The Core Category: Spanning the Gulf Between ‘Doing and ‘Being – Self-

The findings suggest that practitioner reflexivity, in respect of their perceived impact, when working with a client’s religious beliefs, is experienced as a difficult and uncertain process, at times, that requires the continual authentic merging and blending of the religious and professional self. Notwithstanding this, it can also be a complex tree of meaning, intricate patterns within the therapeutic relationship, working together to bring revelatory moments to both client and practitioner.

Most participants in this study described their therapeutic relationships with religious clients as being meaningful and that it connected practitioners to new parts of themselves which significantly deepened their attunement with the client. However, when practitioners were less reflexive about how their client may have impacted them, they became dislocated from the client and managed their internal responses, by keeping their distance. Some participants experienced a profound internal conflict about what they thought they should be doing versus how they would have liked to

4 _{An additional sub-category, extracted from the final draft of this chapter can be found in Appendix J.}

5_{Direct excerpts from participant’s interviews are shown in italics together with the participant code/pseudonym.} Some quotations have been shortened where necessary which has been indicated by the use of three dots (…) and an omission in data or an inclusion of additional information for the purpose of clarification is denoted by square brackets [ ]. Each quote is referenced by the participant code and line number.

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have responded to the client. The processes of distancing and reflexivity seemed to have a bi-directional relationship that affected all phases of reflexivity, which is discussed further at the end of this chapter.

Four types of reflexive “process channels” were identified in the data and can be seen in the figure 3 below:

Figure 3. Reflexive Process Channels Identified.

Category 1: Attunement: Seeing what is heard focusses on the experience and

process of consciously entering in to a full engagement with a client’s religious orientation, working with the client’s perspective, from the inside out (a close encounter). This includes factors like practitioners’ subjective experience with religion in their own life, both historically, as well as, the quality of their current relationship to it; their authenticity and watchfulness. Some factors influencing misattunement with the client, in this phase, are also mentioned.

Category 2: Boundaried Distancing: Seeing, but not perceiving presents a

section that is central to all participants experiences of the process of managing their internal responses when working with a client’s religious beliefs – keeping a conscious distant engagement with the client and working with more distant perceptions of religious concepts. Each of the subcategories: influences of insider/outsider perceptions; clouded perceptions; perceiving from a distance; doing,

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not being; (and being autonomous, see Appendix J), were created from conflicts that many practitioners experienced about wanting to engage more fully with their client’s religious beliefs, but were grappling with the uncertainty of how to do this, whilst feeling constrained to work within certain professional boundaries.

In this phase, practitioners tended to engage in defensive strategies within a more distant therapeutic relationship. It is further shown that when practitioners are less engaged with their client, in the absence of being properly reflexive, their interventions could be mismatched to the client’s needs, which carry implications for the therapeutic relationship.

Factors that illustrate how participants experienced the pressure of internal and external forces, in the wider context, are presented; and how practitioners’ intrapersonal discomfort is maintained, when there is a complex interaction within the client’s clinical and religious presentation that is confusing to work with.

Finally, findings concerning the role of attribution of professional responsibility are given, highlighting the power dynamic in the therapeutic relationship and the relationship this has with the process of misattunement in this phase and the possibility of re-attuning to the client. This also identifies how distant therapeutic relationships are interpersonally managed within the context of broader relationships with colleagues and in supervision.

Category 3: Impasse Distancing: Hearing, but not seeing presents findings that

show how religious estrangement can lead to unconscious acts that may be unhelpful and require awareness, an ongoing therapeutic task that must be continually considered and monitored.

This section highlights the intrapersonal negotiations which may arise when therapists’ strain under misattunement, experience gaps in understanding and manoeuvre out of therapeutic tightspots – the resulting dislocation triggers a crisis to self and professional identity.

When in this phase of client engagement, participants expressed the tendency to ‘say things off pat’. This property, named, “auto-thinking” came from P5 who said that his responses were so ingrained from his clinical training and that he rarely thought about how a client’s religious issues affect him personally.

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The difficulty of facing a darker undercurrent, a reality sometimes betrayed in a gesture, or an expression, like, “the unstoppable force meets the immovable object”, hovered on the periphery of some interviews, like a ghost in the corner.

Category 4: Closing the gap in understanding and working through dilemmas to attunement

This category brings together the participants’ experience of working with clients’ religious beliefs and, also, the things they feel frustrated about in the wider therapeutic context. Most religious participants agreed that the stigma of religious stereotypes and having to adhere to the professional norm of being neutral meant that they were extremely careful about revealing their own religious identity to a client.

The findings presented highlight the challenge of closing the gap in understanding, while continually being mindful of the need to be reflexive. The analysis illustrates how successful handling of practitioner dislocation requires constant adjustment in the areas of professional self and religious orientation.

Snapping out of misattunement and moving towards attunement comprises two subcategories: ‘misattunement as a crisis experience involving professional identity: negotiating dilemmas of treading into the unknown’ and ‘practise what we preach’ which are presented below.

In this chapter, I will explore each of the above processes in more depth. I will begin by, firstly, looking inward, at the internal process of reflexivity within the practitioner concerning their perceived impact of the client’s religious beliefs on them. I will then turn the focus outward, looking at how practitioners expressed this internal process within the therapeutic relationship (how it manifested) and the associated consequences of these actions/responses.

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