Reply to Letters on Religious Meta-analysis

Greetings Ms. Smith,

I have recently come across a meta-analysis performed by McCullough (1999) in which he examines several different studies that compare Christian counseling techniques to non-religious counseling techniques. This meta-analysis is something that I feel you, along with the other clinic supervisors, should be made aware of due to the helpfulness it may provide for future studies and how the results of the analysis affect our current counseling techniques. Five different studies are represented in this meta- analysis and each study compared the differences of counseling depression through traditional approaches and through religious approaches. The main findings that resulted from this meta-analysis state that in each of the five of the studies there was no significant evidence to prove that a religious approach to counseling depression is any more or less effective than a traditional approach in counseling depression. I find this meta-analysis to be important in the context of Christian counseling, even though the results are not significant for several reasons. Although there is no evidence to prove that religion oriented counseling is any better than traditional methods, I feel that it is important to make the client feel comfortable by accepting and acknowledging their religion. Using religion to benefit the client and improve their well-being is something that creates a connection between client and counselor. While it may be true that using religious approaches to counsel depression is no more effective than standard approaches, it is also true that it is no less effective. Therefore, if a client prefers to be counseled using a religious approach then, in their case, using the religious approach may actually be more effective. Although this specific meta-analysis discovered that there is no distinct difference in religious techniques and traditional techniques, that does not mean there should be no more research on the matter. One topic that needs to be researched further is how religious and traditional approaches to treatment effect a wider array of disorders such as addiction or marital problems. Does taking a religious approach to treating addiction have a different effect than traditional approaches? This study would consist of both men and women, ages from 25-45, all of whom suffer from an addiction. The independent variable in this quantitative study would be the different counseling approaches performed on the participants. The independent variable would consist of two levels, the religious counseling approach and the traditional approach. The dependent variable of this study is addiction. The type of outcome measure to serve as the dependent variable would be a self-report where the participants are asked to report their drug or alcohol use during treatment and if they relapse. The level of measurement for the self-report is the scale level of measurement. Researching and delving deeper into the different effects of religious and traditional approaches on addiction will only give us further insight into how these two approaches may or may not differ. It is important to have as much information as we can about this topic in order to give our clients the best experience and counseling they can have and understand which techniques may benefit people more so than others. I appreciate your time and hope that with this information we, as a clinic, can move forward with greater knowledge and counsel our clients to the best of our abilities.

Sincerely,

Kylie Hoffman

(554)

Reference

Mccullough, M. E. (1999). Research on religion-accomodative counseling: Review and meta-

analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 46(1), 92-98. doi:10.1037//0022-0167.46.1.92