A fact-finder's journey to Europe

The author undertook a trip to sixteen cities in eight European countries to study Continental models of integrating spiritual development and mental health and to look at training programs in pastoral counseling. He found a growing secularization of clergy who want to offer human services and cannot do so within established church hierarchies. In Roman Catholic areas he found pastoral counseling services directed to the religious professional rather than to the laity or the public. Training programs have yet to be fully developed. Only the Swedish model, in its history and multidisciplinary character, resembles the situation in the United States.