Spirituality and Social Work Practice

This article discusses the definition of spirituality and religion, the appropriateness of integrating spiritual interventions in therapy, and the importance of self-determination and cultural competence in spiritual interventions.

Running head: SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

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Introduction
The relationship between spirituality and mental health is being explored in the number
of ways. From most of the research study, it is found out that the spirituality is the inter, intra
and trans-personal experience, which is shaped and directed by the individual’s experiences
and the communities in which they live out their lives (Fook, 2016). In other words, there are
internal, community, group and the transcendent elements related to spirituality. Religion and
spirituality are mutually interconnected in such a way that they sometimes mixed their
meaning, which appears as a similar definition. In this content, some research papers will be
discussed for getting a more prominent overview of the two main parameters of this article,
that is, religion and spirituality, their advantages and disadvantages and effects on the social
works (Knight, 2015). As the parameters mentioned above are not formally defined in the
research papers which are reviewed in this article, it would be difficult to distinguish religion
and spirituality while discussing their positive or negative impacts on the social works. Thus,
the interaction between spirituality and mental health is more likely to be dynamic, interactive
and complex. Some of the research studies tend to look for a simpler relationship among the
narrowly defined outcomes of mental health and spirituality (Loue, 2017).
Nowadays, the social workers are introducing the spiritual, social practice for
mitigating the mental health problems among people. Along with the increasing interest in
spirituality, the further explanation on how the impact of spirituality on social work practices
is imperative (Thompson, 2016). To gain the better understandings of the impact of spirituality
in social work practice, the social workers need to involve spirituality in the social work
practice. This study will find out the answers to the following research questions: how

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spirituality can be used in social work practice and how spirituality helps in coping, mental
health and grief and loss therapy.
This paper is proposed to enrich social work practice by introducing the concept of
spirituality, identifying and exploring knowledge about spiritual techniques to cure mental
health problems. Spirituality is the word that means different things for different people at
different times in the various cultures and spirituality is expressed through the religious,
nature, art and the built environment for centuries (Kadar et al., 2015). This research paper
focuses on spirituality in social work practice, which classically implicates the pursuit for the
meaning of life especially for people suffering from mental health illness, grief and loss
therapy, and chronic mental health issues.
Literature Review
According to Crompton (2017), Spirituality can be a more accepted concept in therapy,
but from this research paper, it can be deduced that religious issues are the most concerning
topics for the therapists as compared to the spiritual issues. In this research paper, religion and
spirituality are mainly focused, so it is mandatory to analyse their terminology. It is very
difficult to explain the concept of spirituality in words, whereas many professionals describe
religion and spirituality as a similar approach, which makes it challenging to distinguish them.
Different professionals describe spirituality, some are only focussing on God or a transcendent
being while describing spirituality, whereas some practitioners refuse to focus on a higher
power, rather they like to include the conceptions of beauty and nature. Crompton defines
spirituality in such a way that it is not always necessary to include the concept of God or
transcendent being for describing human experience rather it would be easy by focusing on the

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meaning, purpose and values of life. On the other hand, Religion was explained as a specific
and systematic belief which is practised by its followers, but that may or may not include the
concept of spirituality. Therefore, spirituality can be specified as a more broader and
comprehensive approach than religion whereas religion is more connected with some
standardised elementary beliefs (Crompton, 2017). The expression of spirituality among
people can be in both religious and non-religious forms so that the approach spirituality can be
incorporated with the term religion, but it cannot be drawn as a line of limit. Therefore,
whenever people specify the term spirituality, they may include the approach of religion as an
aspect of spirituality but not the whole approach of spirituality. By implementing the approach
of spirituality and religion into therapy, many professionals check the appropriateness of
different issues, although there are a limited number of published research on appropriateness,
which addresses spiritual and religious issues in the therapy. By researching the spiritual
approach of an individual while working with different social work clinicians, it can be
deduced in such a way that one can perceive the feel of appropriateness only by using spiritual
interventions. Therefore, in spite of being not assured with the practised codes, social work
professionals believe that it is appropriate to integrate spiritual and religious beliefs in their
clients’ belief with a positive approach (Crompton, 2017).
According to Oxhandler (2015), Social work professionals mainly focus on the self-
determination of the clients, which is the most important guideline value for integrating
spiritual interventions in therapy. After going through therapy with a client, social workers
never take the initiative to integrate spiritual concerns; it is totally up to the client to go for a
spiritual involvement. The social workers put a question of emphasis for their client after the
therapy so that they can understand ‘needs’, ‘wants’, ‘requests’ and ‘lead’ of the client for

