Coping religioso: implicações para a prática clínica

Abstract

This study presents a empirical research which approaches the religious coping of people in psychotherapy before stressful situations. The first part corresponds to a theoretical revision of literature related to the themes: stress, health, coping, religious coping and psychotherapy. The second one, in empiric scientific article form, which, in turn, describes the qualitative analysis of interviews with eight people in cognitivebehavioral psychotherapy. The data indicate that the participants used their religious dimension to deal with crisis situations, in a way it is possible to say that this constituted an important coping resource before difficulties that arose in their lives, but without receiving the pertinent attention by their psychotherapists. Results underline the importance of clinical researchers and psychologists to recognize and be alert about both presence and influence of religious coping in their client´s lives. Thus, the theory of coping could be integrated in clinic psychology with the intention of developing psychotherapic methods that consider religion as a coping resource.