Living As If: Belief Systems in Mental Health Practice (Jossey-Bass Social and Behavioral Science Series) - Softcover

Throughout history, the mental health professions have largely omitted religious and spiritual concerns in counseling practices. In this new book, Sarah R. Taggart argues that the exclusion of religious and secular beliefs from the mental health practice has cut off a crucial arena of the human experience--and alienated a potentially huge clientele. She reveals how our belief systems--the set of assumptions about reality which govern a person's life--support everything about our lives and provide their color, meaning, and flavor whether we are aware of it or not. And she shows how mental health practitioners can draw on these beliefs as yet another rich resource to understand client histories, orientation, and boundaries, as well as work toward healing solutions within these systems.

Living As If is a professional guide for psychologists, psychiatrists, clergy, psychiatric nurses, lay counselors, students of mental health, and others who are aware of the existing and growing need of clients to include spirituality in their quest to bring meaning and order to their livesand want to know how to do it. Through numerous real-life case studies, the author shows how practitioners can be more creative and accurate with referrals and assess the spiritual practices of their clients. Practitioners also learn how to improve their ability to evaluate how client participation in organized religion reflects and fortifies base beliefs and promotes psychological wholeness.