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Abstract

Mental health care professionals assist our clients in developing competency in coping with a wide range of personal problems. Psychoanalysts, therapists, and counselors feel free to explore occupational, family, sexual, interpersonal, and existential issues with their clients. Yet specifically spiritual and religious issues, also integral aspects of human experience, are frequently viewed with apprehension. Although it is becoming more and more apparent that there is a need for addressing spiritual/religious issues in therapy, there continues a traditional resistance by many practitioners on a variety of personal and professional grounds. When spiritual and religious issues surface, therapists are often inadvertently subject to countertransference reactions. This article examines the complexity of factors that contribute to resistance and countertransference reactions to these issues by mental health professionals today.

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Resistance and Countertransference Issues with Spiritual and Religious Clients

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