Solomon M. Abardo Graduate Student, Guidance & Counseling Ateneo de Naga University Camarines Sur, Philippines

Contact: solomon_abardo@yahoo.com | Website: www.spiritualresearch.elasticweavers.com

Summary of Research

Where Angels Fear to Tread: Unveiling the Spiritual Dimension of Counselors and Clients

As corroborated by three international surveys (e.g., Gallup Polls International 1979, International Social Survey Programme 1991, and World Values Survey 1995-1996), Filipinos are the most religious and spiritual as a people in the planet (Natulla, 2003). In the World Values Survey alone, they attained the highest figures of 99% of the percentage of those believing in God. Spirituality is indeed embedded profoundly in the Philippine culture. Empirical studies reveal that in comparison to Western findings the most unique variable that influence their self-esteem (Dy, 2005), psychological growth and worldview (Dy-Liacco, Kennedy, Parker, & Piedmont, 2005), subjective well-being (Ramos, 2005) and choice of effective counselors (Guarino, 2007) is spirituality.

Owing to the significance of spirituality within the broader Filipino culture, spiritual elements are likely to be used by Filipino college students in the context of dealing with various life stressors and adversities. In his decades of work in the counseling arena, Salazar-Clemeña (1997) uncovered that when it comes to Filipino responses to counseling variables like expectations about counseling or counselors, the respondents would always mention God, divine intervention or moral values. In the college setting, recent research lends further credence. It has been discovered that across all college year levels among the frequently used strategies by Filipino students to cope with problems and concerns is prayer/meditation (Pabiton, 2007).

Taking into account that religion and spirituality serves as a major source of strength among Filipinos (Conde, 2004), it is it is imperative not to compartmentalize spirituality as an issue outside of the normal professional school counseling, particularly in colleges where youths are facing change and transition that will shape their future growth and success. For conventional school counseling to achieve and maintain relevance in a faith-centered culture, it has “to take an important step… from the deliberate exclusion of spiritual perspectives to an open and explicit integration of spirituality” (Salazar-Clemeña, 2000, p. 170).

Yet before this incorporation is threshed out in the educational policy circles, there is a need to conduct an investigation on the spirituality of both the counselors and the clients in order to ascertain the relevance of using spiritual dynamics or processses in the therapeutic context. Empirical data highlights the importance of counselor’s spirituality for the clients in the Philippine context (Camarillo-Coronel & Salazar-Clemeña, 1997; Guarino, 2007), yet quantitative assessment of this human aspect is undocumented. Further, an investigation of the same on college students is needed to confirm the extent to which spirituality permeates their lives.

Egan’s (1986) depiction of ideal counselors describes them as being dedicated to their growth and having adequate intelligence. Therefore, a good starting point for counselors is to identify their selves in spiritual well-being and spiritual intelligence scales and respond accordingly with a thorough self-examination before engaging the spiritual issues of clients in the counseling process.

Additionally, Filipino clients expect the counselor to be an experienced person that can provide advice and recommend a course of action. They attribute high levels of respect and trust to their counselors, whom they regard as authority figures that possess experience and intelligence which they look up to and from whom much they can learn (Kim, Atkinson, & Umemoto, 2001; Leong, 1986). Hence, assessing the spiritual wellbeing – the quality of life in the spiritual dimension – and the spiritual intelligence – the adaptive use of spiritual abilities, values and resources (Vaughan, 2002) – of Filipino school counselors merits investigation as it has ramifications to building trust and showing sensitivity in establishing a strong working alliance in the contact cycle with counselees who confront spiritual dilemmas that demand interactions on the deepest level of being.

Toward this end, a sequential explanatory mixed methods study will be undertaken to explore among the two counseling interactants the portrayal and expression of the spiritual functioning, using the concepts of spiritual well-being and spiritual intelligence. Its secondary concentration is to discover their attitudes towards including spirituality in the therapy.

