About Us

Mission

The mission of the Bridges Institute is to ensure that people worldwide have greater awareness of and access to competent spiritually integrated mental health treatment based on the time-tested healing principles and spiritual practices of the great world religions. We promote cutting-edge research and top-quality continuing education training opportunities for practicing mental health, pastoral professionals, and clergy. We also provide information about scientifically supported spiritual resources for the public. By promoting research and training, we seek to ensure that individuals and families who desire spiritually sensitive, top-quality mental health treatment can access such services.

History

On November 15 and 16, 2012, Professor P. Scott Richards at Brigham Young University organized a think tank for researchers and practitioners with interests in bringing spiritually oriented therapies into the health care mainstream. Twenty-nine outstanding researchers and practitioners attended the think tank, representing seven academic institutions and 12 mental health treatment sites from around the United States. During the think tank the participants agreed to create a practice-research network dedicated to bringing spiritually integrated treatment approaches into the health care mainstream. We named the network Bridges, because its mission is to build bridges between (1) spiritual and secular approaches to psychotherapy, (2) researchers and practitioners in the health care professions, and (3) members and helping professionals from many different religious traditions. We agreed that a practice-research network devoted to mainstreaming spirituality into health care practice would be a vital step in securing the future relevance, availability, and efficacy of spiritually integrated treatment approaches and other spiritual resources for the public.

In 2013, Professor Richards was awarded a sizable internal grant from Brigham Young University to begin a research program on spiritually integrated treatment approaches. He used that funding to conduct several practice-based evidence research studies. Two articles reporting findings from this research was published in the American Psychological Association’s Spirituality in Clinical Practice journal. In 2014, Dr. Richards was awarded a $207,440 planning grant from the John Templeton Foundation to prepare for an international collaborative research project about the processes and outcomes of spiritually integrated psychotherapies. In 2017, the Templeton Foundation awarded Professor Richards another 3.57 million dollar grant for the Bridges Enhancing Practice-Based Evidence for Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapies grant project. This three-year international grant sought to answer the Big Question, “Can the wisdom, values, and spiritual practices of the world’s great religious traditions improve the effectiveness of psychotherapy and other forms of mental health treatment?” Professor Richards and his team awarded approximately 1.8 million dollars to 19 research teams around the world. The funded research teams used practice-based evidence research designs to monitor treatment processes and outcomes of spiritually integrated treatment approaches at over 60 mental health treatment facilities located in 8 countries. More information about this project and its research findings can be found in the Bridges-Templeton Foundation Grant page of this website.

Goals and Achievements

The Bridges practice-research network has successfully pursued and achieved the goals listed below during the past 15 years. The leaders of the Bridges Institute and our collaborators will continue to pursue these goals in the years ahead.

Obtain grants to help fund collaborative research studies and to assist in developing training materials about spiritually integrated treatment approaches.
Conduct research studies about spiritually integrated psychotherapy treatment approaches.
Publish journal articles about spiritually integrated psychotherapies in mainstream professional and scientific journals.
Publish books about spiritually integrated psychotherapy outcome and process research, practice, and training by respected mainstream scholarly publishers.
Mentor students in spiritually integrated psychotherapies who will eventually teach and practice in universities, health care facilities, and school settings throughout North America.
Provide training opportunities in spiritually integrated psychotherapies for professionals throughout the world so that through them clients and students will have more access to counseling that affirms the values of faith and spirituality in therapeutic change and healing.
Seek media coverage about the research findings, publications, and other activities of Bridges, including news reports, magazine articles, and film documentaries.

Resources for Collaboration

Since forming the Bridges Institute, we have worked to create ways for practitioners, researchers, educators, and pastoral professionals with interests in spiritually integrated treatment approaches to connect and collaborate with one another. Collaborative research, training, and practice is more feasible today than it has ever been. Web-based outcome assessment systems and data analysis packages make data collection and analysis easier than it has ever been. Online continuing education opportunities about spiritually integrated treatment are becoming more widely available. Sharing research, training, and practice tools and resources online is easier than it has ever been. Because of advances in technology, it is now literally possible for professionals throughout the world to collaborate with each other. Listed below are specific resources for collaboration in research, training, and practice that we have developed at the Bridges Institute. To learn more about each these resources click on the relevant links below.

We invite practitioners, researchers, graduate educators, and pastoral professionals and clergy to join us in the important worldwide collaborative effort to bring spiritually integrated psychotherapies into the health care mainstream. The time is ripe for this achievement. Our success will help ensure that religious and spiritual people throughout the world have greater access to health care services that are respectful of and draw upon the healing resources of their faith communities and personal spirituality.

Our Leaders

P. Scott Richards, PhD, is the co-founder and president of Bridges Institute for Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapies (Bridges Institute). A retired professor of counseling psychology at Brigham Young University, he is past president and fellow of the Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (Division 36) of the American Psychological Association (APA) and is a fellow of APA’s Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy (Division 29). Among his seven APA books about spirituality and psychotherapy is the best-selling citation classic A Spiritual Strategy for Counseling and Psychotherapy (with Allen E. Bergin; second edition, 2005). He is also co-editor of the recently published Handbook of Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapies (Richards, Allen, & Judd, 2023).

Marcia Richards is the co-founder and vice-president of the Bridges Institute. She completed a Bachelor of Art degree in Media Arts from Brigham Young University in 2007. Marcia worked for TV production companies, BYU Broadcasting and MirrorLake Films, from 2006-2012, where she worked on teams that created many TV programs. Some of the programs Marcia worked on were Total Body Workout, a series that taught yoga and aerobics; Living Essentials, a series of shows that taught essential life skills; The Generations Project, a series that helped individuals learn about and explore their family history; a series that explored religious history around the world such as the British Isles, Hawaii, France, Brazil, and Ukraine; a gardening series that explored gardening techniques around the world. From 2012-2019 Marcia worked as a university academic advisor helping students navigate through the university experience to graduation.