Spirituality: A Multicultural Competence
Image of a person standing in front of a lake
Hi I’m Elsa Lau (she/they), a licensed clinical psychologist with a special interest in the psychology of spirituality (existential anxiety, meaning, purpose, and connection).
My hope is to share resources and heartfelt experiences at the intersection of spiritual diversity, psychology, and ecology. My research and clinical work in this area is motivated by a deep desire to help individuals, coaches, and therapists become more curious and prepared to explore spiritual processes and phenomena in healing work.
Mainstream clinical psychology education generally overlooks the language and frameworks of spiritual development, leaving therapists poorly equipped to handle spiritual emergence or emergencies. This skillset is a vital part of multicultural competence, and there is substantial literature on the interplay between spiritual life and mental health (it’s not all good nor bad, there is a lot of fascinating grey area!). Our contemporary materialist paradigm describes the physical and natural world as inert, and communication with the unseen world as “benign at best, pathological at worst.” This does not create space for diverse cosmologies and nuanced cultural realities which honor relationships with the natural and unseen world.
Pew research indicates that Americans are increasingly likely to identify as “spiritual but not religious.” 72% of Americans believe in heaven and the afterlife, which challenges the concept of a singular consensus reality. Clients also report that therapist openness greatly impacts their willingness to bring up spiritual issues in therapy* Becoming equipped with essential language can empower healing professionals to ethically and compassionately engage with spiritual issues impacting the human experience. As therapists become more spiritually curious, competent, and humble, we discover for our clients, and ourselves, more potent pathways to healing and re-enchantment in our modern world.
Hope you’ll come join the discussion and exploration ❤️
Resources
McClintock, C. H., Lau, E., & Miller, L. (2016). Phenotypic dimensions of spirituality: Implications for mental health in China, India, and the United States. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 1600.
Lau, E., McClintock, C., Graziosi, M., Nakkana, A., Garcia, A., & Miller, L. (2020). Content Analysis of Spiritual Life in Contemporary USA, India, and China. Religions, 11(6), 286.
https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
Harris, K. A., Randolph, B. E., & Gordon, T. D. (2016). What do clients want? Assessing spiritual needs in counseling: A literature review. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 3(4), 250–275.