The communion of saints as a paradigm for pastoral counseling: a revised look at an ancient symbol

The Christian symbol of the Communion of Saints has stood for centuries as a call to celebrate relationships. From the ancient doctrine of calling out those honored among the faithful for their holiness, the symbol evolved into a more formal ecclesial process involving procedures and miraculous proof. Reaching back to the early roots, the author draws on theologian Elizabeth Johnson's revisioning of saints as "friends and prophets" to explore a paradigm for the pastoral counselor. Such pastoral characteristics as presence, transforming vision, and creative hope are explored for the richness of growth within the counseling relationship for all who enter into it.     

Integrity in Pastoral Counseling

This essay suggests that pastoral counseling involves a spiritual and emotional quest for wholeness. The personal quest of the pastoral counselor has a parallel impact upon the quest of those who seek his or her counsel. The essay presents the view that faith must be established in the life of the pastoral counselor in at least four areas: in community, in the use of one's spiritual gifts, in the love of mercy and the doing of justice, and in communion with God.     

"I came so that they may have life": amative space and faith as vital concern

This article describes four attributes of faith as vital concern--relational spontaneity, responsiveness, receptiveness, and vulnerability--which are key ingredients to subjective and intersubjective experiences of being alive and real. The metaphor, amative space, refers to the processes and dynamics that make faith as vital concern a viable possibility between and among people. The author depicts these processes as four, interrelated dialectical pairs--recognition-negation, surrender-generation, trust-distrust, and disruption-repair. The four attributes of faith as vital concern combined with the processes and dynamics of amative space can be used as a relational model to understand faith experience and interactions of individuals and groups.     

Using Art-Based Strategies in Group-Based Counselor Supervision

In addition to course work and experiential learning experiences, a vital aspect to counselor training is clinical supervision. Supervision acts as a mediator bridging the gap between theory and practice. Using creative interventions has been increasing in clinical work and may be beneficial to be used more in training counseling students. One way to incorporate creative and expressive techniques into a counseling program is to use art-based strategies in clinical group supervision. Research and clinical experiences are discussed.     

Cross-cultural pastoral counseling: Method or hermeneutic?

This article explores some of the meta-questions that emerge when talking about “cross-cultural pastoral counseling.” Is it a distinct counseling method or a practical hermeneutic that prompts the counselor to examine his or her therapeutic approach? The author argues that “cross-cultural pastoral counseling” is really a hermeneutic that challenges the pastoral counselor to an ongoing evaluation of how and to what extent his or her approach to pastoral counseling may be guided by dominant social convention versus the gospel mandate of Matthew 25: 31–46 [RSV]. The article reviews relevant literature, discusses three fundamental changes (“conversions”) that are necessary for the pastoral counselor in order to do cross-cultural pastoral counseling, and presents a case illustration involving a multi-cultural pastoral counseling intervention.     

Interpretive Artists: A Qualitative Exploration of the Creative Process of Actors

Actors, dancers, and musicians generally are referred to as artists, but many do not originate the work they perform; rather, they interpret the work of originating artists. Past models of the creative process were based on originating artists. The purpose of this study was to explore the creative process of interpretive artists, specifically actors. To further characterize the creative process of actors, this study additionally investigated (a) the social influences that undermined or enhanced an actor's creativity, (b) the tension that occurs between an actor's personal and character identities, and (c) the need for spontaneity in the creative process of actors. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 3 actors. Content analysis revealed three stages of the creative process for actors: a general preparation period, rehearsal, and performance. This model was compared with a previous model of the creative process based on originating artists. Social influences seen as enhancing creativity were clear direction, trust, freedom, respect, challenge, collaboration, and unity with the audience. Undermining social influences included reward, poor direction, evaluation, distrust, peers who stopped listening, and feeling interchangeable. The tension between an actor's personal and character identities was characterized by catharsis and difficulty in delineating boundaries. The need for spontaneity was seen as crucial in the actor's creative process. It is suggested that the actor's creative process is more improvisational, characterized by process and product co-occurring, real-time social influences, tension between personal and performing identities, and the need for spontaneity.     

