Mixing Faith and Counselling: a survey report from Indonesia

Dr. Aileen Mamahit is a lecturer in the Department of Counselling at the Southeast Asia Bible Seminary, in Malang, Indonesia. As an academic and practitioner with expertise in counselling, she developed a resource for trauma counselling that integrates psychology and spirituality by taking account of religious belief. Dr. Mamahit, and Dr. Jardim, Senior Fellow at CMCSO, formed a partnership to deliver a research project, surveying Muslim and Christian responses to counselling that integrates faith perspectives in Indonesia. The survey includes canvassing members of the public alongside a group of Christian and Muslim counselling practitioners to measure each group’s views on such integrated counselling and the extent to which they have made use of these services. The seminar on 25 October 2022 will report the findings of the survey firstly, in terms of religious affiliation and psychological training of practitioners, and the extent to which they apply their religion in their counselling practice. Secondly, the report seeks to understand from the counsellors how their client’s religion and religious community helps or constrains counselling efforts, with specific reference to trauma-related counselling in the context of Christian-Muslim relations in Indonesia. The report will form the basis to develop programmes and resources on ‘Mixing Faith and Counselling’ and would like to hear from others in this seminar about the place of religion in counselling research and practice.