad as the Middle East but not good either.

That said I know not all Christians are homophobic, though a lot I've met in my country are. It has been very healing to know T believes in a kinder, loving Christianity than the one I was indoctrinated in.

I'm OK with T being Christian because she respects my non beliefs and generally doesn't mention god or Satan etc though sometimes she still does so.

I don't care what the therapist does in his or her free time. I wouldn't see a therapist who advertised their practice as specifically religious of any variety. I stay away from the "spiritual" word, too. I am not spiritual or religious and don't view my issues through these lenses. Others do, and that is fine.

If a therapist can't handle counseling a person or persons because of their sexuality especially if the counselor can't keep his or her feelings out of the way.

Say it's a same sex couple that comes to the counselor and there is an issue because of the therapist's religion or for another reason. Ethically he or she is supposed to nicely and professionally refer that person or persons to someone else.

I learned that in a Human Services/Social Services Ethics Course. It makes sense. I live in the United States. I hope I explained that in a way that makes sense.

I'm sorry for your horrific experience (I often wonder where you live. I tend to think it's Singapore but I'm not sure. It's fine if you don't want to say). I just want to add that atheists can be homophobic too. While religion and homophobia can go hand in hand, atheists/agnostics are unfortunately not immune to homophobia. As for the religious affiliation of my therapist, I live in a very secular country so it's highly unlikely that therapists here would be religious. Most of them are probably atheist/agnostic or indifferent to religion. I'm an atheist so religion is completely foreign to me and has zero impact on my life. I would never see a therapist who advertizes on religion/spirituality but so far I have never seen it mentioned on a therapist's website. I don't care what therapists believe in their private lives, as long as it stays out of my therapy.

That said,despite my negative experiences, I do know some atheist therapists have been dismissive of friends' faith beliefs and I don't condone that

If you are looking for psychological counseling or psychiatric treatment, your religious beliefs should not make a difference to you treatment provider and your treatment provider should withhold imposing any personal religious beliefs into your treatment according to ethical standards.

As for me personally, I have a therapist now who is not the same denomination as me, but holds generally the same beliefs and I have had a past therapist who basically believed there was no God at all. The only difference between the two was that I am more open to talk about how my religion works with my healing (Using prayer, faith, etc.) with my current therapist than I was my previous because I feel she has a different level of understanding. I feel the attachment, treatment, level of care, etc. from the two was equal (the first moved and I had to find a new T). I don't necessarily feel like sharing religious beliefs with my T makes for a better relationship - unless that is something you are specifically looking for in a T.

Hi Seqoya,

I sent you a private message (PM). Glad to have you here.

Peaches I didn't see it.

Seqoya,

Sorry, I'll resend it. I took too long typing it and it locked me out.

Teri

I saw it and I responded.

Thank You For the Responses.

I am not in therapy and am not considering therapy any time soon. But if I were looking for a therapist I wouldn't care about their religious affiliation or a lack of thereof. All I would need is to see if they "get" me and if they can offer useful insight into my situation. If their insight had something to do with some religious or non-religious spiritual teaching, I would take it if I found it interesting, thought-provoking and useful. I would not, however, tolerate any attempt to convert me into a therapist's religion or any promotion of a therapist's religion. That would be a violation of a professional law that requires therapists to stay within their scope of practice, which is to provide psychological counseling.

I was in therapy with Jungian analyst once who was a former evangelical priest. He didn't come across as a religious person at all. I would've never thought he was affiliated with some religion if I didn't read info about him in the brochure in his waiting room. He never brought his religion into a consulting room. Over the whole course of therapy, once or twice he referenced something from the Bible when he shared his insight on my situation in order to illustrate his point. It didn't bother me a bit because it was totally relevant to what was being discussed and fit into the conversation organically.

I hear you, therapy is a challenge to trust another with our most vulnerable parts of ourselves. The last thing I want to hear is advice about joining a religion or practice that is outside what I consider a reasonable method to cope.

Mindfulness helps me cope with stress. It is difficult to describe what mindfulness is to me because I can be mindful in so many situations to help cope with my challenges. Breathing helps me a lot. But so does just taking a minute to focus on what is happening around me.

So I guess if a therapist supported mindfulness that would be a good start. Anyone else found a therapist that practices mindfulness that helps you?

This is not therapy but it is an approach to mindfulness that looks at many aspects of mindfulness by Jon Kabat Zinn without asking you to believe anything. It is very open minded in my experience.

Would the religion or spirituality or the lack there of, of your Psychiatrist, Therapist, or other Mental Health Professional Matter to You?

I’m pretty open to learning about other religions and the ways in which they’ve helped people through troubled times. I’m also open to working with anyone of any faith. I am quite an odd mix myself...a “double belonging” to both Buddhism and Catholicism...not sure if that makes me a Buddhist Catholic or a Catholic Buddhist?! Overall, though, I do not wish for religion to be part of my therapy. I like to keep religion and therapy separate...at least for the time being...and even though I find Buddhism incredibly helpful/relevant to my own life as well as certain aspects in the Roman Catholic tradition.