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spiritual intervention as it is exclusively a client-centric approach. This also includes a code of
conducts for spiritual interventions, which ensures the client about self-determination
throughout the therapy as self-determination is the only parameter, which is respected
throughout the process, from the very engagement to the termination. As the social workers
are professionally responsible for promoting the rights of self-determination, it also ensures to
learn about the research norms as well as it helps to assist the client-centric necessities for
integrating spiritual interventions. Now, culture can be considered as a lens through which the
client can perceive the taste of reality. The social worker needs to understand from which
culture the client belongs and the cultural aspects of the client for getting the desired result.
The culturally competent professionals sketch different cultural aspects of the client by going
through their stories or narratives. The author recommends that every social worker should
follow the cultural background of the client to know that how culture affects the daily life of
the client. This is essential for the social workers as it helps to find the direction of the therapy
through which the client can achieve the goal. On the other hand, spiritual competency can be
defined in the form of a continuum. It is a part of cultural competence which is more focused
and includes a code of conducts which can be expanded over time. Most of the professionals
believe that there is a positive effect of integrating spirituality in therapy and as a result, most
of the social workers give less priority in addressing the issues in a competent spiritual
manner.
From the above research studies, it can be concluded that social work professionals use
spiritual interventions appropriately in the context of therapy. In spite of having less amount of
quantitative data, case studies with individual have established spirituality as an essential
element in the recovery procedure. Prior cases indicate the loopholes in many areas, which are

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surrounded with the spirituality in clinical practices. With the increase of spiritual interests,
further researches will be initiated to understand how spirituality impacts on social work
practice.
Discussion
The spirituality in social work practice plays a great role in helping the clients coping
with the mental illness and helps in the recovery process. Social workers have been found to
underrate the significance of the spirituality among the clients suffering from the severe
mental illness, and this is also found out that some of the clients can have a more effective
recovery if the spiritual needs are fulfilled in the treatment (Närhi & Matthies, 2016). The
social worker should know what to look for treating spiritually in recovering the mental
illness. The recent expressions of spirituality have become more diversified and varied (Bullis,
2013). The more common themes in literature describe spirituality as one of the following
elements: A sense of different purpose, A sense of connection with self, others, nature, God
and other, A quest for wholeness, A belief in the higher beings, Those activities, which give
meanings and value to people lives, A sense that there is more life than the material or
practical (Kopacz, Simons & Chitaphong, 2015). Spirituality is considered as the vehicle
through which the meaning of their values can be sought as per their age, gender, and culture,
and political ideology, physical and mental health. Spirituality is often considered as the
aspects of the human existence, which gives it humanness (Conrad, 2017). It concerns the
structures that give meaning and direction to the people’s lives and helps them to deal with the
changes in existence (Arthur, 2015). The main goal of the social worker is to continue the
public services by helping the needy people by addressing, managing and resolving the

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various problems. The social workers should continue the public service despite the self-
interest and personal gain (Carrington, 2017). The social workers use their skills and
knowledge in helping their clients in serious problems such as drug dependency, criminal
behaviours, child abuse and other. The social workers often volunteer their skills through
community organisations in free of charge. The main goals of the social services are:
 Providing social service to residents and their families with professionally trained
social workers
 Assisting the people in getting more benefited from the community-based health
resources and each stay of residents are benefited or not, that is in charge of the social
workers (Moffatt & Oxhandler, 2018).
 Strengthening the communications among the residents, families and the facility staffs
as only through communication, the problems can be properly explained as well as
resolved. These include spirituality, as religious views can solve various problems
(Seinfeld, 2012).
 Assisting the facility staff in achieving and maintaining a spiritual environment, this
plays an essential role in improving the people’s life. This also provides maximum
participation of the residents in planning the policies and their activities (Becvar,
2014).
 Promoting the facility-community interactions and developing the linkages with the
large variety of community resources.
 Participating in the assessment and planning related to another long-term social and
health care resources (Crisp, 2016).

