Satisfaction With Christian Psychotherapy and Well-Being: Contributions of Hope, Personality, and Spirituality

Christian psychotherapy is in high demand but in the few existing studies, outcomes from spiritually accommodated treatments typically do not outperform secular treatments on mental health outcomes. Likewise, it is unclear whether spiritual patient factors account for variance in satisfaction with treatment or patient well-being beyond what is explained by other patient factors. We conducted 2 studies on adults who attended Christian psychotherapy within the last 6 months to understand the relative contributions of patient factors to satisfaction with Christian psychotherapy and current well-being. We drew on hope theory as a primary general patient factor but considered personality traits given prior research. Second, we drew upon attachment theory framed as attachment to God (AG) as the primary patient spiritual factor but considered spiritual practices. In Study 1 (2 Christian universities; N = 75), hope accounted for most variance but Extraversion was also predictive. Spiritual factors, primarily AG, added incremental value. In Study 2, we sampled adults (Amazon's Mechanical Turk [Amazon mTurk]) who saw different providers (clergy, 46; mental health, 57). Dispositional hope accounted for most of the variance in satisfaction with, and a willingness to return to, treatment as well as general and spiritual well-being. Spiritual factors (AG, practices) predicted additional variance for all criteria in the mental health sample but were only related to general well-being in the clergy sample. We concluded that when patients' perspectives are considered, most of the variance in treatment satisfaction can be accounted for by hope but spiritual factors, primarily AG, add nuanced incremental value.