On the technology of pastoral counseling

Formal pastoral counseling is developing as a significant and important counseling movement. Yet because of its historical tradition and current secular social climate, the pastoral counselor seems unable to translate theology and the religious model of suffering and illness into a concrete methodology of care-giving. This paper proposes that the priestly function or priest/rabbi/minister-parishioner relationship is a good place for the counselor to start identifying the religious methods and means of being with and caring for suffering individuals. The traditional practice of borrowing the psychology of the day is challenged as undermining pastoral counseling, as clergy men and women give up their own symbolic language for psychiatric jargon.Dr. Mollica will be a Fullbright Scholar at the University of Essex, Colchester, England, from August, 1977–May 1980.     

Issues of hope and faith in the cancer patient

Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film about a man with a terminal gastric cancer introduces a discussion of hope and faith in the oncology patient. A psychodynamic relationship between hope and faith is explored, using Lawrence LeShan's research in cancer psychotherapy and Erik Erikson's lifespan developmental theory. LeShan describes a cancer personality characterized by hopeless despair, while Erikson formulates a psychogenetic framework for the development of hope and despair. Hope and faith are linked through the individual's earliest strivings toward basic trust in the world and his or her own self-efficacy. Accordingly, cancer psychotherapy may aim at restoring adult patients' faith in life and inner creative resources.     

The book of Job as a resource for counseling

The book of Job is commonly considered an exemplary study in the dynamics of suffering and the problem of theodicy. This article considers the book of Job for its insights into the challenge of providing pastoral care to persons in spiritual pain. The dialog between Job and his friends illustrates how spiritual distress challenges the theological assumptions of both sufferer and caregiver. In an effort to maintain one's own spiritual equilibrium, and no doubt out of good faith efforts to comfort the afflicted, the pastoral caregiver may be tempted to cling to theological formulas and religious perspectives which disallow the sufferer's experience of anger and despair. The story of Job affirms the value of authenticity over piety, speaks of the transformative power of suffering, and provides the counselor/pastoral caregiver insights into the pitfalls and promise of caring for persons in spiritual pain.     

Chronic pain conceptualization and religious interpretation

The pastoral counselor often interviews patients suffering from chronic pain. Many of them express religious notions about their suffering. This article examines some traditional concepts of pain and types of religious interpretations, and proposes appropiate roles for the pastoral counselor.     

The faith of pastoral counseling: Power to change

Pastoral counseling is counseling based on a specific faith. As presented in the biblical heritage, this faith is a power to effect change in one's life. Resistance to affirming this power is basically a fear of failure. Yet failure in the scope of this faith is the prelude to victory. Resistance to admitting our defeats is supported by the cultural assumption that one can accomplish anything by will power and hard work. In contrast, the faith of pastoral counseling is based on the Good News of reconciliation with our failures. Faith functions through the faculty of imagination and is stimulated and supported by caring relationships.     

Where has hope gone? Toward an understanding of hope in pastoral care

This paper questions the lack of a conceptual model or psychology of hope for pastoral theology and proceeds to develop such a psychology by surveying the theology of hope, by reviewing the dynamics of hoping of some contemporary philosophers and psychologists, and by proposing a hypothesis that hope is difficult to conceptualize because the mode of hoping is nonabstract, relational, nonlinear, and imaginative, all right-lobe brain functions more characteristic of Eastern than Western consciousness. Six implications of this hypothesis for pastoral care are suggested.Research for this paper and work on hope as it relates to pastoral care and counseling was made possible by a year's sabbatical leave from St. Paul School of Theology.     

Pastoral counseling: In search of a new paradigm

Contemporary pastoral counseling includes three paradigmatic elements: the image of the counselor as priest; the location of the human problem at the organismic-environmental interface; and the diagnosis of the human problem as alienation from self and others. These assumptions ought to be supplemented by the image of the counselor as prophet, by location of the human problemalso at the interface of the self and the ultimate, and by a diagnosis of the human problem as alienation from transcendence. To be adequate as a response to the total human situation, pastoral counseling theory must be expanded to include consideration of the transcendent dimension of human existence, and pastoral counseling method and technique must be modified to overcome alienation from the ultimate by facilitating the actualization of transcendence.His article is a revision of the keynote address he presented to the American Association of Pastoral Counselors at their annual meeting in May 1976.     

