Practice-based evidence for spiritually integrated psychotherapies: examining trajectories of psychological and spiritual distress

The aims of this practice-based evidence study were to (a) examine clients’ trajectories of psychological and spiritual distress over the course of spiritually integrated psychotherapies (SIPs) and (b) explore the role of varying types of spiritual interventions in these outcomes. In total, 164 practitioners of SIPs from 37 settings in a practice-research network administered the Clinically Adaptive Multidimensional Outcome Survey (Sanders et al., 2018) at each session with 1,227 clients and reported their use of theoretical orientations and spiritual interventions on an after-session summary checklist. Focusing on sessions over an initial 12-week period, latent growth curve modeling analyses revealed that clients, on average, experienced significant reduction of psychological distress during their engagement in SIPs with improvements occurring most sharply in the first month. Further, other findings revealed a salient reciprocal interplay with spiritual distress throughout treatment, such that clients who were struggling with their religious faith and/or spirituality were more psychologically distressed and displayed a more attenuated and gradual pattern of symptom reduction. In such cases, clinicians frequently utilized spiritual interventions involving basic skills (e.g., spiritual assessment), virtues (e.g., discuss self-control), and religious attachment (e.g., encourage acceptance of divine love) that were uniquely associated with clients’ rate and duration of decline in psychological and spiritual distress. The present findings affirm the routine effectiveness of SIPs along with highlighting the potential value of certain spiritual interventions in supporting holistic recovery among clients who want clinicians to be culturally responsive to their spiritual and/or religious identities.