In Living Color: An Intercultural Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling - Emmanuel Lartey

PART 1: HISTORY, THEORY, AND PRACTICE 

CH 1 – INTRO TO PASTORAL CARE 

p. 21 

• John McNeill explored the term ‘cura animarum’ (cure of souls) 
• 1964 – Clebsch and Jaekle – definition of pastoral care - “pastoral care consists of helping acts done by representative Christian persons, directed toward the healing, sustaining, guiding and reconciling of troubled persons, whose troubles arise in the context of ultimate meanings and concerns” 

• 1. pastoral care is identified with helping acts 

p. 22 

• Demonstrate pragmatism and optimism of the 60s 

• 2. pastoral care is the preserve of ‘representative Christian persons’ 

• Not necessarily ordained clergy persons 

• Persons who represent Christian faith; pastoral care is ‘ipso facto’ a Christian term 

• 3. pastoral care has to do with troubled persons 

• Problem-centered focus and problem-solving approach 

• 4. context of troubles focused on in pastoral care is ‘ultimate meanings and concerns’ 

• Howard Clinebell – pastoral care and counseling involve the utilization by persons in ministry of one-to-one or small group relationships to enable healing empowerment and growth to take place within individuals and their relationships. Pastoral care is the broad, inclusive ministry of mutual healing and growth within a congregation and its community, through the life cycle 

p. 23 

• Central issues to Clinebell are the ecclesial context (Christian church) 
• Importance of one-to-one or ‘small group’ relationships 
• Pastoral care is now clearly seen as a communal, congregational matter 

• Pastoral care is seen as an ‘ambulance service’ 

• Pattison – pastoral care is that activity, undertaken especially by representative Christian persons, directed towards the elimination and relief of sin and sorrow and the presentation of all people perfect in Christ to God 
• Elimination of sin and sorrow possible? 

p. 24 

• Ed Wimberly – pastoral care is the bringing to bear upon persons and families in crisis the total caring resources of the church 
• Four functions of pastoral care for liberation: worship, care, nurture, and witness 

• Preparing, strengthening, and attempting to change those conditions which prevent persons from choosing healthy crisis-coping patterns within a framework that is communal and supportive 
• Communal framework is crucial 
• Masamba ma Mpolo – African witchcraft – radical search for a liberating spirituality – African traditional cosmologies  

p. 25 

• Masamba - ‘insight-oriented therapy’ - disease in Africa is thought of as also having spiritual and relational causes. It may be ascribed either to bewitchment, to the anger of mistreated and offended spirits, to possession by an alien spirit, or to broken human relations. Pastoral counseling should therefore also use spiritual means of letting people deal with their emotional needs, even through ecstasy, rituals and symbolic representations. 

• Berinyuu – rooted in therapeutic practices and interpretations of the AFrican people – attempt to integrate Western forms of healing – pastoral counsel is shepherding diviner who carefully guides a sheep through a soft muddy spot 

• Also utilizes Freudian psychoanalysis and Jerome D Frank’s persuasion healing approach  

• There are five essential elements of pastoral care  

• 1. declaration of the nature of activity 

p. 26 

• 2. discussion of agency that explores who are involved or engaged in it 
• 3. indication of how it is done which includes pointing to resources and their employment in achieving the fourth element 
• 4. goals aimed 
• 5. setting forth of motive – why people do it 

• 1. Pastoral care is an expression of human concern through activities 

• What it is to be human  
• All-encompassing passion 
• John 10:10 - “I have come that they may have life, and may have it in all its fullness 
• Well-being of the whole person 
• Various helping activities – counseling, celebrating, commemorating, rejoicing, reflecting, mourning, being present, etc 

• 2. Pastoral carers recognize transcendence (transcendent dimension to life) 

• That there is more to life  
• Awareness that power, grace, goodness are often ‘not’ found in obvious places 
• Mysteriousness about life – no sociological, psychological, logical, physiological analyses and explanations 
• No objective and external means of gaining access 

p. 27 

• Elaborated rituals are attempts at coming to terms with  
• Truth and falsehood: ‘pastoral’ caregiver from other carers 

p. 28 

• Linda Myers – Afrocentric thought - ‘optimal psychology’ - reality divided into spirit and matter (suboptimal worldview) matter being pre-eminent 

• Gain knowledge through measuring and counting information provided by five senses, etc 

• Optimal theory – assumes unity of spirit and matter – spirit being pre-eminent 

• Self-knowledge is the source and basis of all knowledge 

• Pring – pastoral care for spiritual needs of young people 

• Conscious effort to help young people to develop as persons – personal development 

p. 29 

• 3. Pastoral care entails multimvariate forms of communication 

• Verbal communication is very important 
• But in many cultures, indirect and non-verbal forms of communication are just as important 
• Proverbs, allusions, drama, poetry, imagination, symbolic art, etc 

• 4. The motive is love 

• The compassions that lies at the center of the universe deep in the heart of God 
• Enables us to recognize injustice and desire to do something about it 
• Agape – Jesus Christ – self-giving love 

p. 30 

• Love is both the motivation and the motive force 
• Key is the realization that the love of God is for the whole world, which is created diverse 
• All that is done must respect and uphold the diversity in which the whole of the world is created 
• All attempts to force uniformity upon a world created diverse are both heretical and damaging to the creation 