Belief, hope and faith

A case of hysteria is presented in order to create a frame of reference for the author's approach to the concepts of hope, belief and faith. A difference between hope as a 'sad passion' (which is here called regressive hope) and hope as a principle of mental functioning is established. The concept of hope will at fi rst always be based on beliefs-either beliefs organised in the paranoid-schizoid position (called here fragmented and delusional beliefs)-or those organised from the depressive position (complex systems of beliefs, which end up being dogmatic); the latter typically occur in neurotics. It is suggested here that there is another possibility for hope, which is based on faith. The meaning of faith is considered here externally to the religious sense. The solid establishment of hope as a principle-based on faith-can be viewed as responsible for the opening up of creative potentials and as one of the main aims of analysis. Such an aim, however, requires the establishment of a deep relationship, both in theory and in clinical practice, between the Kleinian question of the depressive position and the Freudian question of the Oedipus complex.     

Core considerations in the process of evaluation for pastoral counseling

Conclusion We have been pointing to an essential fact of evaluation in pastoral counseling: the goal of the evaluation process is a decision regarding (a) the applicability of formal counseling in a given situation, (b) the readiness of the person to assume such a role and (c) the readiness of the pastoral counselor to offer a counseling relationship. As we have indicated, intellectual understanding and empathy are not enough if they stop short of answering the questions: what does this person want? and, can I offer it to him? In diligently pursuing the answers to these questions the pastoral counselor will not only fulfill his professional responsibility to meet the true needs of the person (s) seeking help but will in the long run enable himself to establish more fruitful and therefore satisfying counseling relationships with those whom he is called to serve.     

Biblical models in pastoral counseling

This paper contributes to current discussions regarding the development of Biblically-informed methods of pastoral counseling. It identifies three Biblical models of pastoral counseling and shows that each has its own particular understanding of the process of personal change and each invites a different understanding of the counseling task. The paper further contends that two of these models (called thepsalmic andproverbic) are favored by the pastoral counseling approaches that have dominated the field for some years. It argues, therefore, for greater attention to the third model (theparabolic).     

Understanding homosexuality: A symposium

A psychiatrist, an ethicist, and a pastoral counselor comment on the ways in which they conceive of homosexuality in their work, reflection, and efforts at counseling. Although each writes in isolation from the others, a surprising degree of consensus emerges. All three cite the problem of unclear terms and the peril of labeling. Each distinguishes between homosexuality as a state of being and homosexual acts or behavior. Mansell Pattison, the psychiatrist, comments on prejudice, norms, sickness, and deviancy and their relevance for understanding homosexuality, before suggesting a model himself. Stanley Hauerwas, the ethicist, seeks a context that will allow us to think seriously about homosexuality from an ethical point of view. John Patton, the pastoral counselor, argues that the major contribution of a counselor is to avoid labeling and preconceived notions about homosexuality and to relate to the counselee in such a way as to help him clarify what he seeks.     

Generativity and Erikson's “belief in the species”

Generativity is the concern for guiding and promoting the next generation through such creative behavior as parenting, teaching, mentoring, leading, and generating products and outcomes that benefit others. Erikson (1963) has argued that in order to be generative in adulthood, people must have a fundamental “belief in the species” or a faith that human progress is possible and worth working toward. The present study focuses on hope and trust concerning the self and others (Erikson's “belief in the species”). In addition, however, the study examines the relation between generativity and personality traits, in this case, dominance, leadership, self-absorption, and nurturance. A sample of 70 adults was administered (1) a series of self-report questionnaires converging on Erikson's idea of belief in the species, (2) a self-report scale assessing generativity, (3) measures of personality traits, and (4) two open-ended measures of generativity requiring subjects to describe life commitments and creative endeavors. The results provide modest support for Erikson's claim of a link between belief in the species and generativity, with significant positive correlations obtained (1) between self-report generativity and two measures of belief in species and (2) between generativity assessed through life commitments and one measure of belief in the species. In addition, the personality trait of nurturance was positively related to all three generativity measures. Problems and issues in the assessment of generativity are discussed.     

Client Adherence to Asian Cultural Values,Common Factors in Counseling,and Session Outcome With Asian American Clients at a University Counseling Center

Based on data from 61 Asian American clients at a university counseling center, the study found that client‐perceived match on client‐counselor belief about problem etiology was related to counselor credibility, empathy, and cross‐cultural competence; the client‐counselor working alliance; session depth; and the likelihood of the client recommending the counselor to another client. An interaction effect showed that both strong match on belief about problem etiology and high client expectation for counseling success were associated with strong client‐counselor working alliance.