Spirituality in Counselling: Assessing counsellors' competencies

This study assesses the relevance of spirituality in counselling from the perspectives of graduates students enrolled in the Masters Degree in Counselling at the UTM. This research looks at the professional training followed by participants to deal with related issues. The link between personal spirituality & the willingness to implement the spiritual competencies in counselling is investigated. A mixed method is used to combine the advantages of having both a quantitative study of 30 participants and a qualitative study of three participants from Christian, Islamic and Hindu faith respectively whose sessions were recorded over a period of three months. The survey was carried out using the Index of Core Spiritual Experience (INSPIRIT) and the Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI) measures along with the rating of the importance of Competencies for Inclusion of Spirituality in Counselling (CISC). Findings from this inquiry indicate a dearth of training as regards to spirituality or religion in counselling although participants find spirituality a relevant topic. The link between personal spirituality and the enthusiasm to implement the list of spiritual competencies is not validated.