• 5. Pastoral care aims at prevention and fostering 

• Much of West has been focused on relief 
• ‘ambulance service’ image is hard to escape 
• Image as if pastoral care is only needed after devastating event has occurred 
• Pastoral care aims at preventing distress by creative anticipation and sensitive, non-intrusive awareness-building 
• Prepare people for if events were to happen 

• Involved in fostering or enabling human growth and fulfillment of potential of individuals as well as communities 
• Pastoral care consists of helping activities, participated in by people who recognize a transcendent dimension to human life, which, by the use of verbal or non-verbal, direct or indirect, literal or symbolic modes of communication, aim at preventing, relieving or facilitating persons coping with anxieties. Pastoral care seeks to foster people’s growth as full human beings together with the development of ecologically and socio-politically holistic communities in which all persons may live humane lives.  

• Culture and interculturality 

p. 31 

• Culture is particular and distinctive ‘way of life’ of the group 

• Ideas, values, and meanings embodies in institutions and practices, in forms of social relationship, in systems of belief, in mores and customs, in the way objects are used and physical life organized 
• Structures and meanings influence the ongoing collective experience of the group 
• Also limit, modify, and constrain how groups live and interpret their experiences 
• Culture is never static 
• Continual interplay resulting in dynamism, adaptability, reinterpretation, reformulation, and change 

• New forms, new perceptions, creative interpretations are emerging all the time 
• There are also individual differences within culture 

p.32 

• Worse, there has been attempt to normalize and universalize a particular culture’s experience and judge by another’s perspective 
• Eurocentric and hegemonic attempts 

• Must give different voices a chance to express their views on their own terms 
• Post-modern 
• Intercultural approach v. reductionism or stereotyping 
• Placing groups in hierarchical order, categorizing them, fuel stereotyping 
• Interculturality values diversity 

• 1. Contextuality 

• Behavior or belief is rendered meaningless without context 

• 2. multiple perspectives 

• Monocausal explanations of phenomena are inadequate and often oppressive 

• 3. authentic participation 

• Affirms the right of all to participate according to their own terms 

p. 33 

• Encourage diversity through making spaces for others to participate 

• Augsburger (1986) one needs more than information about another culture to become culturally aware 

• Awareness occurs at the boundary not in cultural enclaves 

• Cognitive (think with) and affectively (feeling with) 

• Trinitarian formulation of human personhood  

• Every person is in certain respects 

• Like all others 
• Like some others 

• Like no other 

• Interculturality = interconnectedness + interrelatedness of living, growing, and changing 

• Augsburger’s boundary allows to enter creatively into each culture and mediate and reconcile = cross-cultural counseling 

p. 36 

• Living in the intersection = interaction between many 

p. 37 

• Postmodernism and post-culturalism 

• Woods (1999) - represent ‘a decline of faith in the keystones of enlightenment – belief in the infinite progress of knowledge, belief in infinite moral and social advancement, belief in teleology, and its rigorous definition of standards of intelligibility, coherence, and legitimacy’ 
• Jean-Francois Lyotard - ‘incredulity towards metanarratives and a challenge to all totalizing discourses 

p. 38 

• Micronarratives are more highly valued than before 
• Knowledge can only ever be partial, fragmented, and incomplete 
• Anti-foundationalism  
• No universal organized bodies of knowledge as truth 
• Many parts of the earth have long been doubtful of the grand narratives of the West 

p. 39 

• Homogeneity to heterogeneity – sharp binary oppositions are challenged 
• Identities v. the essentialism that seeks to locate identity in a psychological or cultural essence uniting all who share it 
• Identity is seen as fluid and multiple 

p. 40 

• Homi Bhabha (1994) ‘postcolonial criticism bears witness to the unequal and uneven forces of cultural representation involved in the contest for political social authority within the modern world order’ 
• Knowledge is power  

p. 41 

• Pastoral caregivers cannot practice their art as if in an isolated time warp 

• Need to engage in social and cultural analysis  

p. 42 

CH 2 – HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN PASTORAL CARE 

• Pastoral care – cure of souls 
• Found in ancient Semitic culture, Babylon, and Egypt  

• Socrates wanted to be known as ‘iatros tes psuches’ (healer of souls) 
• Cicero - ‘iatroi logoi’ (healing words) 
• Socrates was ‘a great forerunner of the many who have searched out and sifted the thoughts of men for the healing and well-being of their souls’ 
• Hindu had ‘guru’ 
• Islam ahd ‘murshid’ (one who guides) or ‘sheik’ (old man) 

p. 44 

• Christian pastoral care has been exercised in a great variety of ways and with a great deal of ingenuity – creativity and contextuality 
• Clebsch and Jaekle – four basic functions of Christian pastoral care 

