Faith in the counselling room

Does faith have a place in the counselling room or does it have to be a totally secular environment? Does the very rational and logical approach of something like CBT, allow for faith or are they naturally in opposition? It’s something I’ve been reflecting on recently.

First of all, I want to be clear there is faith-centred ‘therapy’ out there that is more akin to talking to a minister; discussing challenges from a religious perspective and drawing support from specific parts of the bible. That’s not the type of counselling I mean.

There are also counsellors who are more traditional mental health professionals, but are religious themselves and are happy to meld the two in the support they provide.

Sometimes the clients I work in counselling with are religious. Their religious convictions are deeply personal, informing how they view the world and their place in it. For some, their religious beliefs may be the thing that has been keeping them going through terrible circumstances, and naturally it can come up when we’re exploring what’s happening with them and helping them through whatever it is we’re looking to address.

Some counsellors can inwardly balk when clients bring this into counselling. That’s not to say they aren’t respectful of their clients, but there might be some tension about what those beliefs might block. They can be associated with shame; what we should and shouldn’t be, what we should and shouldn’t do and sometimes the beliefs can prevent ownership of feelings and behaviours that don’t align with them.

They may also feel that a clients religious beliefs might affect how they see us and disrupt the therapeutic alliance. For example they could be concerned that a very conservative religious person may have personal beliefs that are at odds with a counsellor who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and find themselves second guessing mentioning something that we might naturally disclose in the process of working with other clients.

I’m not a religious person myself. As an angry teenager I would probably have described myself as an atheist, but these days I’d more comfortably call myself a humanist. Not so much faith in something supernatural as much as a belief in people, what we can achieve for the common good and our capacity for compassion.

I don’t have a rigid rule in place, but I do ask myself in each individual case if someone’s religious convictions are a barrier to working on what’s troubling them? But how someone views the world and a more secular way of describing those same experiences in counselling aren’t necessarily incompatible. I’m a big believer in meeting clients where they are, and being open to letting someone describe what they are experiencing authentically.

Where in a typical activity I might ask them to keep an eye out for the little things that bring them joy every day, they might see that as proof of something bigger and more meaningful in the world. And honestly, who am I to say anything different? Sometimes feeling themselves improve can strengthen their faith, give them hope for recovery, and actually help us make more progress.

Providing someone’s religious beliefs aren’t causing them or others harm, they don’t have to be a barrier in the counselling room. With mutual respect and sensitivity they can work alongside each other with powerful results.

If you’re having a problem with your mental health and you would like to discuss it with a BACP-accredited professional, you can get in touch with me via the submission form on the website or drop me a message directly at mckellarCBT@gmail.com