Pastoral Counseling

The intention of this paper is to interpret the ontological conditions of youth identity crisis missionally. This is first done by conceptualising identity crisis as a psychological phenomenon using frameworks of authenticity and attachment to explain the impact of early attachment abuse, abandonment depression, insecure attachment anxiety with God, and self-regulation on the identity formation of the youth. Secondly, the paper introduces a missional hermeneutic that provides an interpretative framework for coping with the crises of identity amongst young people. A missional hermeneutic of care for coping with the crisis of identity formation, therefore, elaborates on the missional basis of biblical interpretation as a powerful framework within which to interpret a skewed, conflicted identity. The author herewith proposes a missional opportunity that can activate the missional consciousness of young people in their time of crisis and identity formation. Furthermore, the author insists that this missional methodology can be a very useful strategy for producing therapeutic change in young people and can help youth ministry workers and pastoral caregivers to reframe the crisis of youth identity from the perspective of 'missio Dei'.

[AMAZON LINK BELOW TO BOOK ITSELF -- TOC and book intro in downloadable .pdf] 

"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." --John Steinbeck Scientific research confirms what people have always known: answers, ideas, and inspiration do come to us in dreams. Harvard psychologist and world-renowned dream specialist Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D., offers this rich collection of examples of how the world's most creative practitioners in art, music, film, science, literature and other fields have used the revelations of their dream life to inform their work. Dr. Barrett offers insights showing us how to encourage lucid, meaningful dreaming, and how to apply the meanings of our dreams to solving problems--from the everyday to the extraordinary. This is the stuff dreams are made of. In the visual arts, Jasper Johns couldn't find his unique artistic vision until he dreamed it in the form of a large American flag. Salvador Dali and his colleagues built the startling new genre of surrealism out of dreams. Kubla Kahn dreamed the design for his stately pleasure dome; thousands of years later, Lucy Davis, chief architect at a major firm, continues the tradition of dreaming designs into life in her extraordinary buildings. Film is a fertile avenue for dreams: "Twice I have transferred dreams to film exactly as I had dreamed them," confides director Ingmar Bergman, as have Federico Fellini, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Robert Altman, and John Sayles. From Mary Shelley's terrible nightmare, which became Frankenstein, to Stephen King's haunting dream as a little boy, which led to his first bestseller, countless writers have consulted the Committee. Musicians from Beethoven to Billy Joel and Paul McCartney have whistled the Committee's tunes. In science, physiologist Otto Loewi dreamed the medical experiment that earned him the Nobel Prize. In sports, Marion Jones dreamed she'd broken a world record, then brought the dream to life. Gandhi translated his dream of resistance into a movement that changed the world. Since Freud, we take it for granted that our dreams reflect our past. In The Committee of Sleep, Barrett reveals how dreams can also tell us about our future potential--and how to reach it.

Nel corso degli ultimi anni, la psicologia e la formazione hanno stretto tra loro un rapporto delicato ma fecondo. Nell’ampio dibattito che si è sviluppato su questo tema, troviamo come punto comune la vocazione alla vita religiosa o sacerdotale. La letteratura su quest’argomento è vasta ma è difficile individuarvi delle linee di pensiero ben delineate. Trattando poi della definizione e della gestione della crisi, la pluralità concettuale è ancora più grande: vi è infatti tutta una serie di ricerche teoriche ma manca uno sguardo d’insieme o una ricerca esaustiva su questo tema.
In questo articolo ci proponiamo di individuare, trattando della gestione della crisi nel contesto formativo, i punti di convergenza e i limiti di azione del rapporto tra psicologia e formazione, al fine di evitare la ‘psicologizzazione’ della formazione o la ‘spiritualizzazione’ della psicologia.

“As we know, well-led groups provide many member benefits: feelings of universality, a sense of hope, altruism, acquisition of knowledge and skills, and mutual support...This text is affordable, easy to use, and very suitable for providing group work material in BSW or MSW practice courses.”

