Let’s Unpack This: Supervising Religious Counselors Working with Religious Trauma

Let’s Unpack This: Supervising Religious Counselors Working with Religious Trauma

Oral - Theoretical Proposal

How do counseling supervisors address vicarious trauma and burnout in the context of treating religious trauma? The lack of research on supervising cases of religious trauma poses a specific challenge in supporting emerging counselors, particularly emerging counselors who, themselves, engage in religious practices. This suggests the need of a supervision approach specific to the unique value conflict present when religious counselors work with individuals who have experienced religious trauma. Religious trauma has become more recognized in the past two decades of counseling research as a form of betrayal trauma (Cashwell & Swindle, 2018; Pressley & Spinazzola, 2015), but little research has been completed on how this can or should be addressed within the realm of supervision. Working with survivors of trauma naturally poses existential questions for counselors related to the meaning of life and the existence of a higher power (Cashwell & Swindle, 2018; Hardiman & Simmonds, 2013). Spiritual well-being has been identified as a buffer for burnout (Hardiman & Simmonds, 2013), but Issues of faith and religion may complicate feelings of burnout for counselors who participate in the same religious practices as the ones discussed in session (Cashwell & Swindle, 2018). Effective trauma-informed person-centered supervisors should provide a safe, non-judgmental, and non-critical relationship to provide an accepting environment to discuss challenging concepts (Callifronas & Nina, 2017; Cashwell & Swindle, 2018). The goal of this presentation is to empower counseling supervisors to use a strength-based, collaborative approach to encourage emotional connection and reduce the risk of burnout in religious supervisees who are counseling individuals with religious trauma.