Psychotherapy and counseling in professions other than the ministry

Conclusion My own chief impression and conclusion about this conference could not be better stated than has been done already by Lawrence K. Frank, Co-Chairman of the conference and member of our Editorial Advisory Board. He wrote:... the conference that was held is significant of a pervasive, may I say almost revolutionary, change in the climate of opinion. This change is characterized by a new awareness, a new set of assumptions, a new set of expectations, a particularly different way of thinking about ourselves ... Individuals suffering from early stunting and distortion can be helped to grow and mature, their strengths and potentialities can be evoked by various processes so that they can develop more nearly in terms of their capabilities.It is significant that every profession represented in these pages has declared itself a social agent, feeling itself to be a responsible agent dedicated ... to making operational our cherished beliefs in the worth of individual personality. Each group is working in its own way to recognize and conserve the human dignity of man, woman, and child.... each group here has acknowledged that no single profession is competent to undertake this difficult task of psychotherapy and counseling without further training and clinical experience that goes beyond the M. D., Ph.D., D.D., or whatever the degrees or titles may be ... No one person, merely because he has professional training and a degree, can claim that he is competent to undertake this difficult process.We may be approaching the time ... when we may see more agreement on scientific concepts, so that we can have an orchestration of professional skills and knowledge. I like the term orchestration because it gets away from ancillary and other terms of subordination and superordination. In an orchestra we recognize the unique place, function, and range of every instrument, but we realize that the instruments have to be played with coordination if they are going to be really productive of any theme played in unison.We may indeed hope that Lawrence Frank is right. And that we of the clergy may make a continuing contribution to such an end.     

Homosexuality: Sin or sickness? A dialogue

The [ollozving discussion takes place in what Bernard Shaw, in the Preface to Candida, called an oasis in a desert of unattractiveness—the study of the Executive Secretary of The George W. Henry Foundation in the Parish House of a midtown Episcopal Church. The Foundation, chartered by the State of New York to help those who by reason of their sexual maladjustment are in trouble with themselves, the law or society, was organized in 1948; its staff, board members and officers come from a variety of religious persuasions to serve all who come or are sent to it without regard to race, creed, or color. The participants in the dialogue are Canon Rend Bozarth, the founder and head of the Society of St. Paul, an Anglican monastic community, located in Oregon, and Alfred A. Gross, the Executive Officer of the Foundation, associated with Dr. Henry for more than a quarter of a century.We publish this article particularly at this time because of our selection of an outstanding book by Dr. Gross,Strangers In Our Midst: Problems of the Homosexual in American Society, on this theme—a book in which Dr. Gross deals more thoroughly and more comprehensively with the entire problem of homosexuality. The article may also be seen as a continued discussion of the article on Pastoral Counseling for Homosexuals by Dr. George W. Henry, published inPastoral Psychology, November, 1951.