— Greg Tully, West Chester University



AN EXPERIENTIAL APPROACH TO GROUP WORK
Second Edition

Rich Furman, University of Washington, Tacoma
Kimberly Bender, University of Denver
Diana Rowan, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

An Experiential Approach to Group Work is not your typical group work text! Using dozens of exercises that build practice-tested skills, the authors' approach is in perfect step with CSWE's competence-based education requirements. The book is organized into three sections—the first addresses stages of group practice, the second looks at major types of groups, and the final section looks at examples of group work practice with special populations.

Features of the Second Edition

    Expanded! Discussion of the theory of group process and dynamics
    New! Content regarding Canadian, British, and Australian group work practices
    New! Chapters on anti-oppressive practice, group work with immigrants, and macro-practice group work
    New! Content on the use and development of technology to aid group work
    Contains customized exercises for each group work topic, designed to build the student and practitioner’s skills for use in group work sessions
    Special emphasis on how to bring individual sessions or groups to closure
    Provides examples of group work in specialized settings: conflict resolution groups within elementary schools, pregnant teens, Latinos, and HIV/AIDS clients

Alkitab menyatakan dalam Kejadian 1 bahwa Allah telah menciptakan manusia sebagai laki-laki dan perempuan secara jelas dengan maksud menyatakan gambar Allah di muka bumi (1:26-28),  dan menyatakan kemuliaan-Nya (Yesaya 43:7). Laki-laki dan perempuan diciptakan oleh Allah sebagai pribadi dengan keberadaan yang berbeda dan sebagai pribadi yang utuh, untuk maksud melengkapi satu dengan yang lainnya.

Kehadiran laki-laki dan perempuan membawa peran yang khas yang dapat dikerjakan masing-masing secara mandiri maupun secara bersama.

Setidak-tidaknya ada tiga sumber yang dipakai oleh orang percaya atau Gereja untuk membahas peran laki-laki dan perempuan yaitu Alkitab,  pengajaran secara doktrin teologis dalam tataran denominasi gereja, dan pengaruh sosiologis (Hommes, 1992:127).

This publication is a collection of essential tools for practical ministry in jails and prisons. It includes scores of Christian ministries and other faith-based organizations that offer free Bibles, books, literature, and other important resources for correctional chaplains.

C.S. Lewis once stated, "If you do not listen to theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong onesbad, muddled, out-of-date ideas" ("Mere Christianity," 128). But for many people theology is simply dusty, drab, dispassionate, desiccated drivel. And then into the mix life happens, or death, bringing tragedy and theology to meet and clash in the sparring ring. It's right here, in all of the sweat, the grit and the grappling, that J.

The article introduces discourse analysis as a fruitful approach to psychotherapy change-process research. Extracts are presented from a successfully resolved, client-specified, problematic theme that was selected from a successful 8-session psychodynamic-interpersonal therapy of a female client presenting with a major depressive episode. The study offers a heuristic demonstrating (a) how resolution of the client's problem evolved from implications raised by the client's own description of her predicament and involved the therapist's legitimation of a morally defensible account of the client's actions and (b) how cultural meanings can be brought into the consulting room as intimately personal problems. The implications of studying therapeutic change as a discursive activity comprising the use and negotiation of sociocultural meanings are discussed.

In chapter 10, Linday Finlay writes with Anna Madill , to describe and explain some different ways to analyse data. Four contrasting types of analysis are outlined with practical exemplars: narrative, thematic, discursive and creative. Each type of analysis highlights different aspects and so enables different insights. As such, qualitative analysis is always tentative, partial and emergent....

Fidelidad, compromiso, identidad, apostolado… Son algunas de las cuestiones que en Como hombres de Dios. Reflexiones sobre la formación presbiteral en el mundo actual, ayudarán a comprender y fortalecer el horizonte y dinamismo de la formación permanente. Los artículos presentados en este volumen tienen la tarea de analizar varios puntos relevantes sobre el tema, mantener la discusión sobre la formación y mostrar un panorama novedoso que vivifique la cuestión.

La formación permanente del sacerdocio necesita de nuevos dinamismos y horizontes que ayuden al presbiterado a dar un mayor servicio al Pueblo de Dios. El llamado que hace la Iglesia sobre la formación sacerdotal es uno de los aspectos más sobresalientes en la actualidad y uno de los más importantes para la renovación de la misma.

