A brief review of previous results on studies of therapist religious values is provided and compared with a new national survey of clinical psychologists, marriage and family therapists, social workers and psychiatrists. The results confirm other findings in that psychologists show low rates of conventional religious affiliation and participation; but we also discovered a substantial amount of religious participation and spiritual involvement among all groups of therapists beyond or in addition to traditional conventions. There may be a reservoir of spiritual interests among therapists that is often unexpressed due to the secular framework of professional education and practice. This phenomenon, which we termed "spiritual humanism," could provide the basis for new dimensions of practice that might bridge the cultural gap between a secular profession and a more religious public. A large number of distressed persons appear to desire help that is consistent with their spiritual frames of reference.

We conducted a national survey of clinical psychologists, marriage and family therapists, social workers, and psychiatrists to assess values pertinent to mental health and psychotherapy. The survey revealed considerable agreement among mental health professionals about this specific values domain. There was a strong relationship between their views of a value's importance for a positive, mentally healthy life-style and its usefulness in guiding psychotherapy. Differences in the characteristics of therapists were correlated with differences in their values. We also found factors related to value differences between professional groups. Implications for therapeutic philosophy and practice are considered, and the need for explicitness concerning values is emphasized. Freud (1959Freud ( /1912) defined psychotherapy as a technical procedure applied to mental disorders. Like surgery, it was intended to be an objective approach that did not involve the values of the practitioner in a direct way. Since the time of Freud, it has been a goal of most therapists to suppress their own beliefs and avoid shaping the values of clients. However, it has proved impossible to maintain such neutrality. The nature of psychological difficulties and the procedures required to overcome them have been recognized as partly problems of moral choice and life-style (London, 1986;Strupp & Hadley, 1977). Because of this, professionals have become more explicit about how values may operate in the psychotherapy process (Graham, 1980;Lovinger, 1984;Macklin, 1973) and in definitions of mental health (see Bergin, 1985bBergin, , p. 1191.It is now widely argued that values influence theories of personality and pathology (Weisskopf-Joelson, 1980), psychotherapy techniques (Beutler, 1976(Beutler, , 1981, the goals of treat-JAY P. JENSEN received his PhD in clinical psychology from Brigham Young University in 1986. He is in private practice and is also a clinical consultant to Child Psychological Services at

Among the many forms of psychotherapy mental health professionals practice, eclecticism has become the center of renewed interest. In a national survey, we identified the theoretical orientations of 423 mental health professionals. A majority of psychotherapists use an eclectic form of therapy. Our results are compared with other surveys in a review of 25 studies of psychotherapists, and differences between the surveys are discussed. We further examine eclecticism by analyzing its individual components; psychodynamic theory is apparently the most influential viewpoint. We also examine the differences between eclectics in 4 professional subgroups (psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and marriage and family therapists). Differences are noted in the content of the eclectic psychotherapy in each subgroup. Implications for practice and research are discussed.Contemporary mental health professionals are hard pressed to identify a dominant force in psychotherapy. Smith's (1982) national survey supported the notion that no single approach is ascendant in the field. Eclecticism, on the other hand, appears to have become more popular and recently, under the revised label integration, has become the focus of a new professional organization (Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration) and a new journal (Journal of 'Integrative and Eclectic Psychotherapy). This form of therapy has served as an alternative to strict adherence to one theoretical perspective. Clinicians may choose this alternative because they are not comfortable within the confines of a single theoretical metaphor and find more utility in a flexible approach. Garfield and Kurtz (1977) found that many eclectic psychotherapists simply felt that no single theory could adequately explain all psychopathology.Although the popularity of eclecticism has varied over the years, it has always generated a great deal of interest and debate. At one time, eclectic therapy was assumed to be a product of inexperience. When Wildman and Wildman (1967) found that eclecticism was the most popular form of therapy among clinical psychologists, they felt that its popularity "indicates that psychologists have not yet succeeded in formulating a single JAY P. JENSEN received his PhD in clinical psychology from Brigham "Young University (BYU) in 1986 and is currently in private practice in Orem, Utah.

This study investigated differences between men and women on perceptions of materialism, the importance of the family, and the traditional female role. It was hypothesized that highly religious women and men would respond in a similar manner with a lower value placed on materialism and higher values on importance to the family and traditional female roles. A questionnaire was administered to over 4,000 Protestant, Catholic, and LDS college students. Highly religious groups from each denomination endorsed less materialistic views and supported a more traditional female role; gender differences were greater in the group low on religiosity on the value of the family.

This study was conducted to investigate whether men and women differ in what they view as important. Using Gilligan's theory, it was predicted that women would prefer a more caring, personal world-view. A questionnaire with 40 contrasting word pairs and phrases was developed to measure this caring perspective. It was administered to 56 husbands and wives. They were each asked to circle the choice of each pair that was more important to them. Using chi squared, 14 of the word pairs showed a significant difference between men and women, and all differences were in the direction predicted.