The Distinctiveness of Pastoral Counseling

The author maintains that if the field of pastoral counseling is to achieve an identity that will satisfy both theologians and psychologists, then two issues must be faced. First, pastoral counselors must resolve the dilemma between the humanistic values of the psychotherapeutic community and the theological values of the religious community. Second, pastoral counselors must articulate the empirical distinctiveness of their practice. The author argues that the value dilemma should be approached through a Christian humanism that integrates the sacred and the secular without collapsing them. The author concludes with a discussion of the cognitive developmental approach as an example of a promising model for pastoral counseling practice and research.     

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.     

The Tragic and Faith in Pastoral Counseling

This essay uses Edward Farley's notion of the interrelation of tragic vulnerability and creation and Niebuhr's idea of faith in offering a conceptualization of the process and goals of pastoral counseling. Openness, novelty, separation, and change, which characterize creative activity, give rise to anxiety, fear, and suffering as created entities seek to achieve their ends and needs amidst the limits of life. Faith as vital concern—defined as human and transcendent relations marked by reciprocal belief, hope, trust, and fidelity—is a response that represents participation and cooperation in creative activity with its concomitant anxiety and suffering. Pastoral counseling may be understood as an activity that facilitates a response of faith as vital concern. The process of pastoral counseling involves three essential and interrelated tasks. First, the counselor invites the person to experience present and past painful disappointments, losses, and betrayals. Second, the counselor invites the client to explore the types of trust and fidelity that are distorted and diminish his or her capacities for risking intimacy, spontaneity, and freedom. The third task is learning to recognize, contain, and work through the inevitable disappointments, broken promises, frustrations, and betrayals encountered in human relationships. Thus the work of pastoral counseling involves reciprocal experiences of belief, hope, trust, and fidelity, which provide the essential and necessary ground through which persons develop a) the capacities for and experiences of spontaneity, awe, and freedom, b) the ability to handle and work through experiences and perceptions of distrust and infidelity, and c) a sense of subjective and intersubjective identity, continuity, and cohesion.     

The New Narcissist and Pastoral Counseling

Pastoral Psychology - For some time now, psychiatrists and psychotherapists have recognized that they are working with a new individual, one who no longer seems capable of experiencing a sense of...     

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.     

The Nearing Death Process and Pastoral Counseling

Philosophic concepts of death are pervasive throughout all societies as shared values, differing in particulars, but similar in general. So, too, is the prospect of a death a consideration for every person, an eventual reality brought most forcefully to mind as it nears. This article explores various mindsets those who provide pastoral counseling will encounter among clients and suggest effective approaches to providing the mental and spiritual solace sought. Further, consideration is given to the psychological and spiritual mein of the pastoral counselor, and how this can affect both client and counselor.     

Preventing Dual Relationships in Pastoral Counseling

The practice of pastoral counseling provides many opportunities for dual relationships. Churches and church-related institutions are contexts in which such relationships are easily formed. Some pastoral counselors cope by entering private practice, which may exacerbate the problem by removing resources for collegiality and accountability. Pastoral counselors can avoid dual relationships by understanding their vulnerability, subscribing to and communicating a clear code of professional ethics, becoming aware of personal limitations, and building networks of accountability.     

Pastoral counseling and the compassionate God

Taking up a suggestion of Michael Cavanagh in a recent issue of this journal, Marcel Sarot contributes to the theological task of distinguishing conceptions of God that are psychospiritually unhelpful from those that are helpful. More specifically, he argues that the conception of God as compassionate and co-suffering is psychospiritually more helpful than that of God as blissfully impassible. In the final section, he shows that there is some empirical research confirming this conclusion.     

The Promise of Neuroplasticity for Pastoral Care and Counseling

This article continues the author’s exploration of the significance of recent neuroscientific research for pastoral care and counseling Bingaman (Pastoral Psychology 60:477–489, 2011), (Pastoral Psychology, 61:411-422, 2012) by focusing on the plasticity and malleability of the human brain. It makes the case for mindfulness meditation (e.g., Centering Prayer) as a means to lower activity in the amygdala and thereby calm the stress region of the brain. In light of evidence that such mindfulness practices are more effective in reducing anxiety than is a focus on right belief or correct doctrine the case is made for a paradigmatic turn (see Bingaman 2007, pp. 102–110; Bingaman (Pastoral Psychology, 61:411–422, 2012) toward neurotheology, which seeks to understand the relationship between the brain and theology. The article concludes that the revolutionary discoveries concerning neuroplasticity challenge the field of pastoral care and counseling to recognize the ability of contemplative-meditational practices to reduce anxiety and to produce long-term, possibly permanent changes in the neural pathways of the human brain.     

