Doctrinal dialogues: factors influencing client willingness to discuss religious beliefs

ABSTRACT

Religious beliefs are an important part of daily life for many individuals; however, these beliefs are often not discussed in therapy, creating potential barriers to treatment. The current study investigated factors influencing participant willingness to discuss religious beliefs with a therapist, including perceived clinician cultural humility (PCH), religious outlier status (ROS), and religious commitment (RC). Participants completed RC and ROS measures and viewed a clip depicting a clinician who was either high or low in cultural humility. They then rated the clinician’s cultural humility and their willingness to discuss religious beliefs. Results demonstrated that PCH was only significant predictor of willingness to discuss, accounting for 36% of the variance. These results suggest that clients are more willing to discuss their religious beliefs with a clinician who is high in cultural humility than one who is not, regardless of more stable client factors such as religious commitment and religious outlier status.

KEYWORDS:

• Religion
• cultural humility
• religious commitment
• therapy
• clinical practice

Acknowledgments

Research described in this article was completed at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Special thanks to Brian R. Vandenberg, Emeritus Professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis for his support and guidance in the development of this manuscript. Additional thanks to Ann M. Steffen, Matthew J. Taylor, and Susan Kashubeck-West at the University of Missouri-St. Louis for their suggestions to the content and organisation of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.