Rodger K Bufford

Norms for the Spiritual Weil-Being Scale

As part of the growing interest in quality of life and subjective well-being, the Spiritual Well-Being Scale was constructed to measure the spiritual dimension. Research has shown good reliability for the scale and has provided encouraging support for its validity. It indicates well-being in a variety of spheres, including physical and mental health, psychological adjustment, and assertiveness. However, no norms have been published and little descriptive data have been readily available for the scale. Test-retest and internal consistency reliability coefficients and descriptive data are presented for several religious, student, and client groups. In evangelical samples the typical individual gets the maximum score; thus, the scale is not useful in distinguishing among individuals for purposes such as selection of spiritual leaders. The scale is currently useful for research and as a global index of lack of well-being.

Consecrated Counseling: Reflections on the Distinctives of Christian Counseling

Authors seeking to clarify the distinctives of Christian counseling have chiefly emphasized (a) the context of counseling—church and parachurch settings, (b) the context or intervention techniques and the topics addressed in counseling, (c) the motivations or goals of counseling—conversion, discipleship, and service, and (d) counselor characteristics—assumptions/world view, personal relationship with God, and ecclesiastical role (e.g., pastoral). Viewed superficially there seems little agreement. Considering factors that are implied, but not emphasized, significantly increases agreement among authors. Clear identification of the distinctives of Christian counseling has been complicated by the failure to distinguish between spiritual counseling and mental health counseling. Christian counseling (a) requires deep personal faith, (b) is done with excellence, (c) reflects a Christian worl dview, (d) is guided by Christian values, (e) actively seeks Gods presence and work, and (f) uses spiritual resources and interventions within ethical guidelines. Such consecrated counseling is primarily concerned with the person of the therapist, is consistent with many theoretical models and techniques, and can be adapted to the great variety of human needs.

Resolving Anger Toward God: Lament as an Avenue Toward Attachment

Psychologists have mostly overlooked the topic of anger toward God. The current study tested an intervention based on the biblical psalms of lament, consisting of 20 devotional readings and weekly experiential assignments, delivered electronically over a four-week period. A total of 192 college students at Christian institutions across the United States completed the study, and were randomly assigned to the experimental condition, an attention control condition, or a no-contact condition. The expected findings—that the experimental intervention would cause decreased feelings of anger and complaint toward God, as well as increased intimacy with God over time—were not confirmed. However, those participants who reported maximum compliance with the intervention showed increased ratings on Communion with God. Implications are discussed.

The Church and Community Mental Health; Unrealized Potential:

During the past two decades the community mental health approach has enjoyed rapid growth and broad acceptance. Widespread human need, limited professional resources, and the high cost of professional services are major factors which contributed to these developments. Economic considerations, however, have proven to be a major factor limiting implementation of the community mental health approach. The church has great potential to promote community mental health through primary prevention and can contribute to a lesser degree through tertiary prevention. The church offers meaning and purpose to life, and a setting which can foster commitment to mutual caring and concern. Religious involvement can lead to an increased sense of personal well-being. Finally, the church has available a large pool of dedicated volunteers, thus circumventing the financial limitations which have hampered implementation of community mental health goals. So far, however, the community mental health movement has only given limited attention to the role of the church. A conceptual model which suggests the role of the church and professionals in fostering positive mental health professionals is presented; examples of current approaches consistent with the model are discussed.

Cognitive-Behavioral Marital Enrichment among Church and Non-Church Groups: Preliminary Findings

The effects of a cognitive-behavioral marital workshop given to couples from diverse church and non-church groups were examined to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach to marital enrichment in a quasi-experimental outcome study. With pretest scores on the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) held constant, all groups showed significant treatment effects, with effect size ranging from .97 to 1.20. There were no differences among groups, no gender effects, and no interaction of group and gender. Effects were twice the average reported in the meta-analysis of Giblin, Sprenkle, and Sheehan (1985). The consistency of effects suggests that results are likely to generalize widely to church members who voluntarily participate in marital enrichment, and may also extend to non-church groups.