In the quantitative phase of the study, spirituality will be explored among 30 counselors and 200 students by administering tests on spiritual well-being (SWB) and spiritual intelligence (SI). To further elaborate the information obtained in the first study, an in-depth case study of test-confirmed spiritual (spiritually-well and spiritually-intelligent) counselors and clients using research diaries and photo elicitation interviews will be conducted in the qualitative part of the investigation. Exemplar spiritual individuals will provide rich details on their spiritual well-being and spiritual intelligence In addition, the statistical investigation on the relationship between their levels of spirituality (as shown in the SWB and SI scores) and its influence towards their attitudes towards incorporating spirituality into counseling sessions will be studied in the first part of the research and will be probed in details in the second. Finally, an examination of the relationship between SI and SWB constructs will be conducted as well as the effects of age and gender variables towards the said constructs.

This mixed methods study is based on one aspect of a larger one-year research that is being undertaken as part of his M.A. thesis entitled “Where Angels Fear to Tread: Unveiling the Spiritual Dimension of Counselors and Clients.” The newly-developed Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI; King, 2007) will be utilized for measuring the spiritual intelligence of the respondents, and it is anticipated that this study will test the cross-cultural validity of the scale to the Philippine setting. Research on the spiritual intelligence of counselors and clients has not yet been conducted, thus the current study would be a contribution to the field.

Biography

Solomon grew up in the rustic island-province of Catanduanes, Bicol, Philippines. As a young boy, he was very inquisitive and adventurous. In his grade school, he would skip classes just to go outdoors with his friends and neighbors, climbing mountains or fishing in the rivers. He got easily bored in the class and started to be a disruptive student as he peppered his teachers with a barrage of questions, inquiring about the nature of things. But he was precocious as he was a fast learner. He enjoyed talking to colorful and often articulate individuals like clam diggers, lumber jacks, newspaper hawkers, snake handlers and theater apparatus operators.

During his teens, because his father was assigned to work in mainland Bicol, Solomon and his 11 siblings was transferred to the highly-urbanized city of Naga. Accustomed to the happy-go-lucky, expansive and free-spirited village life of the province, he was initially ill at ease in melding with the formal and narrowed culture of the suburban communities. Constrained by this turn of circumstances, Solomon fell in love with reading books and watching movies. He was particularly fond of Indiana Jones’ recklessness and derring-do.

At age 10, Solomon came to enjoy composing letters and essays. As a young citizen impacted by the current events, he penned dozens of letters to presidents, prime ministers, kings and other heads of state around the world – posing questions, sharing concerns and providing suggestions about world peace, global warming and other issues. Some wrote back. To this day, he still keeps those as mementoes.

Studying early on in public elementary school, Solomon completed his high school in a private institution under government scholarship. He took his tertiary education with a degree in Computer Science, with the help of his brother Ferdinand, at the University of Nueva Caceres and then AMA Computer University.

His audacity and energy stood out early when, as a freshman student, he ran as an independent candidate for student council president against big aspirants of well-oiled parties. Trailing as second in the final tally, and although struggling in English grammar (even unto this day), he turned his attention to the school publication and was chosen as the associate editor.

At age 17, Solomon volunteered as a student reporter for DZGE-AM Radio of Henry Briguerra. He won three national essay writing contests in his college years. Despite graduating in a different field, and yet because of his journalistic feats, he began working as the chief speechwriter for Governor Leandro Verceles, Jr. of Catanduanes (formerly Congressman). He worked at the same time as columnist and contributor to various local papers in the mainland.

Yet in spite of his achievements, Solomon gradually became uneasy and restless. It was during this time that he decided to shift to teaching at the same time pursuing counseling studies. Inspired by his mother’s devotion to her twelve children, who was a mellowing influence throughout his life, Solomon came to like the helping profession. The role of his Christian spirituality and compassion in surmounting his life’s challenges had also stirred him to pursue that path.

At present, Solomon is a graduate student at Ateneo de Naga University, taking Master of Education majoring in Guidance and Counseling. His thesis entitled “Where Angels Fear to Tread: Unveiling the Spiritual Dimension of Counselors and Clients,” is being completed under the supervision of Dr. Rufino L. Ramos, III, Director of College Guidance and Head of Guidance and Counseling Psychology Program of the same university.

The psychology of religion and multicultural counseling are his interests. “Mon,” as his family and friends fondly call him, plans to work in Canada as a college counselor for Filipino minorities, specializing in depression and spiritual issues.