Enhancing Cultural Comfort with Existential, Spiritual, and Religious Topics in Psychotherapy

Clients often enter therapy with concerns that have existential, spiritual, and/or religious (ESR) elements. Such topics are culturally laden and often elicit discomfort or uncertainty in others, including therapists, which can result in therapists avoiding, minimizing, or otherwise signaling reluctance to discuss ESR themes. Given that client perceptions of therapist cultural comfort (i.e., discussing culturally laden topics with ease) are associated with better therapy outcomes (Bartholomew et al., 2021), the current session explores common sources and manifestations of therapist discomfort...Read more with ESR topics and introduces strategies for regulating this discomfort. Case vignettes and discussion will be interwoven throughout. Less...

Register for this Webinar

Learning Objectives

  • Describe and demonstrate behavioral indicators of comfort toward clients’ existential/spiritual/religious experiences or topics.
  • Identify and describe how one’s levels of cultural (dis)comfort toward different clients’ existential/spiritual/religious experiences or ideas manifest.
  • Identify two ways to regulate cultural discomfort toward clients’ existential/spiritual/religious experiences or topics.

Friday, October 09, 2026

Live Interactive Webinar

01:00 PM EDT - 03:00 PM EDT

Register for this Webinar
EARN 2 CE Credit Hours

About the speaker

Stephanie Winkeljohn Black, PhD

Stephanie Winkeljohn Black, PhD

Associate Professor, Penn State Harrisburg, PA
Stephanie Winkeljohn Black is a licensed psychologist and associate professor at Penn State Harrisburg. She has published over 45 scholarly articles and book chapters and contributed to over 60 presentations on topics related to cultural processes in psychotherapy training and supervision. Her primary focus is on developing and providing psychotherapy training on clients’ religious, spiritual, and existential needs and wellbeing, which is addressed in the forthcoming book Existential-Spiritual Psychotherapy (a Cambridge Press Element), coauthored with Dr Elena Kim.

Agenda

1:00 – Introduction and housekeeping

1:10 – Existential, spiritual, and religious markers in
psychotherapy: An Overview

1:40– Identifying and addressing common sources of therapist
(dis)comfort 

2:30 – Q&A

2:55 – CE process (Solihten)

CE Information - Earn 2 CE Credit Hours

CE Approvals

Joint Accreditation
Joint Accreditation
In support of improving patient care, CE Learning Systems is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
American Psychological Association
Continuing Education (CE) credits for psychologists are provided through the co-sponsorship of the American Psychological Association (APA) Office of Continuing Education in Psychology (CEP). The APA CEP office maintains responsibility for the content of the programs.
National Board of Certified Counselors
Solihten Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7157. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Solihten Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
New York Education Department's State Board for Social Work
CE Learning Systems, LLC  (d/b/a impactce.com) is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers. #0060.
New York Education Department for Licensed Mental Health Counselors
CE Learning Systems, LLC  (d/b/a impactce.com) is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0072.
New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology
CE Learning Systems, LLC  (d/b/a impactce.com) is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists. #PSY-0016.
New York Education Department's State Board for Marriage and Family Therapy
CE Learning Systems, LLC  (d/b/a impactce.com) is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Marriage and Family Therapy as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists. #MFT-0045.

CE Process Info

Before the event, you will receive an email from CE-Go with access to the virtual event. After the event, you will receive access to your evaluation and continuing education certificate via a personalized "attendee dashboard" link, hosted on the CE-Go website. This link and access to the virtual event will be sent to the email account you used to register for the event.

Upon accessing the CE-Go "attendee dashboard", you will be able to:

  • Complete evaluation forms for the event
  • Download your continuing education certificate in a PDF format

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the CE-Go platform, please contact CE-Go at 888-498-5578 or by email at support@ce-go.com Please Note: Emails for this event will come from "support@ceactivities.com".

If you have any continuing education related questions, please contact your event organizer.

Please make sure to check your spam/junk folder in case those emails get "stuck". We'd also suggest "Allowlisting" support@ceactivities.com. This tells your email client that you know this sender and trust them, which will keep emails from this contact at the top of your inbox and out of the junk folder.

Disclosure

DISCLOSURE OF RELEVANT FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
CE Learning Systems adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical Education. Any individuals in a position to control the content of a CE activity ― including faculty, planners, reviewers, or others ― are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with ineligible entities (formerly known as commercial interests).

The following relevant financial relationships have been disclosed by this activity’s planners, faculty, and the reviewer:


PLANNERS AND REVIEWER
The planners of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships.

FACULTY
The faculty of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships.