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 …

Transgender People’S Reflections On Identity, Faith, And Christian Faith Communities In The U.S., Kristen Benson, Eli Westerfield, Bradley Van Eeden-Moorefield

Department of Family Science and Human Development Scholarship and Creative Works

Relational therapists have limited access to resources and information about transgender people’s faith beliefs and experiences in Christian communities of faith, which is largely absent from the professional literature. The purpose of this article is to examine the Christian religious and spiritual experiences of transgender people located in the U.S. Seven self-identified transgender people participated in in-depth interviews. Results of the study indicated that participants had various experiences in faith communities, with both supportive and discriminatory responses from others. The results also suggest that participants maintained their faith beliefs even when they experience rejection from faith communities. Moreover, participants reported …

The Parallels Between Art Therapy And Christianity: Integrating Identities As A Christian And An Art Therapist, Kendal Hansen

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Therapists knowledge of their personal beliefs is extremely beneficial to individual’s working in the field of art therapy. Therapists are better able to serve their clients when they have a clear understanding of themselves and their biases. The writer of this thesis identifies strongly as an art therapist and as a Christian. To better understand how the two strongest parts of her identity integrated, this thesis explored the parallels between Christianity and art therapy by reviewing the literature and facilitating an arts-based qualitative study. The literature suggested that art therapy can be effective with various populations within the Christian category. …

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

Lynn Bohecker