Hi Listees: It's been a while. Here's my two cents. Mike, while I can agree with some of your statements and with yours too Ron, I'd like to go a step further. Mike, if I have a client whose "belief system" leads him/her to self destructive behaviors, am I (as a therapist) not obligated to "offer that client an opportunity" to broaden (and perhaps alter) that belief system? Is it (or is it not) my professional obligation to offer opportunities that allow/encourage that client to "see his issues from a different point of view", one that may very well not have ocurred to him/her, and one that may very well have the result of changing some aspect of the belief system so that this individual is less likely to enact self destructive behaviors? I believe that it is incumbent upon me to offer the "just right challenge" that offers the client an opportunity to become more efficacious in his/her life, to broaden horizons and empower each individual to make "better" decisions, based upon clear, ethically sound, therapeutic, supportive, well-reasoned information. I do believe there is a chasm between religion and spirituality. To my thinking religion is the wholesale swallowing of dogma and a set of tenets to the exclusion of any other possible "truth". Spirituality is more simple, straightforward conectedness to cosmic intent. I can certainly have my spirituality without running roughshod over someone's "religious beliefs". And I doubt I'll ever be accused of forfeiting an opportunity to say to the "christian", "The Lord helps those who help themselves". OR to the Buddhist, "As we believe, so it shall be". Heck, I'll bring along any message that supports "self-help" disguised in any "holy" rhetoric, IF IT MAKES THE CLIENT WORK TOWARD THEIR OWN GOALS!! "One person's religion is another person's belly laugh". Anon. Noel
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