Wisdom in Pastoral Care and Counseling: What Does it Entail?

The purpose of this article is to suggest richer potential meanings of spiritual wisdom and theological reflection in response to a critical reading of Pamela Cooper-White's book, Shared wisdom: Use of the self in pastoral care and counseling.     

Pastoral diagnosis: assessing the psychotheological themes of freedom and meaning

This article is an exploration of the psychological and theological themes of freedom and meaning within the world of those who experience emotional pain. The article focuses on how freedom and meaning can contribute to the development of a pastorally rigorous diagnostic protocol. It is in the examination of emotional freedom and the search for meaning that practitioners of the pastoral arts come to an understanding of the nature of suffering. The article offers an overview of the state of pastoral diagnosis highlighting and drawing from those resources that emphasize the need for pastoral psychology to construct a diagnostic protocol that is both theological and resonate with the lived experience of clients.     

The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Catastrophe,its Survivors,Job and the Universal Features of Suffering: A Theoretical Study

The purpose of this theoretical article is to discuss the existential and universal feature of suffering—as illustrated by Job’s suffering in the Book of Job in the Bible and by the survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami catastrophe—and to highlight its significance for health care. Further, the study is aiming at contributing to health professionals’ understanding of patients’ suffering. The sources are narratives, comprising Job’s book, TV interviews 1 year after the tsunami catastrophe and the survivors’ autobiographies. The methodological approach is a philosophical analysis. The existential, universal, ontological and epistemological aspects of suffering are carefully scrutinized to unveil the universal and existential versus culture-specific features of suffering. Based on the results, the authors’ recommendations are (1) a holistic concept of the patient and health care has to seriously consider suffering in all its complexity because when a person is in pain, it is not his/her body but the whole person as a unity of body, psyche and spirit that suffers and (2) suffering should be seen as the most central concept of health care, which should provide treatment for physical pain and all dimensions of suffering: physical, social, mental and spiritual aspects.     

"Give sorrow words": lament--contemporary need for Job's old time religion

The author explores the many meanings and interpretations often assigned to the Book of Job and finds in the notion of lament a particularly helpful understanding, especially for pastoral caregivers often called upon to work with persons experiencing sorrow, loss, and human suffering.     

Carrying the Pain: The Journey from Suffering to Transformation—Perspectives from Shakespearean Tragedy and Pastoral Care

This paper proposes an admittedly difficult thesis that emotional pain and suffering can be good news. Rather than denying and running from emotional pain and suffering, we suggest embracing and carrying the pain. Through academic and spiritual writings, an observation of Hamlet’s tragic suffering, an examination of pastoral care case study data, and a B.L.E.S.S. acronym, this paper proposes that within the experience of suffering lies the transformative potential for meaning and fullness.     

Reciprocal maturities: Spirit and psyche in pastoral counseling and spiritual direction

This article uses a model for integrating spiritual and psychological maturity (Conn, 1989) in theological anthropology to contend that there is a reciprocal relationship not only between spiritual and psychological maturity but also between pastoral counseling and spiritual direction. I review Christian spirituality in terms of maturity in relationship: to self, to others, and to God. Next is an examination of the prevailing attitude in pastoral counseling toward spirituality and spiritual direction. Then Conn's integration is assessed — of spirituality with psychology, of spiritual direction with pastoral counseling — as a combination of spiritual and hermeneutical perspectives on the maturing self.     

Pastoral counseling as a spiritual practice: an exercise in a theology of spirituality

The author explores reasons for differentiating pastoral care from spiritual care and presents a theological exercise in articulating pastoral counseling as a spiritual practice. Viewing spirituality from systemic and constructivist perspectives, the author utilizes Paul Tillich's ontology of polarities. He describes spirituality as a subjective, "fuzzy," and inclusive concept and argues for the need for pastoral specialists to theologically articulate their ministry not only as a pastoral but also as a spiritual discipline.     

Inner Night and Inner Light: A Quaker Model of Pastoral Care for the Mentally Ill

The same theological principles that motivated Quakers in institutional reform work continue to influence uniquely Quaker approaches to pastoral care for the mentally ill today. This unity of psychological and spiritual care, inspired by George Fox, was first apparent in the work of the Religious Society of Friends asylum reforms in the nineteenth century. These principles matured during the early twentieth century as they entered into dialogue with Jung and Jungian psychology and continue to inspire Quaker pastoral care models today. This paper will examine how theological concepts affect the way Friends approach mental health care, historically and in contemporary times.     

