Our Purpose
The Spiritual Competency Academy offers mental health professionals a selection of unique courses that provide you with the skills and knowledge to become more spiritually competent. Our foundational curriculum starts with a course on how to conduct an evidence-based and spiritually sensitive spiritual assessment. Other courses cover a wide variety of topics including self-compassion, mindfulness, and forgiveness.
As a spiritually competent mental health professional, you can:
Improve Your Practice
SCA's courses allow you new insights and techniques when working with the realm of spirituality and religion in your therapy practice.
Conduct Spiritual Assessments with Your Clients
These groundbreaking ethically-sensitive spiritual assessments will address clients' spiritual strengths, beliefs, and problems.
Earn CE Credits
SCA is approved by the American Psychological Association, California Board of Registered Nursing, and other boards.
Build a Stronger Therapeutic Alliance with Your Patients
This alliance is based on showing respect toward your clients’ deeply held beliefs and values. This quality is all the more important in light of the pandemic.
Discuss Contemporary and Alternative Treatment Outcomes
You will be able to have evidence-based and ethically sensitive conversations with clients about how mindfulness, forgiveness, and compassion practices could improve their recovery and treatment outcomes.
Grow Your Client Base
Expertise in spiritual competency is a key to more successful outcomes that can lead to more referrals.
Share Your Knowledge
Share mindfulness, forgiveness, and compassion practices with clients through the use of free online resources including guided practices by leading mental health experts.
Understand Your Clients More Deeply
Harness your clients’ religious and spiritual strengths.
Connect with the Founders
David Lukoff, Ph.D.
Dr. Lukoff has published over 80 articles on spirituality and mental health, and is an active workshop presenter internationally on spiritual competency, grief, death, recovery, and spiritual crises. He is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, CA and previously served on the faculties of Harvard and UCLA….
Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D.
Cassi is also Director of Research and Development at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination and an Associate Research Scientist in the Division of Physical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. The Clarke Center advances understanding of the phenomenon of imagination and its practical applications. We research, enhance, and enact the gift of…
What Our Participants Are Saying
"The information and guidance in Dr. Lukoff's courses will soon be, if not already, mandatory for all health care professionals who choose to remain current and literate in their fields." -Jeanne Achterberg, Ph.D., Former Professor of Psychology at Saybrook Graduate School
"An excellent job of guiding people through the mental health resources." -John Suler, Ph.D, Department of Psychology, Rider University Webmaster: Psychology of Cyberspace
"I am so excited to know that I am not the only one seeing the importance of this concept and how it would help to broaden the area of wellness and emphasis on the mind, body, and spirit/psyche/soul."
"This course has helped me to see the progression of the relationship between spirituality and religion. The section on the history of religion and spirituality was fascinating."
"The information presented here will help me demonstrate to my interdisciplinary colleagues that spirituality is foundational to human care...or rather is the foundation of human/holistic care."
"Learning about the SSOPP model will help me to further develop my assessment skills. It has helped me to organize my own thinking around how to administer tan assessment during both specific chaplaincy referrals and general hospitality visits. Being better able to listen for R/S problems will help me to determine interventions depending on the length of admission."
"The topic of R/S problems give me better insight on the issues our mental health patients may be facing whether they express them or not. Thank you for this course...it really was 'right on time' considering how I am growing in both my consciousness and in my vocation."
"I found that the course was engaging as it used different ways of teaching...videos...reading...quizzes. You delivered important information essentially without dragging out with details."
"A good presentation, great selection of material and organization. This was a much more valuable use of my time than virtually all of the CEU courses I have to sit through."