Clinical pastoral education (CPE) on the prairie

While the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) method is usually employed in the health care setting and pointed toward the pastoral care of the sick, it can be adapted to the pastoral care and supervision of students doing ministry in the political, economic, and cultural systems of the rural community. In this article, the author, who speaks from thirty years of experience as a CPE supervisor in small towns in eastern South Dakota, describes his approach, an approach that emphasizes immersion in the general systems of struggling communities on the Great Plains. From his experience, he derives ten practical lessons that are applicable to CPE work in the rural context or in any pastoral setting.     

Christian practices in urban clinical pastoral education

This article addresses primarily a connecting link in ministerial formation through the incorporation of certain practices of Christianity within an urban CPE curriculum and the impact on the development of pastoral identity and pastoral practice. Though the focus is identified as Christian the implications and practices are adaptable within all religious and spiritual traditions. The student groups of this urban CPE program represent a wide diversity of cultures and religious traditions and an equal representation of men and women.     

You learn it in your heart: transformative learning theory and clinical pastoral education

This article offers a broad overview of transformative learning theory focusing primarily on the rational and affective dimensions of the theory. As a comprehensive theory of adult learning, transformative learning theory seeks to articulate a process by which persons make meaning of their experiences and their lives. The theory provides a solid educational basis for the learning process in CPE. A list of major sources in the theory is included.     

A parallel process seminar for use in programs of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)

A seminar model is developed and used for students in Clinical Pastoral Education to explore parallel process dynamics operative in their ministry. One of the key assumptions on which this seminar is designed is that students will present material from their work with patients that carry relational dynamics that parallel the students' intra-psychic dynamics. Verbatim material presented is used in the learning group to identify and respond to the presenter's intra-psychic dynamics and their implication for ministry--to provide support, clarification, and/or confrontation with the intent of facilitating personal and professional growth.     

Pitfalls in pastoral counseling (in the overdependency relationship)

Summary In this discussion of pitfalls in pastoral counseling, it has been seen that it is when the pastor comes into repeated close emotional contact with his people in the counseling relationship that he becomes exposed to certain anti-therapeutic procedures.One of the main pitfalls is that of unconsciously, because of his helping professional bent, fostering overdependency in his counselees. Some of the major signs of the development of an overdependency relationship are seen to be the attempts on the part of the counselee to seek advice, to seek extra appointments or telephone counsel, to attempt to prolong individual sessions longer than the allotted time, and to attempt to perpetuate the duration of the counseling process beyond the immediate conflictual situation.Some interpretation of these neurotic appeals by the counselee are offered. It is hoped that the early recognition of at least some of the signs of a developing overdependency relationship by the pastoral counselor will enable him to avoid the pitfall of unconsciously fostering such a relationship, and to deal with such individuals in a more therapeutic fashion.Dr. Desrosiers has served, for some twenty years, as chaplain in a mental hospital, parish minister, physician, as well as psychiatrist.     

Diversity: Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in the Hinterlands

The author claims that Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) would be enriched if the notion of "diversity" were extended to program configurations, sites, and economic and occupational subgroups as well as to racial, ethnic, gender, and denominational groups as now tends to be the case. The author describes the settings and methodologies of a unique program that brings CPE to "natural caregivers" across the rural Midwest section of the United States.