COURSE INFORMATION
This course focuses on using the spiritually informed cognitive therapy method in counseling for psychological disorders or counseling for spiritual healing and growth. The thesis by Downing investigated counseling issues of spiritual nature using cognitive therapy. The problem is that spirituality has gained momentum in this generation while therapists may not be caught up and appropriately trained. Given a high number of therapist claiming atheism and agnosticism, there is learning to pursue by the counselor or therapist regarding possible religious beliefs and how to connect proven cognitive therapy with spirituality and perspectives. On the other hand, religious leaders may not possess clinical skills in order to provide effective spiritual guidance. The dissertation by Good investigated the application of the spiritually informed cognitive behavioral therapy (SICBT) and proposed a 12 week course of SICBT. Details of contents for every session were proposed. In addition, using the Bible, passages were proposed for various disorders.
Course Code: SC 630.
Contact hours of continuing education = 50.
Instructor/Course Author: R. Hope Ishak, Ph.D, MS, BE
Link to Resume: Resume
TEXTBOOKS: There are zero (0) required textbooks for this course.
There is not required textbook for this course. Learning materials are provided to students inside of the online classroom.
TIME FRAME: You are allotted two years from the date of enrollment, to complete this course. There are no set time-frames, other than the two year allotted time. If you do not complete the course within the two-year time-frame, you will be removed from the course and an “incomplete” will be recorded for you in our records. Also, if you would like to complete the course after this two-year expiration time, you would need to register and pay the course tuition fee again.
GRADING: You must achieve a passing score of at least 70% to complete this course and receive the 50 hours of awarded continuing education credit. There are no letter grades assigned. You will receive notice of your total % score. Those who score below the minimum of 70% will be contacted by AIHCP and will be permitted one more attempt to retake the online examination.
BOARD APPROVALS: The American Institute of Health Care Professionals (The Provider) is approved by the California Board of Registered Nurses, Provider number # CEP 15595 for 50 Contact Hours. Access information
Course Refund & AIHCP Policies: access here
ONLINE CLASSROOM RESOURCES AND TOOLS
- Examination Access: there is link to take you right to the online examination program where you can print out your examination and work with it. All examinations are formatted as “open book” tests. When you are ready, you can access the exam program at anytime and click in your responses to the questions. Full information is provided in the online classrooms.
- Student Resource Center: there is a link for access to a web page “Student Resource Center.” The Resource Center provides for easy access to all of our policies/procedures and additional information regarding applying for certification. We also have many links to many outside reference sites, such as online libraries that you may freely access.
- Online Evaluation: there is a link in the classroom where you may access the course evaluation. All students completing a course, must, without exception, complete the course evaluation.
- Faculty Access Information: you will have access to your instructor’s online resume/biography, as well as your instructor’s specific contact information.
- Additional Learning Materials: some faculty have prepared additional “readings” and /or brief lecture notes to enhance your experience. All of these are available in the online classrooms.
COURSE OBJECTIVES: Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
- To better understand when and how to integrate spirituality and cognitive therapy,
- To understand relationships between spirituality, religion, Cognitive Therapy (CBT), Existential Psychology, Humanistic Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Spiritually informed CBT,
- To learn of shortcomings of cognitive therapy when counseling spiritual individuals,
- To learn how to counsel individuals struggling with spiritual issues defined by Moody’s book “The Five Stages of Spirituality”,
- To learn how cognitive therapy interacts with various spiritual beliefs and various stages of spirituality,
- To learn how to counsel spiritual individuals through the manualized treatment approach,
- To learn techniques to counsel individuals with Christian focus out of depression when clinical skills are lacking or spirituality information of patient is lacking
COURSE CONTENT:
A brief abstract of content:
- Downing (2005) Characteristics of Cognitive Therapy (CT)
- Relation of Spirituality and the individual
- Primary causes of disorders
- About sharing transcendent experiences
- Measures of spirituality
- Relation of purpose and meaning to disorders
- Relation of soul realization and finding oneself
- Ellis REBT and CT
- Fromm humanistic religion
- Wollfolk, Lehrer, and Maslow’s existential psychology
- Disassociation, denial, social miseries, and detached religious attitudes
- Peace for painful thoughts, acceptance when not accepted
- Existential Therapy (ET), Transpersonal Psychology (TP), Jungian and religious psychotherapy
- Jung’s use of symbols and connection between emotional healing and spirituality
- Personal freedom and CT
- Client empowerment and psychoanalysis
- Jungian global spiritual appeal and alternative to CT
- Harry Moody Five stages of the soul
- TP relation to breakthrough spiritual stage
- Assagioli’s TP integration of spirituality & psychotherapy
- CT relation to automatic thoughts, statements of the mind, and messages of mind sent to self
- CT relation to peak experiences
- Good (2010) Spiritually informed CBT
- Mohr’s spirituality as one of four components of well being
- Spirituality relation to emotions
- Spirituality relation to search for meaning
- Spirituality and Hippocratic tradition
- Freud’s position on spirituality and mental health problems
- Behaviorists position on spirituality
- How metaphysical analysis explains world view
- How to identify distorted thinking patterns
- If religious leaders lack clinical skills
- Guided imagery, meditation, and other relaxation
- Should therapist seek God’s guidance
- Should therapist check mood in start of every session
- Should therapist psycho-educate
- Should therapist give homework
- Differences in useful biblical passages: declarative, descriptive, directive
- When in CT should cognitive strategies be taught
- Tools for visualization
- CT collaborative effort
- Using Socratic method in CT