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.     

Dragon talk: providing pastoral care for Chinese immigrants

This article describes how cultures and pastoral care education processes can be barriers between the patient, the pastoral caregiver, and the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) student. By providing sketches of interviews with Chinese patients, the author tries to explain why the attempt to unveil Chinese patients' feelings and needs through conversation can be a frustrating experience. Moreover, the author argues that the pedagogy of pastoral care education ought to be more culturally sensitive in regard to the diverse cultural backgrounds of both patients and CPE students.     

Clinical Pastoral Education: reflections on the past and future of a movement

In the year 2000, the celebration of seventy-five years of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in the United States included attention to the history of the movement. A history of the past twenty-five years of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) was published, plus several regional histories. This article grows out of the author's study of the history of the Northeast Region of ACPE in the context of the history of the Clinical Pastoral Education movement. The focus of this article is "the vision question"; that is, "What has happened to the visions of clinical training that were important in the beginning of the movement?" The history of the relations of clinical training to theological education is traced from the beginnings of CPE to the present time, with special emphasis on developments in the Northeast. Two implications of this historical review for the future of the movement are suggested.     

A Vajrayana Buddhist perspective on ministry training

This article about ministry training in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is written from the perspective of a Vajrayana Buddhist Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) Supervisor. It presents basic concepts of the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition that apply to the training process of students in CPE and beyond. The author posits that like the Vajrayana spiritual path, ministry training is something that continues on in a person's ministry, and that ministers should attend to this process as long as they are helping others. The author presents the concept of mandala and the Five Buddha Families to illustrate a Vajrayana perspective on ministry training.     

Will we ring the bell? Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) with the Salvation Army

This article describes an "experimental" Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program, designed for eight Salvation Army Officers [Ministers] who were located in cities from Washington, DC to Antonio, Texas. The four Consecutive Units were accomplished over a two year span, with most of the work taking place by e-mail and long-distance telephone conference calls. One of the important questions to be answered is, "Can CPE be done mostly long-distance"?     

The locus theologicus of U.S. Hispanic/Latino/a Theology and its implications for Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) curriculum development

The author examines the history of theological method based on the term locus theologicus, the refinement of this method by Liberation Theologians and U. S. Hispanic/Latino/a Theologians, and describes one experience of using contextual theology to develop curriculum for Second-Year Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Residents.     

Relationship building in Clinical Pastoral Education: a Confucian reflection from Asian chaplains

The authors reflect on the intentional model of relationship building in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) and its roots in the Western concept of the self as a rational, autonomous, and bounded agent. They compare the Western idea to the Confucian two-dimensional self orientation as relational as well as autonomous, and discuss possible difficulties that Asian students from Confucian background may encounter entering CPE. The chaplains explore implications and suggestions for how CPE supervisors and students may enter into dialogue in order to create mutual understanding and help Asian students translate CPE learning methods into meaningful cultural contexts.     

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.     

Clinical pastoral education as professional training: some entrance, curriculum and assessment implications

Clinical Pastoral Education is professional training for pastoral care. This paper compares CPE against the professional training model. While limiting the discussion to Christian pastoral care, the professional education model suggests a clarification of the trainee's theological and other entry requirements for a basic unit, a more thoughtful provision of information during CPE training, a careful attention to group membership and an appropriate integration with the theological curriculum. It also suggests more specific competency standards and more reliable, valid and objective assessment methods.     

Opening up the circle: next steps in process group work in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)

This article applies systems-centered theory (SCT) to the small process group experience in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) by exploring six key questions: 1) What is the purpose of the small process group in CPE? 2) Is there an alternative to getting stuck in the "hot seat" dynamic? 3) Do we (clergy) always have to be nice? 4) Is there life beyond personal story telling? 5) Does the authority issue ever go away? 6) How much difference is too much difference? The article includes vignettes to illustrate theory.     

Richard Clarke Cabot, M.D., a unitarian critique

This article is written to correct a historical impression about Richard C. Cabot, one of the founders of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). Contrary to the popular understanding that he was a typical Unitarian, the author posits that even though Cabot may have been a typical liberal, in his theology, he was an atypical Unitarian. This article places Cabot in his family and historical contexts, his involvement in CPE, and comments on his theology, noting how this differed from the prevailing Unitarian theology of his day.     

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.     