A Jungian Perspective on Therapy at the End of Life

This paper explores the insights of Carl Gustav Jung with respect to pastoral care and counseling. Particular focus is given to a reading of the theorist that raises the possibility for, and challenge of, pastoral psychotherapy at the end of life. Jung's writing offers an important lens for examining a critical challenge of our age–the means by which pastoral caregivers assist persons to live fully and meaningfully even at life's end. The author asserts that the role of the pastoral caregiver is crucial for helping people to bring their own lives to completion. has served as hospice chaplain, parish pastor, and campus minister. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student and CPE supervisor-in-training at Claremont School of Theology and Methodist Hospital of Southern California.     

Self Psychology and End of Life Pastoral Care

This paper explores salient concepts of Heinz Kohut's self psychology in relation to pastoral caregiving with dying persons and family members. Examination of a principle case study and other relevant clinical examples illumines the discussion. It is argued that the principles of Kohut's psychology can critically inform pastoral theological reflection. Strengths and limitations are considered throughout the analysis, and gestures are made toward beneficial end of life pastoral theological practices for clients and practitioners.     

Political Dimensions of Pastoral Care in Community Disaster Responses

All caregiving takes place in multiple political contexts and assumes or actually furthers various political agendas, whether acknowledged or not. When strategically incorporated into pastoral and spiritual care, politically responsive actions may enhance the practice of care. When disaster strikes a community, ritual engagement of the larger public context provides a significant opportunity for pastoral caregivers to function as public pastoral theologians and to influence the corporate response to communal challenges. In these circumstances of community vulnerability, pastoral caregivers and communities of faith are positioned to provide spiritual care that combines solace and safety for the victims with guidance and shaping influence on the ritual practices and rhetorical interpretations called upon to assist the community to endure, respond, and heal. This article examines some central political aspects of the pastoral caregiver’s repertoire that might further a stricken community’s ritual and rhetorical resources necessary to sustain life, share loss, reclaim goodness, and rebuild for a strong future. Drawing upon a view of lamentation as a tri-partite process of sharing anguish, interrogating causes, and reinvesting in hope, I suggest how the spiritual and pastoral caregiver may collaboratively participate in a “disaster-response matrix” that organizes corporate responses to catastrophic disaster. This article pays particular attention to macro-, meso-, and micro-level political negotiations necessary to ensure respect for diversity and shared responsibility in creating rituals, memorials, and public narratives at the onset of disaster and in its aftermath over the generations. Illustrations from the experience of religious caregivers at Columbine, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, Aurora, Newtown, and Boston are presented to guide pastoral engagement of civil society in disruptive times.     

Bioethics and Pastoral Concern: Some Possible New Directions in Pastoral Theology

This special issue of the journal is comprised of papers given at a conference in May 2011 at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston on the theme of “Social Justice and the Health Professions.” This article offers the following rationale for this special issue in particular and for pastoral theologians to contribute to bioethics in general: (1) two contemporary theological thinkers in bioethics, Karen Lebacqz and Lisa Cahill, argue that theological discussions of justice broaden and deepen discussions of justice in mainstream bioethics—thus the focus on social justice provides an area for interdisciplinary and intersectional work; (2) pastoral theologians have not, to a great extent, contributed to discussions of religion and bioethics—this has been the territory of theological ethicists, especially during the 1970s; (3) one influential pastoral theologian, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, has called for (a) a broader concern for health in pastoral theology beyond psychological health and (b) more disciplinary approaches within pastoral theology beyond psychology so as to attend to “the living human web”; and (4) one way to advance the theological contributions in bioethics is by inviting pastoral theologians to focus on matters of social justice (an established area of intersection) as identified by health professionals, thus providing (a) new areas for inquiry and (b) new theological perspectives in bioethics. This article also suggests that pastoral theologians can contribute to bioethics by focusing on both “macro” issues (issues relating to structures and groups) and “micro” issues (issues relating to persons and experiences) as a way of pursuing the topic of justice in bioethics. The bulk of this article focuses on “macro” issues, but, in closing, the author articulates how he has been addressing “micro” issues in his own work. The author argues that both of these approaches—“macro” and “micro”—are legitimate ways for pastoral theologians to express pastoral concerns in bioethics.     

Spiritual care illustrated: creating a shared language

In an attempt to schematically illustrate the pastoral care intervention to scientifically minded professionals and colleagues the author developed a model that can be used as an interdisciplinary teaching tool. Within the setting of hospital ministry, the tool also provides insights into the stages of "crisis experience" and illustrates the transformational process involved in The Healing Journey. These change-processes are explained against the background of a multi-level anthropology. This approach births a Healing Journey diagram, a spiritual pain assessment tool, and a seven-phase intervention model that may be helpful in Clinical Pastoral Education.     