Lelkipásztorként sokszor kellett megállnom magányos emberek, kórházi ágyakon fekvő betegek vagy gyászolók mellett temetéseken. Gyakran tapasztaltam, hogy saját szavaim elégtelennek bizonyultak, ami a bátorítást illeti, de egy jól megválasztott alapige vagy elbeszélt-elolvasott történet érezhetően oldotta a magányos, a beteg vagy a gyászoló ember szomorúságát, szorongását. E tapasztalatok sora vetette fel bennem a lehetőségét annak, hogy talán célzatosan lehet használni a bibliai történeteket szorongásoldásra.

This is the keynote address given to the Tennessee Association of Pastoral Therapists, an organization of pastoral psychotherapists, on August 14, 2009, in Nashville, TN, USA. It is a reflection by the author upon the continued developments of his thoughts subsequent to the publication of his article "Recovering Grief in the Age of Grief Recovery,” The Journal of Pastoral Theology, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring 2003.

The purpose of this book is to help mental health professionals increase their cultural competence to better serve Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians who are congregants in the world’s fastest-growing religious movement. My focus is twofold. First, I aim to increase the reader’s awareness and knowledge about Christians who live their faith within Pentecostal cultures. Second, I hope to increase the reader’s knowledge about the assessment and treatment of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians with mental health needs based on a review of research and recommendations from experienced clinicians. My approach to assessment and treatment is the commonly held view that best practices are holistic. Therefore, I will attempt to integrate Pentecostal and Charismatic spirituality with assessment and treatment in ways that respect the spirituality of the person seeking treatment and enhances therapeutic outcomes.
Key words: Christian counseling and psychotherapy, Christianity and Racism, Christianity and sexism, Christianity and genderism, Pentecostals, Charismatics and LGBTQ+, Prayer and counseling/ psychotherapy, Counseling /psychotherapy and beliefs in demons/ demon possession, Christian counseling strategies

Partiendo del principio protestante del "sacerdocio de todos los creyentes", que propuso Lutero , se plantean las implicaciones teológicas y eclesiales de este "sacerdocio universal", como la confesión de la "sanctorum communio". Se hace una intersección con la salud mental, en cuanto la comunidad cristiana responde, desde una ética del dolor, a las experiencias de sufrimiento psíquico. Se plantean las miradas de comprensión de dicho sufrimiento desde la psicopatología y los abordajes psicoterapéuticos, así como se plantean las formas de intervención desde las comunidades de fe para el crecimiento y la curación.

The increased social acceptance of LGBTQ individuals and behaviors has begun to conflict with traditional Abrahamic proscriptions. An "opt-in" sample of 324 individuals who attended Jewish congregations was recruited from the Internet as part of a larger research project. This analysis is conducted on part of the data collected in that study. Two categories of congregations were identified: congregations in which the rabbi had self-revealed as LGBTQ and congregations in which the rabbi was believed heterosexual. There was no significant difference in the level of trust in the rabbi based on the LGBTQ status of the rabbi, which differed from findings in secular organizations. The results of the analysis indicated a need for further study, both quantitative and qualitative. The public self-revelation of LGBTQ identity on the part of the rabbi is a religious signal, thus possibly contributing to higher levels of trust.

This essay is slated to appear in the festschrift for Alan Culpepper in Brill's Biblical Interpretation Series (2018), Anatomies of the Gospels and Beyond, edited by Mikeal Parsons, Elizabeth Stuthers Malbon, and myself. This essay applies Cognitive-Critical Biblical Analysis to the human development of material behind the texts of Paul's writings as a complement to those who have worked on the material in front of biblical texts, as Alan Culpepper has done with Gospel traditions.

For many people the church is a place of refuge and solace, a place where they may feel comfortable and closer to God. But for some the church represents a mirror of their personal failures, and a reminder of the fact that they are „not good enaught.” While for many, belief in God is a way of overcoming anxiety and turning to God is a valuable tool for gaining strength against anxiety disorders, for some people church could be a place that creates fear or gives way to thoughts that end up in anxiety or panic attack. While panic attacks may occurr during church service or other church activities, this article offers a presentation of crisis intervention with a special focus to panic attacks. After that we continue with discussions on the issue of panic at pastoral visitations.
Keywords: Panic attack, Anxiety, Chrisis intervention, Pastoral visitation.