• 1. healing 
• 2. guiding 

• 3. sustaining 
• 4. reconciling 

• Constantine (Rome) Christianity was seen as unifier of society 

p. 45 

• Pope Gregory ‘Liber Regule Pastoralis’ -  

• 1. immense difficulty of pastoral office and the requirements it places on those called to it 
• 2. setting forth the inner and outer life of the good pastor 
• 3. fascinating collection of different ways to respond pastorally to very wide range of differing sorts and conditions of human  
• 4. implores pastor to be self-critical 
• Personal humility is required to take up pastoral care yet it is grand and honorable position 

p. 46 

• Richard Baxter ‘The Reformed Pastor’ - ‘the blessedness of life to come, compared with the vanities of this present life’ 
• Thomas Oden ‘great pastoral tradition’ 

• Early christian psychology 
• The Pastoral office 

• Pastoral counseling 
• Pastoral instruction 
• Models of working pastor 
• The caring community 
• Pastoral theology 

p. 47 

• Islamic exemplars – Sufi orders developed (like India’s hindu – guru-chela relationship) 
• Yahya Maneri a.k.a. ‘The Spiritual Teacher of the Realm’ - ‘Makhdum Sahib’ 

p. 49 

• ‘two, three, four, or even more guides in order to reach the goal’ 

• Disciple is required to be completely devoted to the guide 
• Five stages to becoming a guide 

• Submission common to all servants or disciples 
• Disposition to receive truths from God directly without intermediary 
• Divinely inspired submission specially given 

• Honor of actually receiving direct divine knowledge 
• Riches that such reception bestows 

p. 50 

• Alistair Campbell - ‘there is challenge to cultural captivity of pastoral care – it is no longer possible to speak comfortably of care, while ignoring political, social, and economic oppressions of our world; no longer permissible to assume that one culture can supply all the insights needed to restore humanity to man; no longer valid to speak of freedom without recognizing its complexity and without acknowledging the risks entailed in truly seeking it for all men and women’ 

p. 55 

CH 3 – MODELS OF PASTORAL CARE 

Five major models 

• Pastoral care as therapy 

• ‘therapeo’ (Greek) = heal  

• Healing presupposes that something has gone wrong – fundamental problem 

• Illness or deviation from bio-physical norms  
• Sin or alienation from essence 

• Task of caregiver becomes removing or correcting what is wrong 
• Divine assistance, divine grace, divine intervention 

• Premised on: without an acknowledgment of a problem, no solution can be sought 

p. 56 

• Modern pastoral care 

• Captivity to secular psychotherapy - therapeutic 
• Modeled upon theologies of redemption (soteriologies); great emphasis on sinfulness of humanity and greatness of salvation 

• Potential pitfall 

• Oversimplifying the issues 
• Quest for single factors accountable for problems 
• Desire for quick fix miracle cures 
• Problems of overdependence upon the curer or caregiver 

• Potential for abuse by the powerful therapist 
• Pastoral care as ministry 

• Caregiver is viewed as agents or intermediaries 
• Specific rites, procedures, and training for those summoned by God 
• They employ communication skills and sacramental rites to foster well-being, growth and spiritual advancement 

• Five classic activities are engaged  

• Proclamation – of essentials of belief and practices 

p. 57 

• Teaching (didache) 
• Prophecy (forth-telling) 

• Service (diakonia) particular deeds of kindness 

• Almsgiving, visiting, comforting, providing, etc 

• Fellowship (koinonia) social interaction 

• Social nature of human existence is affirmed 

• Administration (oikonomia)  

• Financial affairs, property issues, and legal matters 

• Worship (eucharistia)  

• Spiritual aspirations  
• Giving time, honor, space, and recognition to God as the ultimate source of life 

• Love of God means loving those who draw near to God 

• Pastoral care as social action 

• Rise of liberation theology 
• Three level of liberation theology 

• Professional 
• Pastoral 

• Popular 

p. 58 

• Theology sheds the light of saving word on the reality of injustice so as to inspire the church to struggle for liberation (Boff and Boff) 
• Aim is transformation of societies and persons 
• Goal is a more socially just and equitable distribution of the human and material resources found on earth 

• ‘praxis’ - action-reflection based 
• ‘liberacao’ - liber (free) acaco (action) - action-oriented process inspired by faith and commitment to the gospel 

• Pastoral care as empowerment 

• Emphasis on the fact that there is something good, something of worth and value within human persons as they presently are 
• Empowerment implies not weakness but rather some pre-existing strength upon which one builds 

• Task is to draw out and build up unnoticed strengths and resources within and around people and communities 
• Paulo Freire – seek to assist in ‘conscientization’ of the oppressed and marginalized through enabling them to ask questions abour their life situation 

• Conscientization is a process within which people become more aware of their situation and of the resources they possess to respond to and change things 

p. 59 

• Pastoral care as personal interaction 

• Relational skills are employed to assist people explore, clarify, and change unwanted thoughts, feelings, behavior 
• Focus is on the individual 
• Much value is placed on the person cared for gaining insight 
• Approaches tend to be cognitive, using cause-effect theories which favor ‘left-brain’ logical, rational and analytical process over ‘right brain’ creative, intuitive, nonverbal processes 
• Value is placed upon verbal expressiveness, articulation of feelings and client self-disclosure within a warm, accepting and nonjudgmental environment largely produced by the carer’s skills in personal relationship 

p. 60 

CH 4 – PASTORAL CARE, FUNCTIONS AND RESOURCES 

• Functions 
• What is pastoral care for? Purpose? Need? Good? What distinctions from other forms of care? 

