Kenneth I. Pargament’s research while affiliated with Bowling Green State University and other places

The purpose of this study was to develop a five-item form of the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (RSS; Exline et al., Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 6, 208-222, 2014), (2022). Drawing upon three samples – 711 depressed adults from prior studies that utilized the RSS (Study 1), 303 undergraduates from a public university in the Southeastern U.S. (Study 2), and 121 adults seeking psychotherapy and/or primary care in an integrated behavioral health clinic (Study 3) – findings indicated the five-item version represents a structurally sound and reliable instrument for assessing clinically relevant struggles (divine, interpersonal, moral, doubt, ultimate meaning struggles) in mental health care settings. Specifically, Cronbach’s alphas for the RSS-5 ranged from .77 to .85 across the three studies. Further, scores on this short form overlapped highly with the original RSS in Study 1 and were moderately to strongly associated with validated assessments of positive (well-being, flourishing, and perceived meaning in life) and negative (suicide ideation, depression and anxiety symptoms) mental health in Study 2 and 3. When accounting for depression and anxiety symptoms, RSS-5 scores were also uniquely associated with patients’ suicidal ideation over the past month in Study 3. Although we found evidence of multidimensionality of the selected items that aligned with psychometric findings for the original RSS (Exline et al., Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 6, 208-222, 2014), findings also supported a unidimensional factor structure for the RSS-5 in each sample. Looking ahead, the RSS-5 will hopefully support clinical research and practice in ways that enhance training clinicians’ responsiveness to patients who are experiencing spiritual struggles.

Despite practice guidelines for multiculturally competent care, including spiritual/religious diversity, most mental health graduate training programs do not formally address spiritual/religious competencies. Thus, we enhanced the Spiritual Competency Training in Mental Health (SCT-MH) course curriculum to train graduate students in foundational attitudes, knowledge, and skills for addressing clients’ spirituality and/or religion (S/R). The hybrid (online and in-person) SCT-MH course curriculum was integrated into existing required graduate clinical courses (replacing 15% of a course’s curriculum) and taught to 309 students by 20 instructors in 20 different graduate training programs across counseling, psychology, and social work disciplines. Using a multiple baseline waitlist control design in which students served as their own controls, students completed validated assessments at three timepoints evaluating their spiritual/religious competencies for understanding the intersection between S/R and mental health. We also collected qualitative data from the students to evaluate acceptability of the content and format of the training program. Students’ scores on all seven measures of spiritual/religious competencies had a statistically significant positive increase after engaging with the SCT-MH curriculum compared to the control period. At the end of the course, 97% of the students envisioned using spiritually integrated therapy techniques with their clients at least some of the time, 92% or more rated the materials as helpful and relevant, and 96% were satisfied with the training modules. Results demonstrate that dedicating a small (i.e., 6 hours of class time; 10 hours outside class time) but intentional amount of course time to teaching spiritual/religious competencies increases students’ attitudes, knowledge, and skills for attending to clients’ S/R in clinical practice. The SCT-MH hybrid course content is freely available to all graduate programs on our website. https://www.spiritualandreligiouscompetenciesproject.com/resources/sct-mh.

This article describes the results of a cross-sectional survey of current mental health clients’ religious/spiritual beliefs and practices, as well as how clients perceive such practices as influencing their mental health. A total of 989 self-identified mental health clients across the United States completed an anonymous online survey in 2018. This survey included several items and instruments to measure clients’ religious affiliation, religious/spiritual beliefs and practices, and a new set of items to assess the degree to which clients perceive their religious/spiritual practices impacting their mental health. The results of descriptive, correlation, and chi-square analyses indicate religion/spirituality (RS) play a nuanced and complex role in most clients’ lives, with a majority reporting positive views related to their RS and indicating they consider their religious/spiritual practices to be helpful when it comes to their mental health. Further, there are several noteworthy similarities and differences between mental health clients’ religious/spiritual beliefs and practices as compared with those of the general U.S. population during 2018 as well as a national sample of licensed clinical social workers in 2013. Based on these findings, implications and considerations are discussed for social work practitioners serving mental health clients, and for educators training the next generation of social workers.

This article describes a national sample of 989 current mental health clients’ views regarding whether and how their mental health care providers integrated the client’s religion/spirituality (RS) into treatment. Within the online Qualtrics survey, two open-ended items asked respondents what (if anything) the client perceived their therapist having done regarding the client’s RS that was (1) helpful/supportive or (2) hurtful/harmful. Participants also reported various ways therapists included the topic of RS in practice, if any. Nearly half freely described helpful ways their providers integrated the client’s RS, and half indicated it was not discussed or applicable. Although 9.6% described hurtful experiences, most indicated their provider had not done anything harmful related to integrating RS. Implications for practice and training across mental health disciplines are discussed.

Many people experience spiritual struggles – experiences of tension, strain, or conflict around religious or spiritual matters. Empirical, psychological research on spiritual struggles has increased greatly in the past several decades. To date, much of the emphasis has been on developing and refining assessment tools and documenting links with emotional distress. Building on several recent reviews of spiritual struggle research (Pargament & Exline 2021; Pargament & Exline 2022) as well as our own recent projects on spiritual struggles, our aim in this article is to look toward the future: What are some promising new horizons in research on spiritual struggles? We will focus on four broad areas: 1) conceptualization, assessment, and methods, 2) connections between struggles and indicators of distress or problems, 3) how struggle might foster growth, and 4) clinical interventions.

This prospective study examined the primary, secondary and complex conceptual models of religious/spiritual struggles with 18 indicators of whole person functioning across five domains: psychological well-being, psychological distress, social well-being, physical well-being and character. We used three waves of longitudinal data (Wave 1: August/September 2021, Wave 2: October/November 2021, Wave 3: February 2022) from Colombian university students (N = 2878, M age = 20.88 ± 4.05 years). Adjusting for covariates assessed in Wave 1, our primary analysis applied the analytic templates for outcome-wide and lagged exposure-wide designs to estimate two sets of lagged linear regression models. Religious/spiritual struggles in Wave 2 were associated with a small-to-medium-sized decline in subsequent functioning on 17/18 indicators in Wave 3, and worse functioning on 16/18 indicators in Wave 2 was associated with very small-to-medium-sized increases in subsequent religious/spiritual struggles in Wave 3. The results provided evidence in favour of the complex conceptual model for 16/18 indicators of whole person functioning. Our findings extend existing evidence on the reciprocal association between religious/spiritual struggles and individual functioning to a wide range of indicators, reinforcing the need for practitioners to consider the dynamic interplay between religious/spiritual struggles and individual functioning as they work with younger populations.