Özet
Türkiye’de psikolojik yardım uygulamalarının geçmişi 1950’li yıllara dayanmaktadır. Psikolojik yardım günümüzde çoğunlukla klinik ortamlarda gerçekleşmekle birlikte eğitim, adalet, endüstri, sosyal hizmet ve din hizmeti alanlarındaki uygulamalarıyla giderek yaygınlaşmaktadır. Önümüzdeki yıllarda toplum, psikolojik yardım hizmetlerine daha da fazla ihtiyaç duyacaktır. Çünkü globalleşme ile birlikte kültür kodlarında yaşanan değişimler, çok kültürlülük, değişen aile ve toplum yapısı, modern yaşam biçimi ve hızla gelişen teknoloji, birey ve toplumun psikolojik yaşantılarını daha da derinden etkileyecektir. Toplumda yaşanan ve giderek artan bu hızlı değişime ayak uydurma çabaları psikolojik yardım hizmetlerine duyulan ihtiyacı arttırmaktadır. Ülkemizde psikolojik yardım alanında, psikiyatrist, terapist, psikoterapist, psikolog, klinik psikolog, pedagog, rehber, psikolojik danışman, sosyal hizmet uzmanları profesyonel yardım sağlamaktadır. Bu yardım alanları içinde son yıllarda ortaya çıkan dinî danışma ve rehberlik, Türkiye’de henüz yeni çalışılan konular arasındadır. Özellikle lisansüstü çalışmaların son derece az olduğu bu alanın akademik ilgiye ihtiyacı vardır. Gündeme daha çok din hizmetleri çerçevesinde gelen dinî danışma ve rehberlik konusu daha çok master düzeyindeki çalışmalar, makale, sempozyum ve çalıştay bildirileri ile ele alınmaktadır.
Bu çalışmada toplumda giderek daha fazla ihtiyaç duyulan psikolojik yardım hizmetlerinin belli başlı alanları nelerdir? Psikolojik yardım uygulamaları bağlamında Türkiye’de dinî danışma ve rehberlik alanında yapılan akademik çalışmalar hangi aşamadadır? Sorularına cevap aranmaktadır. Bu çalışma ayrıca, psikolojik yardım alanları bağlamında gelişen dinî danışma ve rehberlik konusunun diğer psikolojik yardım hizmetleri sunan meslekler ile ilişkisine dikkat çekerek sürecin olgunlaşmasına katkı sağlamayı hedeflemektedir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Din; Psikoloji; Psikolojik Yardım; Manevi Bakım; Dinî Danışmanlık

Abstract
The history of psychological counseling in Turkey dates back to the 1950s.  Psychological guidance and counseling, that is mostly takes place in a clinical setting, as well as education, justice, industry, social services, religious services, which spreads up day by day. In the future, people will need more psychological support, because of the changes experienced in the cultural codes, which are caused by globalization, multiculturalism, changing family and social structure, modern lifestyle, rapidly evolving technology. The efforts to keep pace with this rapid change in society increase the need for psychological supprt services. The psychological support is professionally supplied by psychiatrists, therapists, psychotherapists, psychologists, clinical psychologists, educators, consultants, guidance, counselors, and social workers in Turkey. Among these, the pastoral guidance and counseling, that is a recent study of field, need more academic attention in Turkey. The pastoral guidance and counseling issues, that arose in the context of the more religious services, have begun to be addressed by the master level studies, articles, the symposiums and workshop papers.
The aim of this study is to answer the following questions: What are the major areas of psychological supprt, that is increasingly needed in the community? In the context of psychological guidance and counseling, the academic studies in Turkey, are at which stage? This study, tries to draw attention to the pastoral guidance and counseling, and its relations to other psychological support services. So that, it also aims to contribute to the process of enhancement of pastoral guidance and counseling in Turkey.
Key Words: Religion; Psychology; Psychological Help; Pastoral Care; Pastoral Counseling

