Spiritual competency training in mental health and multicultural orientation and contemplative awareness: An evaluation of two training approaches with psychotherapists.

Abstract

The current literature for the various mental health professions is replete with studies demonstrating the critical importance of addressing spiritual and religious concerns in mental health treatment, yet many clinicians remain untrained in spiritual and religious competence. In recent years, researchers have developed training programs to support clinicians' understanding of how spirituality influences mental health and provided resources for how clinicians can address it with clients. The present study investigates the effectiveness of two online training programs, Spiritual Competency Training in Mental Health (SCT-MH) and a contemplative pedagogy-based program called Multicultural Orientation and Contemplative Awareness (MOCA), in enhancing spiritual and religious competence among counselors. We conducted a three-parallel-arm randomized controlled trial with a sample of practicing counselors to compare the SCT-MH (n = 10), MOCA (n = 15), and a wait-list control group (n = 29). We recruited our sample from state licensure boards for mental health practitioners, alumni listservs for counseling programs, and social media marketing. Additionally, the study examined the explanatory role of cultural humility on spiritual competence over time. Linear mixed modeling revealed a significant interaction between group and time, demonstrating that the SCT-MH group had a large effect and MOCA had a moderate effect in improving clinicians' total spiritual competence score compared with the control group. The findings suggest that both SCT-MH and MOCA can effectively enhance spiritual competence in counselors and cultural humility plays a significant role in this development. Implications and recommendations for implementation are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).