The Assessment of Spiritual Issues in Counseling.

By using carefully developed questions during the early stages of counseling, counselors can "open the door" for clients to feel comfortable discussing spiritual or religious themes in counseling. This process of incorporating spirituality into counseling may involve a paradigm shift and additional training for counselors; thus, guidelines are presented here to facilitate the assessment of a client's spiritual orientation and functioning. The suggested format is offered since counselors may not know how to broach the subject or may hesitate to question clients about spirituality because they feel these issues are too personal or simply not important. Following a discussion of the definition of spirituality, 17 questions are presented as a format for use in the "spirituality interview." Intentions of the format are: (1) to provide the counselor with insight into the spiritual and religious history of the individual; (2) to provide information regarding his/her curent thinking in the spiritual realm; and (3) to assist counselors in assessing how a client's conceptualizations of the spiritual realm might relate to other areas of his/her life. (Contains 23 references.) (TS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Assessment of Spiritual Issues The Assessment of Spiritual Issues in Counseling J. Scott Young James 0. Fuller University of North Carolina at Greensboro "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY J. S. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 0 This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. J. Scott Young, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of counselor education in the Department of Counselor Education and Educational Psychology at Mississippi State University. James 0. Fuller, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of counselor education at Indiana Weslyan University.