What is the relationship between Christian spirituality and perceived crisis? This dissertation pursues this question by employing a Christian method for practitioners of pastoral care and counseling when tending to unique crisis experiences. Crisis or trauma is investigated and understood in terms of contemporary science. Christian counseling is developed as an interdisciplinary, interpretive lens with the capacity to describe how individuals relate to God in terms of Catholic dogma, Christian belief constructs, esoteric knowledge of the Bible and its meanings, and the literal word of the Bible. The beliefs of individuals in relation to this crisis and events that ensue because of it are tested and analyzed to determine the outcomes in people’s lives including their futures and their beliefs moving forward. The aim of the study was to see how Christian counseling can be the most effective to assist in providing care in times of crisis. The application of pastoral care and Christiam counseling to individuals’ unique crisis experiences is evaluated and found to produce a powerful and effective process of care for tending to traumatic experiences. This exemplifies how Christian counseling and pastoral care is an explicitly interdisciplinary paradigm that creates transformational dialogue and action applicable to a breadth of human needs including the need for security, feelings of love and control, feelings of power and freedom, and the basic needs of shelter and food.
            ii
This was based on a review of the literature on Christian counseling and pastoral care and theories of human trauma, isolation, grief and loss, social distancing, insecurity of resources, and an online survey that was distributed to individuals across the USA both with the coronavirus and without a diagnosis. Respondents were randomly divided into two conditions (Christian based counseling or general interfaith care) and asked to respond to two surveys.
Analysis of the responses demonstrated that Christian counseling administered to those with higher levels of being affected by the coronavirus epidemic was associated with stronger positive outcomes than general interfaith counseling for lower levels of being affected by the epidemic.
The results indicate that Christian counseling does have an impact on recovery from crisis or loss. On this basis, we conclude that it is recommended that organizations use Christian Counseling as a key factor in designing and targeting their ministry during a crisis or trauma situation even if the person is not claiming at the time to be a Christian. Limitations of the study included a small sample size of individuals in the USA, the participants being mainly young adult females,  and a small number of people with a positive diagnosis. Further research is needed to identify other factors that could strengthen the effectiveness of Christian Counseling and Care during a traumatic crisis event in a person’s life.

There is a growing trend of abuse in churches by religious leaders known as "spiritual abuse." Those victims may mistrust the pastoral counselors or feel anxious when in their care. Therefore is important to have a pastoral theology in the place to correctly handle those traumatized victims.

Using social capital theory as a framework, the authors examined data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS: 2002) to examine how student contact with high school counselors about college information and other college-related variables influence students’ college application rates. In addition to some college related variables, the number of school counselors, and student contact were significant predictors of college application rates.  Implications for school counselors and counselor training are included.

This study is based on the analysis of narratives during counselling sessions of two clients facing the problem of stuttering. Though the two cases were quite different with regard to their demographic characteristics, but during counselling sessions, both the clients reported emotionally devastating and stressful home environment during childhood. Both the clients had reported undergoing childhood traumatic experiences of being abused and mistreated by their parents, especially by their father. The clients were clearly of the opinion that their father’s abusive behaviour infused in them a sense of acute fear, insecurity and mistrust regarding relationships. After initial few counselling sessions the clients narratives made it clear that their stuttering was more acute when they had to face their father.  These revelations suggested a strong relationship between traumatic childhood experiences /child abuse and stuttering. Parents are the key source of strength and confidence for a child. Parents are like the boat through which the child explores the vast ocean of life and develops his own personality. He/she looks towards his parents whenever he finds himself/herself in trouble perceived or real. But when the same source of strength and confidence becomes a source of fear or anxiety, it has a detrimental impact on not only the overall development of personality but also on the other cognitive capabilities including the fluency of speech.
The earlier studies in the field have primarily focused on the role of genetic factors in the aetiology of stuttering. On the basis of the analysis of narratives of the clients, we strongly believe that it will be misleading to lay overemphasis on genetic factors and to undermine the role of early childhood traumatic experiences in the aetiology of stuttering. Since chronic stress has been found to have a detrimental effect on various cognitive abilities, including the processing of speech and language, it has been argued that stress generated by early childhood traumatic experiences plays a key role in aetiology of stuttering. The effectiveness of CBT in significantly minimizing the problem of stuttering is indicative of the role of psychological factors.