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The interest in spirituality has been progressed, within the social work through the three broad
stages, they are:
 Sectarian origins (from the beginnings of the colonial period lasted through early
20th century): The earlier institutions and the human services were influenced by the
Judeo-Christian worldviews, which was based on the justice, common responsibility
and charity. This period was able to witness the competing explanation of the human
behaviour, an emphasis based on the differences among the moral blames and the
merits that are the differences among the worthy and the unworthy behaviour against
the main focus on the social justices and social reforms (Sue, Rasheed, & Rasheed,
2015).
 Professionalisation and secularization (the 1920s through 1970s): The social work
began to distance itself from the early period. The larger society has shifted and
replaced the moral views and explanations of the human problems based on the
scientific views and the rational understandings. The social work profession began to
rely more on the secular humanism, libertarian morality, and the empiricism.
Nowadays increasingly religious and spirituality is viewed as irrelevant, illogical,
unnecessary and pathological (Sheridan, 2016).
 The resurgence of interest in spirituality (beginning from the 1980s and
continuing through the present): The indicators of the new phase within the
profession include the marked increase in the numbers of the publications and the
presentations on the topic, the development on the national society of the spirituality
and the social work (Greene, 2017).

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Over a century, the importance and the benefits of the spiritual activity of the physical
health have been documented and recognized. From the recent study, it is seen that the
association between morality and spiritual activity demonstrates that people with religious
involvement were more likely to die than non-religious counterparts (Briskman, 2014). The
emerging evidence from the recent studies has pointed towards the protective and the
beneficial effect of the religious and the spiritual activities for mental health. The emerging
evidence shows the shift of the client’s perspectives and also shows that the clients mostly
suffers for their relationship issues, different styles of religion, marital dissatisfaction, general
well-being and other (Parsell, Eggins & Marston, 2016). Depression is the most common
mental health problem, and the social workers need to identify the spiritual, social work
practice for resolving this mental health problem. Depression can be categorised by the
symptoms like the feeling of sadness, unexplained tiredness and fatigues. The people having a
mental disorder are advised and motivated by the social worker in practising spiritual activities
like attending church; this often helps to resolve the problem (Stennis et al., 2015). One of
the better ways of understanding this effect is the possibility that affects the incidence of and
coping with depression. Most of the expressions and the elements of spirituality are helpful in
mitigating the depressive symptoms and helps in increasing the general wellbeing (Payne,
2015).
The religious and spirituality has been categorised as the mediator to account for the
relationship between the spirituality and mental health. The religious symbolism and the texts
provide ample resources to personify the divine as the other who can be engaged globally for
the support, solace and the guidance. A research study has examined the coping styles of the
mentally disordered people. The individual’s refusal to the acceptance of the status and their

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begging for God to intervene in the amazing, miraculous way to bring out the personally
desirable outcomes, all this are the general coping styles examined in the research study in
most of the mentally disordered clients (Donaldson & Mayer, 2014). The social support of the
individuals can be derived from the leaders, members and clergy of the religious
congregations. (Healy, 2014). The research study reveals that the majority of the practitioners
had little knowledge on the educational preparation that is on how to utilise spirituality, how to
approach the ethical decision making related to the use of spirituality (Hong, Hodge & Choi,
2015). From most of the researches followed by the respondents of the national survey of
NASW, the members involve the spirituality and use the general ethical principles and the
considerations. This is seen that social workers lack the guidelines regarding the use of
spiritually oriented activities and systematic ethical decision-making. This causes the raise of
the concerns regarding the competences based on the skills, knowledge, preparations in
making ethical decisions (Briskman, 2016). From the research studies, it has been found out
that most of the clinicians agree that it is essential to involve the spiritual inquiry in the
assessment process for determining the role of the spirituality in the client’s life (Milner,
Myers & O'Byrne, 2015).
The social work practice based on spiritual values includes the following factors:
 Protecting people from social isolation
 Providing and strengthening the social networks and the family
 Offering the spiritual support in the times of adversity
 Providing individuals with the sense of belonging and the self-esteem

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In addition to all these factors, the religious and spiritual support may provide beneficial
support than the other social-cultural networks.
How the social workers can bring spirituality in the social work practice are:
 The social workers need to know themselves first and their spiritual beliefs and need to
examine themselves to see whether their spiritual and religious beliefs would
counteract them in a certain situation. They would be able to find out the certain
situations that they can’t practice in.
 The social workers need to include questions regarding spiritual and religious beliefs
while assisting people.
 The social workers need to educate themselves and keep on learning. When someone
brings up any religious or spiritual beliefs, which are unknown to the social worker,
then the social workers need to learn about it, or they can consult the other
professionals who know about it.
 The social workers also need to adapt themselves to find value in the beliefs that are
different from their beliefs.
Implications for practice
This study will follow the implications of the social work policy, education, practice.
The goal of the service-focused social work practice like social work education is to prepare
the students for practice, which is non-discriminatory, skilful and knowledgeable in respect to
all the kind of diversity, involving the wide variety of religion and spirituality (Keefe, 2017).
If the social workers face that the incorporations of clients spirituality seem to be justified and
the client is directed, then the social workers need to implement more specialised training in

