Counseling Commons^™

Godspeed: Counselor Education Doctoral Student Experiences From Diverse Religious And Spiritual Backgrounds, Alyse M. Anekstein, Lynn Bohecker, Tiffany Nielson, Hailey Martinez

The Qualitative Report

Amidst growing literature regarding the importance of spirituality within counseling and counselor education, little is known of the experiences of doctoral students regarding their religious and spiritual backgrounds while matriculating through their doctoral program. This research explored the experiences of four researcher-participant counselor education doctoral students from diverse religious and spiritual backgrounds. This exploration deepened their understanding of the role their religious and spiritual identities played in their thoughts, emotions, challenges, and strengths of their experiences. A phenomenological autoethnography method was used for this study. A unique data analysis procedure was developed called Integrative Group Process Phenomenology (IGPP), which was …