Perceived barriers and pathways to religious inclusion: UK Muslim clients' perspectives on faith in therapy

This study explored how Muslim clients experience the minimisation or exclusion of religion in therapy and identified their recommendations for making therapeutic practice more inclusive of faith.

A qualitative design using reflexive thematic analysis was employed to examine participants' lived experiences and meaning-making processes.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 Muslim adults in the UK who had received therapy in both NHS and private settings. Data were analysed inductively to capture individual and systemic influences shaping the minimisation or exclusion of religion in therapy.

Two overarching themes were developed: perceived barriers to discussing religion in therapy reflected therapists' limited confidence and knowledge, secular service frameworks and participants' resulting self-censorship. Recommendations for facilitating religious inclusion captured participants' calls for faith-sensitive competence, proactive engagement with religion in therapy and organisational change to legitimise faith within professional practice.

Excluding religion risks marginalising clients' core identities and undermining therapeutic safety and ultimately compromising the effectiveness of treatment. Embedding religious competence within training, supervision and service policy is vital to ensure therapy is culturally responsive, ethically grounded and genuinely inclusive for clients of faith.