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For God's Sake
Moving Forward and Next Steps
Future Potential Research Questions
What are clinicians' beliefs and practices concerning spiritual assessments with lesbian and gay clients, and do they facilitate spiritual assessments with this population?
What are the driving and restraining forces that help or hinder doing so? How could assessments with lesbians and gay clients build upon and complicate the research noted on this site? What are faculty beliefs about this issue, and what are their positions on training and education to help ensure that spiritual assessments are carried out with the lesbian and gay population?
What else may help
Higher expectations and requirements from payors, accrediting bodies, and agencies to include spiritual assessments with all clients, especially with lesbians and gays.
Profession-approved and readily available training and seminars. Formal social work education. Field education.
Licensure education.
Educational Evaluation
Are approved classes or seminars being offered?
Are attendees absorbing the material?
Are attendees applying what they have learned in the field?
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Cautions and Caveats
All voices including the conservative and liberal positions of practitioners, educators, and clients must be respected, understood and taken into consideration. Conservative Christians have felt oppressed and unprotected by the social work profession, and some have said that they will not speak up for fear of reciprocity (Ressler & Hodge, 2006). Hodge has been a controversial figure in the lesbian and gay world, and this claim has been challenged and countered in the 2006 work of Melendez and LaSala.
Dangers inherent in boundary violations (Sherr et al. 2009) such as overstepping one's scope of practice by promoting a religious, spiritual, or secular expectation, must be acknowledged and studied more carefully. Consequences of neglecting to address a person's lived religious or spiritual experiences must also be examined.
Referrals to others, such as religious leaders or more highly skilled practitioners, should be encouraged to avoid deepening therapist countertransference.
Referrals to gay-welcoming religious or spiritual organizations are often warranted. Listings of those resources should be readily available. See below for a comprehensive listing.
www.gaychurch.org
http://www.welcomingresources.org
https://www.glaad.org/programs/faith
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