The Leadership
Scientist™

This qualitative, experimental, multiple-case study explored depression in the Black Church and the counseling practices of six Evangelical African American clergy in North Carolina regarding their willingness to integrate evidence-based mental health treatments with their traditional religious counseling approaches. A semi-structured interview was utilized for the qualitative analysis, and for the experimental portion, a pretest/posttest with educational intervention was employed. Utilizing Braun and Clarke’s reflective thematic analysis, the semi-structured interviews for each of the participants revealed the following five themes: (1) Unique clergy needs in bridging evidence-based treatments and theological treatments: Each participant had distinctive needs affecting their perceptions of integrating secular methods with their theological convictions. One participant expressed a need for pastoral training, while another expressed a need for her small, rural church to obtain financial resources that would give them access to quality mental health professionals. (2) Complex theological perspectives impact decision-making: Participants’ distinctive theological positions impacted how they viewed and integrated secular approaches. Some with a more active view of divine intervention were less inclined to use secular methods. (3) Exploring religious coping, religious trauma, and reappraisals: Participants had unique experiences with religious coping, and some participants' views are linked to signs of religious trauma, which impacted their utilization of evidence-based treatments. As in “Case Study 2,” those with a higher view of divine intervention saw less of a need for secular methods; however, in more severe mental health cases, there was an increased willingness. (4) Fostering cultural competence and collaborative conversations between clergy and mental health professionals: Participants revealed a willingness to foster cultural competence and collaborative conversations between clergy and mental health professionals. (5) Mental health education empowers and creates a sense of belongingness: After the educational intervention, the differences between the pretests and posttests revealed that participants demonstrated that mental health education empowers them to use secular treatments and creates in them a sense of belongingness with like-minded clergy. There was demonstrative change in the participants’ willingness to use secular methods after the educational intervention. Similarly, the intervention seemed to increase participant willingness to explore further mental health resources for their counseling practice. This study influences social change by providing insights for promoting clergy and mental health collaboration and helps clergy understand ways to transform cultural and religious norms to mitigate mental health and religious trauma concerns in African American churches.