Efficacy of a trainee-driven approach to achieving religious and spiritual competencies in psychotherapy

In this study, we sought to develop and test a trainee-driven educational intervention to increase competency in working with religion and spirituality (R/S) in psychotherapy. Trainees currently in mental health graduate training programs (N = 363) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) peer group plus self-study (PG), (b) immediate self-study (ISS), and (c) delayed self-study (DSS). All participants completed six weekly online training modules that included both didactic materials and deliberate practice. Using complete case analysis, we determined that compared to those in DSS, participants in PG reported a significantly greater increase from pre- to postintervention in religious/spiritual (R/S) cultural humility, R/S skills, comfort with R/S, positive R/S attitudes, and R/S self-efficacy. Compared to those in ISS, participants in PG reported significantly greater change in R/S self-efficacy in psychotherapy. We also compared these results with results using imputed data and only the comparison between DSS and PG remained significant for R/S skills and R/S self-efficacy. In addition, although participants in the peer-group plus self-study condition were less likely to complete both pre- and postintervention questionnaires, they completed almost twice as many training modules. The findings of this study support the possible benefit of trainee-driven educational interventions to help mental health graduate students increase their cultural humility, skills, comfort, positive attitudes, and self-efficacy for working with R/S in psychotherapy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).