• Pastor’s task is to keep alive the mystery of God in the human situation 
• So live one’s life that it would be inexplicable if God did not exist 
• Point to reality beyond themselves 

p. 61 

• Awareness of transcendent reality  

• Pastoral theology begins with search for meaning in life. It deals seriously with every struggle we engage in to understand ourselves, our culture, and functioning of nature and society, and the connections between them 
• Pastoral theology is glad to be what we are in reality: grasping with challenges and discoveries, exploring identities, values, and purposes, discovering mysterious relationship with nature, history, and world 
• To live as disciples of Jesus – four aims of pastoral care 

• To encourage people to make their own sense of their experience 
• To disclose Christian meaning in life 

• To stimulate men and women to engage in their own conversations with the Christian tradition 
• To encourage holiness 

p. 62 

• Four classic functions  

• Healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling 

• Plus, nurturing 
• Liberating and empowering 

• Healing – and Restoration 

• Healing presupposes loss or sickness (out of the norm) 
• ‘miracles’ inexplicable and supernatural  

• Healers are intermediaries or agents 
• 1. understanding of what is ‘natural’ is often limited 

• What is natural and what is supernatural 

p. 63 

• 2. immanentist point of view (that sees the force or power of God as present in the world), it becomes possible to see God at work in and through the ‘natural’ processes in the world 

• God is both transcendent and immanent 
• God is not far away 
• God is present all the time and bears all the pain and anguish of the sufferer 
• God is able and willing to help 

• Healers must be open and attentive to the present 

• Healer listens deeply to sighs and groans of humans in distress 
• Respect the mystery and awesomeness of the divine 
• Focus and direct themselves to the presence of the divine 

• Sustaining 

• The struggle to survive 

• Massive growth bears witness to humanity’s amazing resilience and willingness to live 
• Innate tendency to survive sustained humanity in the face of disasters and tragedies 

p. 64 

• More to do with attitude 
• It is to find strength and support from within and without to cope 

• Guiding 

• No man can reveal  
• The teacher gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and love 
• If he is indeed wise he does not bid you to enter the house of wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind 

p. 65 

• Guiding is enabling people and drawing out that which lies within them 
• To be drawn out to the very limits of our capacity if we are to experience life it its splendor and mystery 

• Reconciling 

• Bringing together that which has been estranged or alienated 
• Harmony does not imply uniformity 

• Harmony recognizes diversity and differences 
• Active and creative way to bring people together respectful of their differences 
• Some cultures prefer conflict mediation through ‘indirect, lateral, and systemic ways’ 
• Some cultures prefer ‘direct, one-to-one engagement 

p. 66 

• Individualism in life shapes individualism in strife 
• Pastoral caregivers need sensitivity to cultures, faiths, and personalities that reconciliation calls for 

• Nurturing 

• ‘growth counseling’ 

• Maximum development of a persons’s potentialities, at each life stage, in ways that contribute to the growth of others as well and to the development of a society in which all persons will have an opportunity to use their full potentialities 

• Six interdependent dimensions 

• Our minds 
• Our bodies 
• Relationships with people 

• Biosphere 

• Groups and institutions 

• Spiritual dimensions 

• To be facilitator of growth 
• Combines caring with confrontation 
• Acceptance, affirmation, grace, and love is experienced with confrontation 

• Ongoing process that is sensitive to the crucial life-stages 

• Times of crisis and opportunity 

• Require us to leave past attitudes and limitations and embrace new possibilities 

p. 67 

• Liberating 

• Bob Marley – encourages the oppressed to emancipate themselves from mental slavery since no one apart from oneself can free one’s mind 
• People are bound when they depend on others for their thinking and believing 
• Dominant groups suppress views and expressions 

• Overt or covert 
• Identification with the oppressor 

• Internalization of the oppressor’s views and values 

• Lead to self-hate  
• Ambivalence of self-worth 

• Liberating involves the intricate and delicate processes of raising awareness about the sources and causes of oppression and domination in society 
• Personal and communal liberation 

p. 68 

• Empowering 

• Marginalized groups or people may have endured years of enforced or internalized helplessness 
• ‘learned helplessness’ 
• ‘glass ceiling effect’ 

• Deficiencies in confidence, self-esteem, etc 
• Enable and motivate 
• Greater freedom and greater participation 

p. 69 

• Self-in-relationship 

• Attitude formation involves developing of cognitive, affective, and conative abilities 
• Pastoral formation is attitude formation 

p. 71 

• Helping styles 

• The guide 

• The celebrant 
• The consultant 
• The manager 

p. 72 

• Word 

• Supreme value is placed on a person’s ability and freedom to verbalize their life experience 
• Listening is a core skill in any form of caring 
• Encouraging and asking questions 
• Helping a person begin again to weave a thread through their life 
• Every story is an interpretation 

• Selection, ordering, and emphasizing of events 
• Tragic, comic, indifferent, combination, etc 

