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The Uses of Religious Assessment in Counseling

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Religion, Personality, and Mental Health

Part of the book series: Recent Research in Psychology ((PSYCHOLOGY))

Abstract

Increasingly, it is becoming apparent that religion plays a part in mental health as well as in mental illness (cf. McPherson, 1988). What people believe about transcendent reality and how they act on those beliefs have been found to be intricately involved in their life adjustment and effectiveness (Atkinson, 1986). This essay considers some of the ways in which an assessment of how individuals are using religion in their daily lives can be employed in the counseling process, with counseling defined as intentional efforts to help persons adjust more effectively to the culture in which they choose to live and religion defined as the beliefs and practices of a group of persons who have bonded themselves together around a transcendent belief about the nature of reality and of life. Religious assessment is defined in terms of judgments about the extent to which persons are applying the tenets of their religious tradition to their daily lives.

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© 1994 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Newton Malony, H. (1994). The Uses of Religious Assessment in Counseling. In: Brown, L.B. (eds) Religion, Personality, and Mental Health. Recent Research in Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2696-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2696-3_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7631-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-2696-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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