Training clinicians to deliver spiritual psychotherapy for inpatient, residential, and intensive treatment (SPIRIT).

Abstract

We designed and implemented a multimodal training program for clinicians in how to deliver spiritual psychotherapy for inpatient, residential, and inpatient treatment (SPIRIT), a group-based, spiritually integrated psychotherapy for acute psychiatric settings. The overall goals for this project were to facilitate competency in spiritually integrated psychotherapy among clinicians and meeting established needs for spiritual psychotherapy among patients presenting for acute psychiatric treatment. Our training program in SPIRIT includes the following elements: (a) a training manual, (b) 80-min training video, (c) brief competency exam, and (d) practice component involving the provision of SPIRIT to at least 12 groups of patients. This article provides an overview of the training program and describes its initial dissemination with a multidisciplinary cohort of 17 clinicians within the Massachusetts General Brigham health system, who collectively provided treatment to over 700 diagnostically, demographically, and religiously diverse patients. We also provide preliminary feedback from select clinicians about their experience in the training program, areas for future development, and implications for training clinicians in evidence-based spiritual psychotherapy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).