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their service focused social work based on spirituality should be considered. The social
workers provide services by giving quality care to their clients, graduate programs, which
would develop the role of spirituality in enhancing mental health (Mulder, 2015).
During the services of the social work practice, this is not mandatory that the social
workers need to subscribe the same religious belief as of the client, but the social workers need
to be conscious that unconsciously they do not affect the client’s religious belief. This can
create a negative impact on the mental disorder client. Sometimes a person’s spiritual life may
be deep-rooted in religion. During the implications of the social work practice, people can
share out about the services they attend, their rituals and the holidays they participate in. They
can also discuss the religious text and the teachings, which help them to find out the meanings.
Thus, social workers need to learn how to be comfortable with various religious practices and
religious beliefs by binging a bible verse, which creates a great positive impact on the client.
In the initial stage of the discussion, the social workers identify, whether their client is
interested in their own religious and spiritual values or not. There are clients who say that they
are spiritual but not religious. When they are asked to define the meaning of the statement that
they are spiritual but not religious, some can give definite answers whereas some cannot. Both
of the cases lead to the amazing type of therapeutic interactions (Freeman, 2015). Thus, the
social worker continues the process of treatment as per the beliefs and the views of the clients.
The social workers provide services by developing a stable environment for the young
person as the mental illness in the young people needs to be recovered. The social workers
often face cases of depression and arrogance in children while practising their services; they
need to grow the stability, which gives children the opportunity to learn and makes them feel

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that they belong to someone. The services for the children or the young people suffering from
anxiety, depression and mental illness, is the delicate social work practice as the social worker
need to handle these problems patiently by introducing spiritual activities on them. This helps
them to develop their religious values and spiritual beliefs. The social workers have an ample
amount of the training in ensuring that they are practising within the scope of their
competency. According to the NASW (2011) affirms that in the services of the social work,
the cultural competences in the social work is the life going, ongoing practice and includes the
importance of the religion and the spirituality in the lives of the clients (Beckett, Maynard &
Jordan, 2017). In the services of the social work practice, collecting the information regarding
the client’s history and increasing the spiritual interest is essential for solving client’s
problems. The social services for the older peoples suffering from depression, mental illness
involves a special program involving them, involving them in various spiritual activities,
making them feeling belonging to society and other. All these social services including
spiritual activities help to recover the older people suffering from depression, anxiety and
other.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that spirituality was the
imperative constituent in the beginning phase of the social work practice. The 1950’s and the
1960’s explored the spiritual shift as the shift of the social worker has distanced itself from the
sectarian roots and proceed towards the secular orientations, which results in the strict
boundaries between the therapy and the religion. The mission to integrate the spiritual side of
the humans in the social work practice showed the importance of spirituality in the therapy.

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The integration of spirituality into the psychotherapy and the mental health services shows the
evidence of the benefits and the need for such integration. The above discussion shows that in
the human service profession, the spirituality is recognized as the important client’s strength,
which can aid the client’s wellbeing. The research studies suggest that social workers are
interested in using the spiritual treatment for mitigating mental health. The lack of training on
the proper implementation of spiritual interventions can cause uncertainty in the social work
practice regarding the ethical guidelines. There are many factors described in the above
discussion, which shows the impact of spirituality in the person’s coping styles. This can
provide access to social support and increase social capital; both of these are acknowledged for
promoting and sustaining the emotional and psychological wellbeing. The expressions of
spirituality can affect the lifestyles and can encourage the individuals to limit the illness-
related behaviour like smoking, drinking and other. The social services for the older people
and the young ones those who are suffering from the anxiety, depression and mental illness,
need to be patiently treated, that is by growing their interest on the spiritual values and
involving them in the spiritual activities. This research study will sketch out the picture of how
the spirituality social work practice will have an impact on the mental health-related problems.
The number of implications and the recommendations are described in this study, which
provides the more colourful picture of the spiritual effect on the mental health. This research
will be based on extensive reviews of the past and the present literature on the topic of
spirituality in social work practices. The categories found out from the research study, and the
literature will help to yield the more consistent outcome of the research work. This is expected
that from the researches it will be found out that the spiritual activities and the spiritual

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involvement have a great impact on recovering the mental illness and helps people to get relief
from the health-related problems.

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