Psychotherapy trainees' perspectives on the impact, usability, and feasibility of an online program to increase multicultural orientation toward religious and spiritual clients.

Abstract

Given that spiritual and religious (S/R) topics can elicit discomfort and countertransference among psychotherapists, training frameworks that promote introspection and opportunities for repeated practice, or exposure, may be ideal starting points to develop S/R competencies. The current deliberate practice informed training program targeted cultural comfort and associated multicultural orientation constructs, aligning with prescribed attitude/awareness and broaching S/R competencies. This quasi-experimental, mixed method investigation analyzed whether a new S/R training program informed by deliberate practice principles was associated with changes in participants' (graduate students in graduate clinical/counseling psychology programs in the United States; N = 126) cultural comfort, self-perceived clinical performance, and self-perceived difficulty when engaging S/R video vignettes using specification curve analyses and a content analysis of follow-up interviews. Analyses indicated that all specifications had positive effects for the treatment (training condition, n = 65) for comfort (B_median = .46, range: .36-.58; 24 of 36 specifications were significant) and self-perceived performance (B_median = .48, range: .45-.55; all specifications significant). Analyses indicated that all specifications for treatment had an inverse association with self-rated difficulty, but all specifications were nonsignificant, suggesting no difference between training and control (n = 61) participants. Training condition participants indicated in a survey that the training was high quality, useful, and had no technology issues; the follow-up interviews with a smaller number of training condition participants provided insights into the training's strengths and weaknesses. The data in full create a roadmap for further study and training program modifications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).