• Much of pastoral care will entail conversation, speech, and listening 
• Reading and reflection  
• Language can be a great unifier 

• Social glue within community 
• But words can cause deep hurt, oppression, marginalization, and exclusion 

p. 74 

• Emotion 

• Therapeutic triad = empathy, warmth, and genuineness 

• Feeling permits us to be sensitive, caring, and understand experiences of others 
• It is by feeling that we enter into the world of others 
• Appeal to emotion through unusual, unexpected, strange use of media 

p. 75 

• Action 

• Subjective purpose 
• Purposeful activity 
• Silence and presence 

• Symbol and imagination 

• General meaning 

• Psychoanalytic meaning 
• Birth, love, death 

p. 76 

• Jung – symbols bridged between conscious and unconscious mind 
• Progressive self-transformation 

• Language, art, etc 
• Symbol is a bridging act – between outer existence and inner meaning 

p. 77 

• Ability to symbolize enables us to relate, share in meaning and significance, imagine, represent and participate 
• “a hand holding an egg” - power is like holding an egg, if you hold it too tightly it breaks and if you hold it too loosely it drops 

• “double head facing opposite direction” remind that wisdom requires looking in many directions and eliciting views of more than one person 

PART 2 – PRIVATE CARE AND PUBLIC STRUGGLE 

CH 5 – COUNSELING AS PASTORAL CARE AND PASTORAL COUNSELING 

p. 81 

• Counseling and psychotherapy occupy a central place in Western approaches to pastoral care 
• Psychology – arguable scientific status  

• Psychotherapy – acceptable alternative to religion 
• Post-Christian and post-political society 
• provided a way of being loving, helpful, and kind without being religious 

• Counseling – appear fitting because 

• Focus on the individual means that it is the dignity, worth, and uniqueness of each individual as an individual which lies at the heart of counseling theory and practice 
• There is valuing of verbal expressiveness 

• Careful use of relationship 
• Conditions created to facilitate the expression of thoughts and feelings and the exploration of behavioral patterns which may be causing concern 

• Ability freely to express and explore thoughts 

• Focus on client self-disclosure 

• It is client’s self-disclosure that constitutes the raw material upon which the counseling process is based 

p. 82 

• Implied imbalance of power – needy must seek out the counselor – yet, the needy must disclose 

• The gaining of knowledge or insight is an expressed aim of most forms of counseling 

• All skill and approaches are meaningless without the transmission or gaining of some form of knowledge 

• The use of cause-effect interpretive theories 

• Counseling is the skilled and principled use of relationship to facilitate self-knowledge, emotional acceptance and growth, and the optimal development of personal resources. The overall aim is to provide an opportunity to work towards living more satisfyingly and resourcefully 
• People become engaged in counselling when counselor offers to offer time, attention, and respect to another person. Task of counseling is to give client an opportunity to explore, discover, and clarify ways of living more resourcefully and towards greater well-being. 

• To cope more effectively with life 

p. 83 

• MODELS OF COUNSELING 

• Insight oriented 

• Helping people get insight into the nature and development of their problems 

• If person knows more constructively what hidden and inner dynamics of their lives are, they can be enabled to structure the processes of living in a more satisfactory or creative fashion 

• Freud, Jung, Alfred Adler, Otto Rank 

p. 84 

• Behavioristic 

• Premise that all behavior is learned, and that all learning is the result of reinforced practice 

• Helping people change their behavior through the application of principles of learning 
• If people can be motivated to act differently, their confusion or dissatisfaction will dissipate and problem will be dealt with  
• Attention is paid to unwanted behavioral patterns and the schedules of reinforcement that keep them in place 
• Focus on overt observable behaviors 

• Sometimes on covert behaviors like thinking and believing 

• Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck 

• Relationship-oriented 

• Assumption that humans are relational beings 
• It is necessary to explore relational patterns  
• Examine nature of network of current relationships 

p. 85 

• 1. human potentials approaches 

• Explicit goal of actualizing a person’s full potential 
• Abraham Maslow - ‘self-actualization’ 
• Highly optimistic and humane views of human nature 

• Human potentials: creativeness, beauty, value, imagination, joy 
• Role of counselor is to create the requisite environment – open, accepting, warm – where such potential will be realized 
• Brian Thorne: “God is trustworthy, the body is trustworthy, desires are trustworthy, sexuality is not a problem, survival is not a problem, death is not to be dreaded” 

p. 86 

• Counselor frustrates all attempts on the part of the client to be dependent on the counselor; instead, the counselor encourages complete responsibility and choice of response in the client 

• 2. radical and systemic approaches 

• Focus on changing social systems so that all their members will be freer to grow towards wholeness 
• Interpersonal processes and behaviors occurring, not within but, with others 
• Conviction that personal growth and social change are inextricably linked 
• Often, source of issue may lie outside of the person 

• As such, political, social, and historical structures need to be addressed 

• Transpersonal  

• Humanistic psychology  
• Maslow – self has needs for stimulation and enhancement of experience 

• Desires for self-transcendence were real and merited serious attention 

• Altered states of consciousness 

p. 87 

• Spiritual growth is central and essential in all therapy and counseling 
• Viktor Frankl - ‘logotherapy’ 

