Cultivating a Spiritually Integrative Psychotherapy Approach With Youth - Critique of the Study Paper Example

The title of the study was Cultivating a Spiritually Integrative Psychotherapy Approach With Youth. The research was undertaken by three researchers who are all professors and lecturers at different universities. Alexis V. Arczynski of the University of Oklahoma is a professor in the Department of Education Psychology, Susan L. Morrow of the University of Utah, Department of Educational Psychology, and finally Matt Englar-Carlson of California State University, Fullerton working and teaching in the Department of Counseling.

This study employed the qualitative method of induction and exploration using the beliefs of the individual whom they had a case with in the study. The study indicated that the qualitative methods they used were the most appropriate for that particular research. The purpose or the study questions was, how do clinicians integrate spirituality into therapy with youth. Using the snowballing method of sampling the researchers selected a sample of 11 clinicians who indicated that they used spiritual methods in their therapy sessions. There were also clinicians who used nonspiritual methods, and they constituted of six women and five men. One of the participants was a social worker who had no license. The age of the participants ranged from 32 years to 72 years with a clinical experience period ranging from 5 years to as much as 33 years. In the research sample, there were also focus group participants who would give an insight from a client's perspective. The religious affiliations of the research participants ranged from Christians, Latter-Day Saints, Catholic, Native Mexican spirituality, Muslim and nonreligious spirituality.

The number of study participants was 33, which was divided between the clinicians and the focus group participants, and they were all from different races Indians, Africans, Hispanics and Asian descents represented. The fact that they even considered clinicians who were not spiritually affiliated to using any spiritual methods in their clinical sessions shows that they were sensitive to the different groups of people. The sampling method that the researchers used was the snowballing sampling method which entails the study sample recruiting more samples from among their acquaintances. This was the case because the clinicians were the ones who availed the members of the focus groups to be used in the research study.

The method section of this research study contains minimal information, and as such, it is not suitable to compare it with another research study which used the same method. This study just gives minor details and sort of defines the qualitative study and gives it benefits. In fact, it would be difficult for the reader to replicate the same method for another research study because it does not give details of how the qualitative study was applied in details.

The researcher did present the limitations of the study, and the researchers indicated that the limitations they faced were that the study had a narrow scope of the races and the religious affiliations represented in the study. The researchers indicated that they continuously tried to recruit non-Christian participants and participants of color, but they refused to participate in the study. The other limitation was that the conceptual model used in this study was narrow and it could not cover such a large sample as was used in the study. The other limitation the researchers indicated was that the efforts to recruit the non-Christians in the United States was the fact that America has more Christians that non-Christian groups and as such this research sample cannot be applied to studies conducted in other countries.

The researchers did present future recommendations for the same research on the clinical implications and they were that evidence-based research in future would bring up solutions on how clinicians can incorporate a successfully spiritual methods their works with the youth.

I can introduce the research study to another population of clinicians who use spiritual methods in the work like the mentally unstable patient therapists who face numerous challenges, especially when working with their mentally unstable patients. The research used different races favoring the different races especially in the United States, Therefore, the research study present would be applicable especially to the youth patients.

The data was generated by combining various methods of data collection such as interviews of the respondents, participant observations and participant checks. The participants were interviewed, and the interviews lasted an average of about 36 to 70 minutes with the average length of the interviews being 56 minutes. The interview guide used had roughly 15 questions, which the respondents had to answer to. The interviews were recorded using audio recording devices. The data was analyzed by listening to the audio recordings, a stage which the study referred to as immersion and then followed by categorization which involved decoding the meanings of the information given by the respondents. The researchers also used different coding processes to make sense of the information that they had collected from the respondents.

The study was written and organized because it had the introduction and the definition of the terms used and every pother subtitle was explained separately which made it easy to understand the study. The findings of the study were written down, and even the questions which were used in the interviews were indicated in the study, and this made it very clear to interpret the results. The limitations were also clearly explained and overall the general outlook of the paper was commendable.

The demerit of the study was that it did not explain the research methods instead it only defined the qualitative method without going into the much-needed detail. It, however, analyzed the data very well and as such, it was fulfilling. It gave the answer to the research question at hand, and it showed at length how clinicians usually incorporate spirituality into their sessions.