SCHLEIERMACHERIAN TRANSCENDENTAL SPIRITUALITY AND THE BOOK OF JOB

The Book of Job is certainly one of the most enigmatic and attractive books in all of the Hebrew Scriptures. As a masterfully written poem, Job utilizes imagery and metaphor in such a way as to leave even the secular reader in awe. It tells the story of a pious man who, through many sufferings, is tested by the Divine and sent on a spiritual journey which culminates in a face to face meeting with God. As a poem and as Scripture, Job has been the subject many interpretations over thousands of years. Often read as an insight into the mysteries of evil, innocent suffering, human nature, and the Divine, this piece of poetic Scripture has been the source of much debate and frustration among scholars and the faithful alike. It is not the purpose of this essay to attempt an overview of these various interpretations with the intention of settling upon one superior interpretation. Also, it is not the purpose of this essay to refute any previous interpretations. What I will offer is merely one interpretation among many – an interpretation which I hope might further, if only to the smallest degree, the significance of this great text for even one reader.
This essay will take the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher and, relying on an interpretation of Job given by Gustavo Gutierrez, offer a way of reading Job which leads to a transcendental spirituality. I will accomplish this in three parts: first, I will lay out certain Schleiermacherian concepts which advocate a form of transcendental spirituality; next, relying on Gutierrez's interpretation, I will draw parallels between Schleiermacher's concepts and the spiritual journey of Job; finally, I will show how the book of Job itself can be read as a tool for developing a transcendental spirituality within the reader. In the end, it will be clear that, without fear of 'misinterpretation,' the Book of Job can guide the reader to a transcendental spirituality.     

Connection to Early Church Theologians: Canadian Ethnographic Study on the Similarities and Differences between Prayer and Theological Reflection in Pastoral Care and Counseling

What are the similarities and differences between prayer and theological reflection in the praxis of pastoral care and counseling? This qualitative study is ethnographic in design. A review of the literature is summarized. Researchers interviewed 75 participants in four cultures: (1) chaplains and (2) pastoral counselors in the Canadian Association of Pastoral Practice and Education (CAPPE), (3) community clergy and persons in lay ministry, and (4) students after internship in a theological reflection course. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed and then coded for themes. Findings include seeing more similarities than differences between prayer and theological reflection. One of the differences is that prayer is more affective and theological reflection is more cognitive. There are also some areas of ambiguity. Discussion includes what ought to be normative or the orthopraxis for prayer and theological reflection in pastoral care and counseling. Limitations and areas for future research are outlined.     

Logotherapy and Pastoral Counseling

SUMMARY

An intensive study of Frankl's logotherapy reveals its timely relevance for pastoral counseling. The paradigm of logotherapy recognizes the spiritual dimension as the inclusive and encompassing dimension for comprehending and integrating human phenomena. Its hermeneutical phenomenological analysis introduces an understanding of personhood which affirms one's capacity to find meaning in life, indeed, even in suffering and dying. It is this unique spiritual capacity which conveys a renewed awareness of self worth and human dignity and assists persons in understanding themselves as fashioned in the image of God. Logotherapy provides a helpful counseling theory for pastors and laity engaged in older adult ministry.     

Ethical reflection and pastoral care,part II

A previous article argued for the relevance of theological ethics to pastoral counseling. This article suggests an ethical method with five levels of rationality. These levels enable a practitioner to move from concrete interaction with persons to the most abstract generalizations about the nature of God and human life. Such a method describes a helpful way of bringing theological/ethical concern to counseling in a nonmoralistic style.     

The value of observing an autopsy in clergy and pastoral care education

The value of observing an autopsy for clergy and students training to provide pastoral care is that it raises consciousness about death and dying, assists in the participants' healing from loss, provides resources for ministering to the bereaved, builds a network with other professionals responding to death and dying, and evokes viscerally-generated insights into theological questions concerning body and soul, life after death, and concepts of God in relation to death and bereavement.     

Making a religious diagnosis: The use of religious assessment in pastoral care and counseling

This essay discusses the importance of assessing the religious condition of persons in pastoral care and counseling. Undertaking such assessments via the use of explicit theological terms assures a unique role for pastoral counselors in the helping process and provides a model that avoids overdependence on psychology or psychiatry. Utilizing a method proposed by Paul Pruyser, the development of a psychometrically sound interview and inventory is described. These measures, based on eight dimensions of the Christian tradition, have been found to relate positively to mental health and personality strength. The importance of using such assessments of functional theology in helping persons grow in spiritual living and effective functioning is described.Paper delivered at the 4th International Congress on Pastoral Care and Counseling, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, August 3–10, 1991.