George Stavros

About

George Stavros is a Clinical Associate Professor of Pastoral Psychology and the Executive Director of the Danielsen Institute at Boston University. He holds a PhD in Pastoral Psychology from Boston University, an MDiv from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, an MS in Sports Administration from St. Thomas University, and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University. His clinical and research interests focus on the connection between mental health and spirituality in clinical practice, as well as clergy and clergy family wellness. He is a licensed psychologist and has been a licensed Health Service Provider in Massachusetts since 1999. Stavros has contributed extensively to the fields of pastoral and clinical psychology through teaching, research, and leadership. He has served as Director of Clinical Services and Clinic Director at the Danielsen Institute, and has been involved in developing and leading programs that integrate spirituality with psychotherapy. His scholarly work includes co-authoring 'Relational Spirituality in Psychotherapy' and co-editing 'The Skillful Soul of the Psychotherapist,' emphasizing the importance of relational and spiritual dimensions in mental health treatment. He has published numerous articles on relational spirituality, attachment, and the psychological benefits of religious practices, and has presented widely on topics such as resilience, clergy wellness, and the intersection of spirituality and mental health. His work…

Research topics

• Psychotherapist
• Psychology
• Medicine
• Political Science
• Clinical psychology
• Theology
• Pedagogy
• Psychiatry
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Relational spirituality in psychotherapy: Healing suffering and promoting growth.

  American Psychological Association eBooks · 2020 · 73 citations

  "Spiritual and existential struggles tell a story about the quality of clients' lives, beyond what clinicians can learn from their mental health symptoms alone. This book presents the Relational Spirituality Model (RSM) of psychotherapy, a creative clinical process that engages existential themes to help people make sense of profound suffering or trauma. To promote healing and growth, practitioners using the RSM provide a secure and challenging therapeutic space, while guiding clients as they ex…

  PublisherDOI

• Testing a relational spirituality model of psychotherapy clients’ preferences and functioning

  Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health · 2020 · 23 citations

  This study tested hypotheses about client preferences and functioning based on a relational spirituality model of psychotherapy in a sample (N = 101) of adult clients at a community mental health center in the northeastern United States. Most clients wanted to engage spiritual, religious, and existential issues in treatment and this preference was positively related to both spiritual/religious commitment and questing. Clients’ ratings of therapist diversity sensitivity were associated with ratin…

  PublisherDOI

• Supporting chaplains on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed-method practice-based pilot intervention study.

  Psychological Services · 2022 · 13 citations

  = 77) to evaluate a novel spiritually integrated support group intervention for chaplains across multiple industries, which consisted of five Zoom-based sessions cofacilitated by psychotherapists. Participants completed pre- and postintervention measures of traumatic stress, burnout, spiritual/moral struggles, flourishing, resilience, and overall experience in the group. Qualitative findings elucidated the salience of peer support, therapeutic group processes, and key intervention components tha…

  PublisherDOI

• Humility, differentiation of self, and clinical training in spiritual and religious competence

  Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health · 2020 · 12 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Spiritual and religious (S/R) competence is an important yet under-studied area of clinical multicultural competence. In a sample of clinicians who attended seminars on a specific S/R group training model, we examined the roles of humility and differentiation of self (DoS) in predicting S/R attitudes and S/R self-efficacy, as well as perceived barriers to implementing this training model in clinical settings. DoS mediated the relationship between humility and S/R self-efficacy, but not between h…

  PublisherDOI

• Latent trajectories of change for clients at a psychodynamic training clinic

  Journal of Clinical Psychology · 2019-02-28 · 10 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Objective Employing practice‐based research methods, we addressed the need to examine the effectiveness of psychodynamic treatment as a supplement to the efficacy evidence offered by randomized clinical trials. Method We used person‐centered analyses to generate latent subgroups of clients ( N = 118; M age = 40.92; 53.4% female; 81.4% Caucasian; 80.5% heterosexual) receiving contemporary relational psychotherapy (CRP) at a psychodynamic community mental health training clinic. Results S…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Steven J. Sandage

  Boston University

  27 shared

• David Rupert

  19 shared

• Nancy G. Devor

  Boston University

  15 shared

• Miriam Bronstein

  Boston University

  6 shared

• Peter J. Jankowski

  Bethel University

  6 shared

• Chance A. Bell

  University of Nebraska at Kearney

  4 shared

• Sarah A. Crabtree

  Boston University

  3 shared

• Laura E. Captari

  3 shared

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