• Meaning and purpose 

• Carl Jung - ‘individuation’ 

• Coming to self-hood 

• Roberto Assagioli - ‘psychosynthesis’ 

• We try to build an elevator which will allow a person access to every level of his personality. After all, a building with only a basement is very limited. We want to open up the terrace where you can sun-bathe and look at the stars. Our concern is synthesis of all areas of personality. This means psychosynthesis is holistic, global, and inclusive. It is not against psychoanalysis or even behavior modification, but it insists that the need for meaning, for higher values, for a spiritual life, are as real as biological or social needs. 

p. 88 

• E.g. spiritual direction, guidance, mentoring 
• Goal and center of activity is spiritual growth 
• India  

• Jnani = realized soul 
• Moksha = state of absolute release 

• Krishna and Arjuna – illuminating depiction of the teacher-disciple encounter 
• Characteristics of counseling 

p. 89 

• Listening 

• Being silent with another person in an active way – open, sensitive, receptive, and alive 

• Silent receiving 
• Major obstacles – inner and outer response 
• We think we must contribute  
• But listening is greater service than speaking 

p. 90 

• Spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words  

• May result in isolation 
• Obstruct real contact with another 

• Listening require deep inner security and strength 
• Lack of inner poise 

• Steps 

• Listening without controlling, coercing, or censoring what they say 
• Process of paraphrasing or summarizing and checking whether aligned with their intention 
• Amplify or sharpen what has been heard and ask  
• Ask for more detail  

• Guide fullness and undoing complexities 
• Make sure questioning is not invading privacy 

p. 91 

• Aim at ventilation of feelings  

• When listening is deep, real, and penetrating, the experience can be awe-inspiring 

• It could be a holy sacred space where personal, intimate material is brought into play 
• Meaning is different to listener and speaker – meaning could be ingrained in feelings of sadness, sorrow, or joy  
• Meaning emerges from the most ordinary encounters of life 
• Look and be interested 
• Inquire with open questions 

• Stay alive  
• Test your understanding 
• Empathize 
• Neutralize your feelings 

p. 92 

• Empathy 

• A man should not advise another man till he has walked a mile in his shoes 
• Entails entering into another’s thought patterns, inner feelings, and ways of understanding the world 
• Egan: ‘the ability to enter into and understand the world of another person and to communicate this understanding to him or her’ 

• Feeling 

• Thinking 
• Tendency to action 

• Acute awareness of another’s feelings 
• Ability to stay with these feelings 
• Being able to express or enable their expression 

• The person empathizing must retain own identity and inner strength 
• It is necessary to maintain distance which preserves the integrity and distinct personhood of both counselor and client 

p. 93 

• Slow and painful process of traveling intensely and carefully with another 
• There may be periods of confusion, uncertainty, and misunderstanding 

• Empathy is not sympathy: Sympathy often undermines the confidence and weaken the ability of the object of sympathy 

• Interpathy 

• Intentional cognitive envisioning and affective experiencing of another’s thoughts and feelings, even though the thoughts rise from another process of knowing, the values grow from another frame of moral reasoning and the feelings spring from another basis of assumptions 

p. 94 

• Fully entertain awareness of a foreign belief 

• Radical and serious attempt to engage across cultural boundaries 
• It is necessary to recognize that it rests upon the premise of human universality (essential aspect of an intercultural vision) 
• Cross cultural – equally human 

• Share in thoughts, feelings, and behavior no matter how different 

• Respect 

• Client knows best 
• Unconditional positive regard 

p. 95 

• Value the person’s worth and dignity 
• Presuppose a measure of integrty and love of truth 

• No matter how distorted 
• Worthy of complete and serious attention in their individual uniqueness 
• Self-determination and inner-directedness 
• “for” the client 
• Optimistic 1950s and 1960s 

• Respect is both gracious and toughminded 
• ‘esse qua esse bonum est’ - being as being is good  

• Jewish tradition 

• Presence of evil is existential reality 

P. 96 

• Much interpersonal perception is based on nonverbal cues 
• Highly racialized society 
• Race is ultimate measure of social exclusion and inclusion 

• Non-possessive warmth 

• Welcoming and loving attitude; affirmative and accepting 

• Unconditional acceptance 
• Deep and genuine care  
• 1. non-possessive warmth 

• Not contaminated by feelings and desires of affection 

• 2. feelings of dislike or even revulsion 

p. 97 

• Countertransference – feelings evoked in counselor by client 
• Transference – parent-child pattern 
• “intercultural sensitivity”  
• Genuine owning of one’s cultural baggage  

• Genuineness 

• Openness and transparency 
• Authenticity and honest humanity 
• Not phony, no façade, no mannerisms, etc 

p. 98 

• Common experience is sensed – people trust when genuine 
• Avoid defensiveness – be spontaneous and expressive 
• Constructively self-disclose 

• Concreteness 

p. 99 

• Being definite, real, and specific 
• Clear, undistorted, and uncontaminated 

• Confrontation 

• 1. to draw attention to apparently unnoticed resources 

• Client may be unaware of own personality and consequences 

• 2. invite an examination of some form of behavior which may either be self-defeating or harmful to others 

