Effects of the Religious and Spiritual Competencies Training in Brazilian Psychologists: A Pilot Study

It is observed that there is a significant increase in scientific publications on the subject of spirituality and religiosity in the health area. Such studies show that patients would like this topic to be addressed in their psychotherapy care, but it is identified that there is a lack of adequate training to carry out these issues for psychologists. So, this article aims to verify the effectiveness of an online training on the clinical management of religiosity, spirituality, secularity, and unusual experiences in psychotherapy for 46 Brazilian psychotherapist psychologists. As a result, we were able to observe the statistically significant increase in the total CRESEAP score, indicating that the competencies measured were satisfactorily developed. The P-DUREL (IR) scale was positively correlated in the pre-test with the CRESEAP subscale “Therapist’s Spirituality in the Therapeutic Relationship” before training and after, ceased to exist, demonstrating that the participants’ spiritual and religious beliefs were no longer interfering in the clinical practice. The ARES scale was positively related to the “Differential Diagnosis” subscale in the pre-test, and in the post-test, this association ceased to exist, indicating that all psychotherapists can perform the differential diagnosis, regardless of their faith. Therefore, the online training proved to be effective for developing spiritual and religious competencies in Brazilian psychotherapists, offering evidence-based resources to support professional performance on this topic. It is suggested that other studies be carried out with a larger number of participants and with comparative groups of therapists (working with different clinical approaches of psychotherapy, clinical experiences, and atheists).