Lived religion and family therapy: what does spirituality have to do with it?

This review examines fundamental and methodological issues concerning the cross-disciplinary efforts of family therapists to involve spirituality in their clinical practice. Training requirements, challenges, and limitations are discussed. It is suggested that the construct lived religion is the best starting point for this work. Lived religion is a term that addresses the real, lived, experiential, and intimate dimensions of our religious life. It is also tied to a variety of academic disciplines that can guide and deepen thought. Significant problems and limitations are identified with the term spirituality. It is suggested that if clinicians continue to prefer spirituality as a construct, that it be seen as a form or expression of lived religion. This way the links to various discipliines are maintained and idiosyncratic efforts will be minimized. Methods that attempt to integrate spirituality and family therpay are also found to be lacking. For nearly a half century American divinity schools have developed various co-relational methods which foster more respectful and productive discourse calling for the goals and objectives of mental health and religion to be equally value and maintained. In this way the piftalls of reductionism, or oversimplification, and anti-institutional bias can be lessened.