Therapy can be confusing: two people converse in a private room, one in distress, the other described as a helpful expert. At least one of the two is likely to express thoughts and feelings usually kept secret. In other circumstances, the exchange of such intimacies may herald a more physical relationship. For therapists, however, the professional relationship explicitly precludes such contact. The BACP Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy,1 for example, requires that practitioners must not abuse their client’s trust in order to gain sexual, emotional, financial, or any other kind of personal advantage. Sexual relations with clients are prohibited, along with sexualised behaviour.

While psychotherapists and counsellors generally acknowledge that sexual attraction is a common and often ordinary human response to another, they also recognise that acting on such feelings in therapy will quickly become problematic. The early psychoanalytic community had to confront and respond to such instances as Jung’s relationship with Sabina Spielrein.2 Rosie Alexander’s3 description of the times she sat on her therapist’s knee and felt his erection, elicits a mixture of emotions in the reader, not least shock, and the narrative is saturated with a sense of betrayal.

There have been several types of research investigating boundary breaches and sexual boundary violations.4 In spite of these, however, there is little certainty about how common sexual boundary violations are, as the sources of information about them (confession, client reporting, complaints to organisations, and knowledge of colleagues’ conduct) are all vulnerable to error. Further studies have attempted to identify characteristics of transgressing therapists and the factors that contribute to such events (see Moggi et al5 for an example), and to understand the effects on clients who have experienced therapist-client sex.6 If sexual feelings are ubiquitous and sexual attraction a real possibility in the context of the therapy relationship, how are these managed in therapy? Complaints about sexual boundary violations form a small proportion of complaints about therapists and health professionals.4, 7, 8 Is it the prospect of opprobrium from colleagues or the threat of sanctions from regulatory agencies that contains the relationship within professional boundaries? Do reported violations represent only a small proportion of actual sexual boundary violations? .......

The purpose of Lay Counseling is ambitious—providing “a comprehensive foundation for understanding biblical caregiving (p.15).” Initially, the authors present Gary Collins’ definition of Christian Counseling, which is “a caring relationship in which one person tries to help another deal more effectively with the stresses of life (p.15).” What we find in Lay Counseling are strategies for selecting, training, supervising, and evaluating lay Christian counselors and guidelines for establishing lay counseling programs. I will summarize the 12 chapters and resources in this review.

The ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic is one of the significant challenges the world has ever faced in the last 20 and more centuries. The coronavirus, which is tiny and unseen with the humans' naked eyes, has crushed and ravaged the world and put the latter on war footing to respond to this deadly situation. This extreme state of affairs has left humans' life and their faith in science and technology, such as machinery, equipment, technical know-how, and medicines, to reexamine the idea of human development, progress, and life itself. In such a circumstance, Christian faith, church, and theology have to revisit and reflect on the Word of God to discover life's meanings, mission, and praxis to uplift the spirit of the world, church and faith holistically. Hence, the community of faith should respond sincerely to the current pandemic to make itself relevant to the world now and then and be faithful to the Gospel. For this purpose, the study undertaken is explorative and community-based action-oriented one seeking life's reorientation and commitment.

Aim: To identify therapists’ views on sexual boundaries and the strategies they employ to manage them in therapeutic practice. Method: In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 13 accredited, experienced practitioners of psychotherapy or counselling. A grounded theory approach, informed by principles from Free Association Narrative methodology, was employed, in which team members used debriefing sessions for extending depth of understanding of the interviews. Findings: There is consensus about boundaries at the extremes, but variability about fantasy, flirtation and touch. A core process was generated from accounts of successful management of sexual attraction. We identified four problematic ways of reacting to boundary pressure, each with potential to harm clients and therapy. Discussion: A participant-observer stance was conceptualised as essential for managing threats to boundaries, consistent with the empathic stance. Minor boundary crossings were viewed by interviewees as both potential precursors of more serious transgressions, and as opportunities for understanding the client's difficulties. Implications for practice: These span training, accrediting organisations, supervision and therapy practice.