The topic of spirituality has been of interest for many years in the helping professions ( Matise et al., 2018 ; Pargament, 2011 ). Another level of interest is how spirituality may be connected to anger that is culturally informed ( Subarimaniam et al., 2020 ). This writing approaches the topic of functional anger as impacted by the religious and spiritual beliefs with case vignettes pertinent to students, pastoral counselors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychotherapists, and other helping professionals.
It is a rare privilege to be invited to participate in a Native American Ojibwe sweat and I was fortunate to experience this as an all-female event with other counselors from across the US. As a pastoral counselor who comes from a Methodist Christian worldview, I thought it may be helpful to share my perspective with other counselors who may work with Native American clients who engage in this type of religious experience. Oftentimes we have difficulty in finding “common ground” from which to connect with clients from different cultures, and this experience helped me to see how our shared view of the Creator was such an opportunity. My intent here is to write from a position of honor and respect for the Ojibwe tribe and the Anishinaabe people, who were gracious in inviting our group to this sacred event.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.