Maddening Desire: Understanding Lust in Pastoral Counseling

Christian theologians have argued that lust is a compelling sexual desire that distorts reason and judgment, leads to exploitation and injustice, and corrupts the erotic dimensions of human experience and relationships. In this article, I expand on this tradition, arguing that lust signifies the collapse or attenuation of amative space. This collapse is described as either the subjugation of the other or pseudo surrender to the other, which is accompanied by misrecognition of the other's unique and inviolable subjectivity, as well as a heightened sense of distrust. The diverse communicative actions associated with lust, which lead to the collapse of amative space, have several sources, namely, trauma, physiology, and culture. The attempt to restore amative space requires that the counselor and client join together in identifying and understanding the meanings and sources of lustful behaviors, which assists them in considering various strategies for the sake of increasing self-awareness and self-control that loosen the bonds of lust.

Religious Education and Pastoral Counseling: The Classical Pentecostal Experience

The paper addresses the subject of religious education and pastoral counseling in the classical Pentecostal church. It argues that Pentecostals can benefit from a merger of religious education and pastoral counseling that leads the student/client to a closer relationship with God.     

Short-Term Pastoral Counseling and the Use of Reframing

The purpose of this article is to deal with the advantage of combining short-term counseling with reframing techniques. Short-term counseling states that a) focusing on only one problem, and b) agreeing on a fixed amount of sessions will make the counselee more eager to change before the amount of sessions are spent. The thesis of the paper is that those counselees that engage in short-term counseling will be more resistant to change than the criteria of short-term counseling suggests. Some counselees want to initiate a power struggle with the counselor about the impossibility of change. Rather than giving in to such a struggle, the counselor should use reframing techniques to make the counselee see the problem from a new perspective. Reframing techniques are more likely to make the counselee solve the problem.     

The Image of God as Techno Sapiens

Suppose there comes a day when Homo sapiens has evolved into or been overtaken by techno sapiens. Will it then still make sense to speak of human beings as created in the image of God? What is the relevance of asking such a question today? I offer a sketch of the present state of development and discussion in artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial life (AL) and discuss some implications for the human condition. Taking into account both reality and fiction in AI and AL, I hold that, regardless of the degree of realization, issues related to technological evolution inform the cultural agenda—at least the European–American one. I comment on antireductionist arguments and on arguments from philosophy and (history of) culture. I argue in favor of a consonance between neurotechnology and the Christian gospel in terms of realizing the marks of messianic life. However, issues of justice, reason versus nature, and perfection and finitude versus imperfection and immortality call for further illumination. Even though no principal opposition seems to exist between technological evolution and possible interpretations of the concept of the image of God (imago dei), a number of significant dissimilarities need to be addressed, such as the differences between technical improvement and forgiveness or transformation and between immortality and resurrection. The role of irregularity, disturbance, and error for creative processes in nature and culture is an exciting topic in science and technology as well as in theology.     

Spirituality and Homelessness: Implications for Pastoral Counseling

This article presents a limited number of findings from a larger research project that explores spiritual themes related to the experience of homelessness as reported by 16 research participants following their residence in a 90-day emergency shelter program in Los Angeles County, California. By utilizing interpretive phenomenological analysis, the study focuses solely on three spiritual themes present in the experience of homelessness. Participants noted experiencing the presence of hope and motivation while homeless, the challenges of coping with the homeless stigma, and times in which they felt (and did not feel) “human.” Implications for pastoral counselors and others offering spiritually-integrated counsel in the context of homelessness are discussed.     

The Perceptions of Lutheran Pastors Toward Prenatal Genetic Counseling and Pastoral Care

The purpose of this study is to explore a theological perspective toward genetic counseling. A survey was sent to 207 ministers within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), to determine their perspectives toward four different scenarios in a prenatal genetic counseling setting. The four different scenarios included situations involving Huntington disease, Down syndrome, trisomy 18, and anencephaly. Nearly all ELCA Lutheran pastors perceived genetic counseling as beneficial and useful and wanted to be involved in the decision-making process for whether or not to terminate the pregnancy. Their views toward termination of pregnancy varied depending on the severity of the genetic abnormality. Severity in this study was based upon life compatibility. As the severity of the genetic abnormality increased, the percentage of Lutheran pastors who viewed termination as an option increased from 23% (Down syndrome) to 62% (anencephaly). A better understanding of how spiritual leaders view genetic counseling would provide an insight into how genetics and religious beliefs together play a significant role in shaping the decisions of those faced with abnormal pregnancies.     

Understanding and Incorporating God Representations Within Counseling

The religious and spiritual identity of a client may be relevant to the counseling process, and thus counselors should be prepared to integrate these components within treatment. The authors consider the assessment and exploration of God representations (i.e., God images and concepts) to understand and integrate religious and spiritual meanings within the context of a client's presenting concerns. The authors provide examples, strategies, and considerations for how to apply God representations within counseling.