Nearly everything we wish our non-Jewish supervisors had known about us as Jewish supervisees

The authors observe that Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) developed out of a Protestant setting. Much of its thinking and writing therefore is heavily laden with Christian orientation and terminology. Sharing a general theological framework, most Christians read these words and think of the same- or similar-ideas. However, Jews neither start with nor share the same theological beliefs. Jewish students perpetually ask themselves, "If the premise isn't true for me, can the conclusion still contain meaning?" Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Often, the resulting conflict leaves Jewish students feeling alienated from their CPE supervisors and peers. Few CPE supervisors realize that although everyone is reading the same material there are (at least) two "nations" present that are processing it differently. This article, by two National Association of Jewish Chaplains (NAJC) Board-Certified Rabbis, presents twelve key points about Judaism and Jewish thought to help non-Jewish CPE supervisors and chaplains in their work with Jewish supervisees and patients (residents, et al.).     

Promoting patient safety: implications for pastoral care

This article provides an overview of current issues in patient safety, the subject of recently-implemented JCAHO standards, with attention to issues of special interest to pastoral care professionals and Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) students. Case studies of patient safety initiatives in two health care systems are used to illustrate the relationship between institutional core values and the just treatment of injured patients and their families, and to suggest opportunities for chaplains to contribute to patient safety efforts in their institutions. A list of suggested readings and online resources is included.     

Existential, theological, and psychological concepts of death: a personal retrospective

Before Freud, the study of death belonged strictly in the contexts of religion and philosophy, but in the 20th Century, death and dying began to enter into dialogue with the social sciences of psychology and sociology. The existentialists began to portray death differently in their literary-based philosophy, and by the end of the century four major American writers had dealt squarely with death in a theological framework. The author's own personal experiences and academic endeavors frame this evolution in theories about death and dying, beginning with a Master's thesis in college and ending with a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education in a shock trauma hospital. In this article the mystery of death is examined from three distinct points of view: literary (including existentialism, a philosophy as literature), theological and psychological, based upon the author's career as a professor of literature, as seminary student, and as a recent participant in Clinical Pastoral Education. An attempt at a synthesis of these three strands of inquiry is made at the end of this personal and academic journey.     

Community: The Place where Theology is made

An expanded version of a paper given at a seminar on "contextual theology" held in November 1983 at the Pastoral Institute at Multan, in the Punjab, Pakistan.     

A descriptive appraisal, 1935–1980

The writer evaluates the responses he received to causes, ideas and programs he advocated over his 45 year career as a Pastoral Theologian. He contsructs a four-fold typology of responses and discusses the concerns which have characterized his professional life, e.g. older persons, sexuality, ethics in pastoral care, theology in CPE, institutional chaplaincy, interprofessional cooperation, case study method, graduate programs in Religion and Personality, and Pastoral Theology. An evaluation of progress in these areas is followed by a concluding statement on his concerns.     

A consideration of knowledge and authority in the case seminar

This paper examines difficulties in the management of knowledge and authority evidenced in some case seminar settings. The author suggests that the traditional model for the case seminar has not kept pace with evolving ideas about authority and knowledge in the psychoanalytic situation. The tension between our current ways of conceptualizing knowledge and authority in psychoanalysis, and the often unwitting idealization and constriction of knowledge and authority in the case seminar format, are explored. Following a review of the literature on the case seminar, three recommendations for change are discussed: (1) differentiation of the goals of the seminar from those of supervision; (2) reconsideration of the way in which the 'failed case" is discussed; and (3) encouragement of the instructor to present clinical material.     

A Letter to Mom During CPE

This article is a fictional letter. A seminarian writes to his mother during his Clinical Pastoral Education internship at a mental hospital, and the letter raises a number of issues, including the nature of the Bible, the essence of salvation (and Hell), the role of evangelism, and the sexual dynamics of the counseling relationship. William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience is mentioned, and cultural questions regarding psychology are raised. There are other avenues to be explored, but the reader might start by reflecting on the issues noted.Nathan S. Carlin has been a graduate student at Princeton Seminary and has worked closely with Donald Capps and Robert Dykstra, leading scholars in the field of pastoral psychology. Carlin has published numerous articles as a Master of Divinity student. He is now a graduate student in Religious Studies at Rice University. Correspondence to Nathan Steven Carlin, 1515 Bissonnet Street, Unit 186, Houston, TX 77005-1629, USA; e-mail: Nathan.Carlin@rice.edu