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"?     

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.     

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 (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.     

Theology and Science within a Lakatosian Program

The writings of Ian Barbour and Arthur Peacocke can be construed as initial contributions to a Lakatosian research program on the relation between theology and science, the core theory of which is the thesis that theology belongs at the top of a nonreducible hierarchy of sciences. The positive heuristic of this program involves showing that theology and the sciences have enough in common epistemologically to be so related and arguing for nonreducibility. The author in this essay "rationally reconstructs" some of her philosophical work as a contribution to these tasks.     

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.     

Personality traits in leadership behavior

Correlational analyses of the personality traits measured by the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992) and three leadership styles, that is, Change, Production, and Employee (CPE) measured by Ekvall and Arvonen's (1991) CPE questionnaire, were performed. The sample was 106 Norwegian leaders. Three common factors comprising leadership styles and personality domains were interpreted as "looking for new possibilities,"hard working," and "dealing with people." Considering personality traits as behavior tendencies in unspecified situational contexts and leadership styles as behavioral tendencies in the leadership context, and due to the self-report nature of the data, it is argued that the factors show consistency in self-perceptions independent of context. The strongest predictors of the CPE total score were Conscientiousness and Extraversion; Openness and Agreeableness were specific predictors of Change and Employee, respectively.     

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.     

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.).     

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.     

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.     

The ethics of selectively marketing the Health Maintenance Organization

Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) administrators have been accused of engaging in ‘selective marketing’. That is, through such strategies as tailoring the benefits package of the program or advertising in styles or in media that do not appeal to certain ‘undesirable’ audiences, the administrator can minimize the percentage of persons in the HMO who are heavy users of health care services. By means of analyzing what ‘insurance’ is (philosophically) and what it means for something to be a free market commodity, the author argues that, as long as American society chooses to regard health insurance as a commodity or service of the free market, the use of such strategies is within the moral rights of health administrators. The author concludes by noting some morally undesirable results of treating health insurance as a market commodity.     

Comparison of textual analysis applied to two lectures written three years apart by one author: the language satellites

A comparative textual analysis was carried out on two essays "Thanatol" and "Double Talk," by F. Perrier, which were originally lectures given three years apart by the author, a psychoanalyst. This study involved the use of the ALCESTE software program, a computer-assisted method of discourse analysis. It consists of modelling the distribution of the main words occurring in speeches or texts with a view toward identifying the repetitive language patterns most frequently used by a speaker or writer. This method is described in the first part of the paper. Various types of discourse emerged from analysis along with specific topics. There were three types in the case of Thanatol and four in that of Double Talk. Upon comparing the separate results obtained on each corpus, a pool of significant words observed in the corpus Thanatol was also present in Double Talk. These words were organised into groups called "language satellites" which were dispatched in the various types of discourse. Considering the underlying language structure (the enunciation), they formed another discourse running between the lines of two lectures. This supplementary discourse was recurrent and could be said to label the author and his thoughts. The ALCESTE method brings to light in the textual production of an author a recurrent pattern of discourse which might hold some clues for the analysis of texts and speech and even about the author as evident in his own ideas and thoughts.     

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.     

Hamlet at the millennium: assisting today's teens through the group psychotherapy process

This article reviews Shakespeare's Hamlet and its universal appeal 400 years after it was written. Focusing on the soliloquy "to be or not to be," the author notes that the play examines the fundamental philosophical question of whether to continue with life, or not. The article then discusses difficulties experienced by adolescents at admission to an inpatient psychiatric program by referring to them as modern day Hamlets. An examination of the theme of ambivalence as it complicates the assessment and treatment process is undertaken. A checklist of therapist responses to ambivalence in the conducting of inpatient group psychotherapy in an adolescent psychiatric hospital unit is offered.     

Missing: critical and skeptical perspectives on comprehensive soldier fitness

The author read with interest, and concern, the January 2011 issue of the American Psychologist. The Special Issue on Comprehensive Soldier Fitness addressed a hugely consequential national issue and offered a vision for psychological resilience along with an elaborate set of supporting articles, concluding with some comments on "Objections" to psychologists working with the military. While a bold vision was offered and a game plan presented, no data or evidence are yet available (it is far too early in the process), and that should concern us all. The author hopes the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Psychologist offer skeptical and critical views in future issues on the issue of the psychological health of our military and as evidence emerges regarding the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program.     

Within-person relationships between mood and creativity

State mood has been proposed as a facilitator of creative behavior. Whereas positive mood compared to neutral mood generally facilitates creative performance, mood effects are weaker and less consistent when positive mood is compared to negative mood. These inconsistent results may be due to focusing only on mood valence, while neglecting or confounding mood activation. The current study is based on the dual-pathway model, which describes separate roles for mood valence and mood activation in facilitating creativity. We used experience sampling methodology to investigate the concurrent and lagged effects of mood valence and activation on creative process engagement (CPE) within-person over time among individuals working on a long-term project requiring creativity. We also investigated the moderating effects of individual differences in goal orientation and supervisory support on within-person mood-creativity relationships. As expected, we found that activating positive and activating negative moods were positively associated with concurrent CPE, whereas deactivating moods of both valences were negatively related to CPE. Activating negative mood had a significant lagged effect on CPE, whereas activating positive mood did not. We also found that activating positive mood was more strongly related to concurrent CPE among individuals with high rather than low learning goal orientation. Further, activating positive mood interacted with prove goal orientation and supervisory support for creativity, such that activating positive mood had the strongest association with CPE when both prove goal orientation and supervisory support were high.     

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.