| Resumo: | Mental health professionals are often ill-prepared to ethically and effectively deal with religious/spiritual dimensions in the psychotherapeutic settings, even though so much has been accomplished in this area lately. The general aim of this work is to explore and expand knowledge in this field, by using a transformative framework, based on the multicultural competence perspective. Firstly, a theoretical introduction is provided, emphasizing the numerous advances made in this field, contrasting the intertwined and tumultuous history between religion, spirituality and mental health. This chapter is followed by five empirical studies: Study 1 shows that religious members and clients desire to openly discuss religion/spirituality during mental health treatment, but they do have some concerns about whether mental health professionals are willing and competent to do so. Study 2 shows religious Leaders as important agents in promoting and preserving their congregants’ mental health, as well as in their recovery processes; however this occurs without much referral to or collaboration with mental health professionals. In the remainder three studies, a sequential multistage mixed-methods design is used to understand the attitudes, beliefs and spiritual competence among mental health professionals. Major findings show that training and knowledge, in religious and spiritual topics, play an important role in these professionals’ perceived level of comfort and preparedness to competently deal with religion and spirituality in clinical settings. However, results also show that their attitudes toward the integration of religion/spirituality and their personal religious/spiritual involvement also play an important role in this process. Finally, the discussion section of this work offers an integrative highlight of the main findings, reinforcing the need to consider all voices involved in a psychotherapeutic relationship. Furthermore, implications for practice and research are addressed on how to improve the process of an ethical and effective integration of religious/spirituality matters into clinical settings.
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