• Draw attention to self-image, self-experience, discrepancies, distortions, contradictions, counter-productive, self-defeating, etc 

p. 100 

• Confidentiality 

• Trust and safety 

• Immediacy 

• Here and now 
• Mutual talk between you and me 
• Awareness, know-how, and assertiveness 
• Effective if 

• A session lacks direction 
• There is tension 
• Trust issue 
• Social distance 
• Dependency is interfering 

• Counter-dependency is blocking 
• Attraction is sidetracking 

p. 102 

• Therapeutic triad 

• Empathy, warmth, and genuineness 

• Pastoral counseling -  

• Secular usage 

• Teacher and student 
• Disciplinary and order 
• Welfare and pastoral 

• Academic and curricular 
• Administrative and organizational 

• Counseling by the ordained 

p. 103 

• e.g. Rabbis - ‘Some choose to be moral judge or giver of care or consoler. Some avoid both preferring the role of ‘disciple of the wise’  

• Modernly, rabbis are concerned with individual, family, and community 

• Counseling with a religious frame of reference 

• Relevant in as much as a client may see it as such 

• Counseling offered within and by a community of faith 

p. 104 

• Against ‘individualism’  
• Counseling should be more corporate  
• Church growing towards perfection and maturity 

• Christian counseling 

• Base their counsel on bible 

p. 106 

• Collins: ‘Christian counseling’ - Theistic premise - ‘God exists and is the source of all truth’ 
• Crabb - ‘biblical counseling’  
• Philosophy and theology are fundamental to human beings 

p. 107 

• Lake - ‘clinical theology’ - putting faith in the love and power of God, yet meticulously observant of the sound practice of psychiatry and psychotherapy 

• Counseling for the whole person 

• As a whole person, body, mind, and spirit 
• Person's psychological, ethical, and theological frames of reference 

p. 113 

CH 6 – LIBERATION AS PASTORAL PRAXIS 

• Gutierrez - ‘liberation theology’ -  
• Civil rights – opposition to sexual, racial, class, and sociopolitical oppression 
• Minjung theology in South Korea 

p. 114 

• Standpoint: ‘prior political and ethical option in the light of the gospel, for the poor’ 

• Aims at liberating the oppressed 

p. 115 

• First step: ‘faith that makes its power felt through love’ - liberating practice 

• Second: theology 
• Begins from a position of being immersed in the experiences of poverty, marginalization, and oppression 
• Three types of commitment 

• Contact 
• Research, teaching and writing 

• Live permanently with the people 

p. 116 

• The poor or oppressed speak for themselves on their own terms in their own chosen manner 

• Three reflective procedures 

• Social analysis 

• Pastoral care borrowed heavily from psychology 
• Liberation theology uses social sciences as major sources for understanding of the structures of poverty 
• Poverty as the fundamental expression of oppression 

p. 117 

• 1. individualist explanation attributed poverty to laziness or ignorance 

• Solution was personal almsgiving  

• 2. bourgeois explanation saw causes of poverty lying in economic and social backwardness 

• Solution was ‘trickle-down’ effect = gradual improvement of existing system through schemes of wealth creation 

• 3. dialectical explanation attributed poverty to oppression 

• Exploitation 

• Solution is revolutionary transformation of very basis of economic and social system 

• Some form of Marxist analysis is indispensable? 

p. 118 

• Marxist materialism and atheism do not even constitute a temptation for liberation theologians 

p. 119 

• Level of consciousness 

• To achieve level of consciousness and sensitivity we need to use all effective tools of analysis for all forms of oppression. The tools of Third World liberation theologies must include both religio-cultural, socio-economic, and political perspective. We must use both the religio-cultural and Marxist tools of analysis integrating these two models into a comprehensive social analysis which is capable of capturing any level or form of oppression in our societies and in the world at large. 

• Hermeneutical analysis (2nd stage in liberation theology) 

• What has the word of God to say about this? 
• Segundo: Christianity is biblical and theological religion; keep going back to the back and reinterpreting it 

• Relating past and present – opening past to explain the present 
• If customary interpretations are not questioned and changed, then contemporary problems will go unanswered or they will receive old, conservative, unserviceable answers 

• Relationship of relationships – past and present 
• Scripture is not copy and paste formulas 
• Scripture offers orientations, models, types, directives, principles, inspirations 

• Our capacity to judge on our own initiative and in our own right according to the mind of Christ or Spirit 
• Scripture off not a what but a how – a manner, style, spirit 
• Asia is multi-religious societies where scriptural religions abound 

• Hindu canons – Upanishads, Brahma Sutras, Bhagavadgita 
• Buddhist canon – Pali 

• Jain canon – Agamas 

• Bible - ‘the non-use' and ‘the re-use'  

P. 122 

• Praxis orientation 

• Liberation theology begins with action and ends with action 

• Constant action and reflection 

• Professional 
• Pastoral 
• Popular 

• Goal is not the production of more adequate theory, but the right action for change 

• Orthorpaxis, instead of orthodoxy  
• Crucial to follow a planned strategy and program of action that has inbuilt evaluative and reflective phase 
• Argue that much more may be learnt from actual involvement in action than from theory alone 

