| Summary: | 碩士 === 玄奘大學 === 應用心理學系碩士班 === 104 === The importance of religious and spiritual issues has increased in the fields of health care and mental health in recent years. It was not until generations ago that psychology no longer viewed religion as a type of neurosis, which was aimed to seek compensation for unsatisfied desires. Modern research has begun to discover actual benefit of religious/ spiritual exploration for human physical and mental health. Over the last two decades, burgeoning psychological studies in western countries have started to focus on discussions of religion or spirituality. Taiwan has since followed suit.
This study explores how Catholic counselors’ religious belief affects her/his professional work via life stories. We employed semi-structured interviews among three participants who are all doing counseling work, and holistic-content analysis and categorization analysis, two analytical methods of narrative research, as a way to pinpoint the role of religion in the performance of counseling work.
Conclusions are as follows:
First, Catholic counselors are influenced by religion in a wide variety of aspects: core values, personality traits, capability development, social support, and career development. These influences have been produced from the need for religion in their families of origin, how the main caregivers of their families hold their beliefs, what kind of relationship they have formed with their parents and their religious formation process during adolescent years. These influences can be widely applied to their positive thinking and commitment from love toward the humanity, their participation in religious activities and thus forming an understanding of social bonds through socialization, their decision to identify with the religion at a young age, the development of their personality traits that are caring and willing to help, and the ability to make ethical decisions based on their religious belief.
Secondly, when Catholic counselors perform their professional work, the positive influence of religion can be seen in their counseling philosophy, professional learning, a style and attitude of counseling, and interventions. They would pay particular attention on the following respects: seeing counseling as a domain for practice of religion, the ways with which spiritual resources are allocated, the advantage of being a Catholic counselor in the institution, the integration of humanism endorsed by the school of psychology into their religious values, if their self-awareness corresponds to ethics, and if they play an active role in orchestration of church work.
Thirdly, for Catholic counselors, the conflicts between their belief and professional work are often related to ethical issues and dual relationships, although they have rarely escalated into serious problems. This should be associated with the Second Vatican Council, in which legalism was replaced with humanitarian views and human dignity, and in turn inner values and ethical considerations are prioritized. Probably this is partly because all participants in this project have more than ten years’ experience and have formed an integrative perspective in their belief and work. This leads to alleviation of conflicts between religion and profession.
Lastly this study makes a comprehensive discussion on research results, and proffers suggestions as a useful reference for counselors, educators, and future researchers alike.
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