ABSTRACT
A crucial element in working with spiritual and religious issues is understanding the development of the client’s current faith system and beliefs. Similar to the understanding of human developmental stages, faith stages and spiritual development are key issues to conceptualizing the client and determining the best intervention toward healthy religious and spiritual growth. In this chapter, the authors describe Fowler’s faith stages (1981), Genia’s psychospiritual development (1995), and transpersonal development (Wilber, 2000) and apply these to three different case examples. Counselors will be able to integrate information gathered through assessment into a model which helps them understand where the client is in the faith development process.