• Liberation theology and pastoral care 

• Quest for appropriate methodologies and theoretical frames 

• Four areas of engagement between liberation theology and pastoral care 
• 1. concrete experience 

• Two sides of one coin – personal and social and political systems that have been oppressive of social groups 
• The political is personal 
• ‘han’ prevalent feeling among Korean people; feeling arises from a sense of impasse 

• Totality of the experience of the people 
• Transcend the personal as well as the sociopolitical 
• Intercultural pastoral care to be liberative it must be inductive, collective, and inclusive 
• Holistic, multidimensional, and complex because it deals with the whole person and not some single aspect of personhood 
• White feminist movement generalized their experience for black women 

• Power to define one’s own experience on one’s own term is a vital part of liberation 

p. 127 

• 2. social analysis 

• Usually been of secondary importance 
• Scrutinizing patriarchy, capitalism, militarism, sexism, racism, classism, religio-cultural ideologies 

• devastating loss of self-esteem, the hopelessness and rage which fuels intrapersonal and interpersonal (e.g. ‘Black-on-Black’) violence, the despondency and despair  
• What is needed is not either-or but rather ‘both-and’ in analysis of suffering and oppression 

p. 128 

• 3. hermeneutical analysis 

• Strange silence of the bible in pastoral care 

• Autonomy necessitates interpretation 
• Serious and innovative engagement taking place between text and readers 
• Also - ‘we are the text’ 
• Chung Hyun Kyung: Mainstream West not become totalitarian dictator in world of spiritual meaning. Bible becomes meaningful only when it touches our peoples’ hearts, especially women’s hearts that have been deeply wounded by the patriarchal teachings of the bible 
• Liberate persons from oppressive forms of consciousness and destructive patterns of interpersonal relationship 

• Change the common sense of the community 

p. 130 

• 4. The pastoral praxis of liberation 

• People lose their lives in the struggle in poverty 
• Radical transformation seldom happens 

• Respectful listening and willingness to explore one’s views of change 
• Two level of transforming dialogue  

• Pedagogical 

• Begins with concrete experience 
• Second phase – situational analysis 

• Multiperspectival rather than interdisciplinary 

• Theological analysis 

• Faith perspectives 

• Situational analysis of theology 

• Interrogation of the situation 

• Critical consciousness 

• Response 

• Social-therapeutic 

p. 134 

• A Cycle of social therapy 

• Recognition 

• Critical self-awareness 
• MBTI 
• Honest assessment of strengths and weaknesses 

• Identification 

• First people, second issues 

• Befriending 

• Story-telling and story-listening 
• Knowing and being-known 
• Solidarity with another 

• Working together in groups 
• Acting together 

• Two demons that plague Christianity 

• Excessive spiritualization 
• Politicization 

p. 140 

CH 7 – SPIRITUALITY IN PASTORAL CARE 

• Spirituality means different things to different people 
• William Stringfellow’s take on spirituality 
• Five dimensions of spirituality 

• Relationship with transcendence 
• Intra-personal 
• Interpersonal 
• Corporate 
• Spatial 

• Synergic harmony between individual and collective and sense of spirituality as the integrating center – integration and coherence of ourselves  
• Relationship is the goal of spirituality 
• p.142 
• Spirit  
• Ruach in Hebrew  

• breath of God that enlivens - person becomes nephesh 
• Very being of the person is permeated by ruach 

•  Pneuma in Greek 

• Dichotomy between spirit and body (binary) 
• Spirit as eternal and ideal, body as corruptible and corrupting 

• Spirituality – universal human capacity to experience life in relation to a perceived dimension of power and meaning 
• Pastoral care exists to nurture spirituality 
• Care of soul 
• Worship, prayer, preaching, visiting, etc  
• Spiritual journey 

• Without God nothing holds together; nothing has meaning 
• Importance of self-hood and self-realization 
• Peculiarity of the individual is more conducive to a better social performance than when peculiarity is neglected or suppressed 
• There can be no private spirituality 
• People can be paralyzed by low self esteem – need a healthy dose of dignity, pride, and a sense of worth 

• Sin, and anything bad, may impair this life but it never destroys life or humanity would cease to be 
• Mutuality, respect, accountability, and friendship – spiritual task 
• To be human is to belong to the community, participating in beliefs, ceremonies, rituals, and festivals 
• To be without one of these corporate elements of life is to be out of the whole picture 
• Native american – nationhood based on ancient title to their land 

• All of existence is spiritual 
• Spirituality is deeply rooted in the land – landrootedness 

• Circle is a fundamental symbol to Indians – signifies creation, tribe, clan, and family – non-hierarchical symbol 

• Achievement of harmony and balance in all creation 

• Pastoral care – worship, education, social action, counseling, etc – facilitate ongoing process of self-discovery and engagement with others 

CH 8 – CASE STUDIES IN INTERCULTURAL PASTORAL CARE 

The purpose of such movies is not entertainment at all. In the name of psycho-thriller drama, they force you to watch the bloodshed, violence, dismemberment of human bodies with the sole aim to end compassion, emotions, pity and respect for humanity. 

Dehumanization of Society.