The importance of group cohesion in inpatient treatment of combat-related PTSD.

Abstract Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most widespread mental illness resulting from exposure to combat, necessitating an increase in the provision of group therapy. This pilot study examined the efficacy of, and treatment outcome predictors associated with, group inpatient treatment of combat-related PTSD. Participants included 38 active duty military personnel deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), diagnosed with PTSD, and consecutive admissions to an inpatient PTSD treatment facility. A paired samples t-test revealed significant change in symptom severity and global functioning between pre- and post-treatment. Multiple regression analyses supported the predictive utility of baseline symptomatology and group cohesion (> 50% of the variance in treatment outcome), highlighting the importance of group cohesion in the efficacy of group treatment for combat-related PTSD.

Preliminary Analyses of Three Measures of Grace: Can They Be Unified?

Grace is an interesting and potentially significant domain within positive psychology, but remains largely neglected. The present study examined the relationships among three known grace scales to evaluate the potential for creating a stronger single measure. It also explored their relationships to several other religious/spiritual measures to examine whether the three scales are measuring the same construct, to explore the implications for our understanding of grace, and to provide insights for further study. The three measures had moderately strong correlations with each other (r = .55 to .66), had similar relationships to other measures of religion/spirituality, and had distinct relationships to measures of psychological health and distress. This suggested that the three scales measure somewhat different constructs. Two grace scales showed significant negative skew, indicating ceiling problems. Differences in the underlying grace constructs, contamination by other concepts, or an underlying multidimensional structure for grace could account for these differences. Further study should better articulate the constructs underlying grace measures, address problems related to negative skew in responses, and clarify whether grace is multidimensional.

Dimensions of Grace: Factor Analysis of Three Grace Scales

Measuring grace is challenging. Prior research found the Grace Scale (GS), Richmont Grace Scale (RGS), and The Amazing Grace Scale (TAGS) to be reliable, have promising convergent and divergent validity, and to intercorrelate strongly. However, they may tap different constructs, or grace may be multidimensional (Bufford, Blackburn, Sisemore, & Bassett, 2015). Here 2 exploratory factor analyses showed 5 factors: experiencing God’s grace, costly grace, grace to self, grace from others, and grace to others. Items from all 3 scales loaded on Factor 1, items from the RGS on Factor 2. The remaining factors were mostly GS items. Preliminary validity for the 5 factors is promising. Regressions showed that combinations of the other 4 proposed scales accounted for at most about on third of the variance on any given grace factor. The 5 factors showed different patterns of relationships to criterion variables. We propose a 36-item Dimensions of Grace Scale.

A Gratitude Intervention in a Christian Church Community

This field experiment examined the effects of a gratefulness intervention in the context of a Christian church congregation. Two Christian congregations with comparable demographic and socio-economic characteristics were enrolled and assigned to the experimental and comparison conditions. The gratitude intervention was developed collaboratively with church leaders. Though within-subject effects were found for psychological well-being, spiritual well-being, life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, daily spiritual experiences, and favorable views of psychology and interdisciplinary collaboration, the comparison group showed similar increases to the intervention group. Thus, the effects of the gratitude intervention were supported within but not across groups. No significant changes occurred on measures of interpersonal engagement. This research represents the first quasi-experiment to study a gratitude intervention within a faith congregation. In spite of methodological limitations, it highlights the potential benefit of gratitude interventions designed in collaboration with clergy.

Reflections on Lothstein's Review

251 Carilyn C. Ellis, Mary Peterson, and Rodger Bufford are affiliated with the Graduate Department of Clinical Psychology at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. Jon Benson, a former graduate of George Fox University’s Clinical Psychology Program, provides contract supervision for doctoral students at the inpatient hospital that was the focus of study for this research. ELLIS ET AL. RELPY TO LOTHSTEIN