CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY IN PARTNERSHIP PASTORAL CARE AND COUNSELING

Peter C. Phan
The Catholic University of America

In this lecture on the partnership between Christian theology and psychotherapy, I will first recount the checkered relationship between Christian theology and psychology in general. Next I will discuss the various attempts at integrating Christian faith with psychology in the forms of pastoral counseling and pastoral psychotherapy. I will conclude with an indication of contemporary directions in pastoral counseling and psychotherapy as a form of Christian ministry.

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY: PARTNERS IN A COMMON BUSINESS?

Terminologies

Before broaching the theme of a possible partnership between psychology and Christian theology it is necessary to define some terms we will be using throughout this lecture: pastoral care, pastoral counseling, pastoral psychotherapy, and spiritual direction. In trying to bring some clarity to these terms, one must be aware of the still unresolved controversies regarding the distinction between counseling and psychotherapy in general(Carl Roger's Counseling and Psychotherapy [1942]; James Bugental [counseling/psychotherapy/evocation]; and Carroll Wise: psychotherapy rather than counseling). Of the four terms, pastoral care is the most inclusive. It refers to the myriad activities other than preaching and worship by which all members of the church, especially representive, most often ordained, persons, perform for the well-being of individuals and of communities. These activities include healing, guiding, sustaining, nurturing, and reconciling (W.A. Clebsch and C.R. Jaekle, Howard Clinebell).

The recipients of pastoral care are not defined by religious boundaries but include both those within and those outside the church (Alastair Campbell). To be effective, pastoral care must hold together religious, ethical, psychological, and sociological perspectives. It brings the full witness of the Christian community to each interpersonal exchange (Don Browning).

There are occasions, however, when individuals need the attention of the pastor in a structured relationship occurring within a specific time commitment and in a designated place. These relationships are frequently referred to as pastoral counseling. Here the focus is more on the individual and his or her problems. In many cases, the problems consist in less severe conflicts, crises, or impairment of the person's capacity to act freely and effectively.

Though psychotherapy and counseling are often used interchangeably in the United States, it is useful to reserve the term "pastoral psychotherapy" for a more specialized form of counseling (Don Browning). It often occurs in a setting located at some distance, both physically and psychologically, from the center of worship of the religious community. It concentrates more explicitly on the psychological and developmental obstacles that block a person's understanding, decision-making, and action. It makes more extensive use of the psychotherapeutic techniques devised by secular theorists of psychotherapy.

Whereas pastoral counseling and pastoral psychotherapy focus on the human psyche, helping people cope, feel better about themselves, blunt the pain of their hurts, and ultimately function more effectively in the society, spiritual direction is concerned with the human spirit and aims at helping the directee move in the direction of self-surrender and self-abandonment to God (ego-surrendering rather than ego-coping and ego-development) in order to live a life in conformity with the Christian ideals.

Two important things should be noted at this point. First, though pastoral counseling, pastoral psychotherapy, and spiritual direction can be distinguished from each other, they are three mutually complementary forms of pastoral care. To be excellent in any one form, the practitioner must acquire some skills in the other two. Secondly, these three forms of care are called pastoral, because in addition to the use of the two primary resources, namely, contemporary understandings of human personality and interpersonal relationships prevealent inthe human sciences (especially psychology) and therapeutic methods from one or more of a variety of current counseling and psychotherapeutic approaches, they are explicitly and self-consciously inspired and governed by biblical, theological, and moral resources available from the Judaeo-Christian heritage.

Hence, in these forms of counseling, in contrast to secular psychotherapy, the "person" of the pastoral counselor, that is, how she or he is related to and representive of the Christian community, becomes central in the counseling process.

With these terminological clarifications in mind, let us now proceed with a historical overview of the relationship between Christianity and psychology, in particular counseling and psychotherapy, with the focus on the United States (E.B. Holifield, A History of Pastoral Care in America: From Salvation to Self-Realization [1983]). In a sense, the interface between Christianity and psychology is simply a chapter in the history of the dialogue between religion and science which, though begun in the seventeenth century with Galileo, became particularly acute at the turn of the twentieth century.

With regard to psychology in particular, the relationship between it and Christianity, at least in the United States, is as variegated and eventful as the history of a modern marriage: romantic courtship, loving union, acrimonious quarrels, temporary separation, and realistic reconciliation.

Psychology and Colonial Piety

It has been pointed out that psychology and religion have been intertwined in America from the seventeenth century onward, partly because psychological reflections permeated early American theological thought and partly because psychological introspection was an intrinsic ingredient of colonial piety. America became a nation of psychologists partly because it once had been a nation of Puritans, Pietists, and revivalists. Colonial theologians, with their concern for the cultivation and renewal of the inner self, were deeply interested in how the person can control the inner self either through the understanding, the will, or the emotions. Jonathan Edwards' masterpiece of psychological observation, Treatise on Religious Affections (1746) and his massive treatise on the freedom of the will (1754) were extremely influential.

The Tradition of Mental Philosophy

In addition, to combat the skepticism of Locke and Hume, the American colonial theologians appealed to the work of Scottish philosophers, in particular Thomas Reed and Dugald Stewart [Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1792)], whose epistemological realism, based on a detailed analysis of consciousness and introspective examination of mental acts, appeared to offer effective weapons to refute Hume's arguments. This use of Scottish philosophy fueled the theologians' interest in psychology.

[The New Psychology] By the late nineteenth century, however, psychology was attempting to break free from its theological associations. There were two tendencies, structuralist and functionalist. The former, influenced by Wilhelm Wundt, constructed instruments to measure degrees of attention and levels of sensory awareness. Theologians took little interest in them. The latter, led by William James (1842-1910) and John Dewey (1859-1952), were interested in the way organisms survived and flourished. They studied actions, habits, attention, and purposes rather than the isolated elements of the mind. Theologians immediately were attracted to the research of the functionalists and began to explore both the way that mental adaptations such as habits contributed to religious growth and ethical character and the way in which religion itself functioned to aid the individual and the group.

By the time James wrote his classic Varieties of Religious Experiences (1902), the psychotherapeutic movement that had begun in Europe in the 1860s was attracting attention in America. In 1905 Pierre Dubois' Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disease appeared in English and helped to convince the medical public hat there was such a thing as "scientific mind cure." While Dubois advocated rational instruction as a means to heal the patient, others called for the use of hypnotism, suggestion, creative assertion or psychoanalysis. Though the church has often expressed ditate for Freudian theory, it was one of the first American institution to give Freud a serious hearing. In 1905 Elwood Worcester, the rector of the Emmanuel Episopal Church in Boston, founded the "Emmanuel Movement" with the intent of harnessing [sychotherapy for the ministry in the church. The movement spread from coast to coast and by 1908 had its own journal, Pschotherapy, deoted to the application of psychological principles to problems of religion and ministry (by the 1920s the movement died).

A Psychology of Adjustment

It was however in the Religious Education Movement that psychology exerted the greatest influence on the church. In the 1920s, the leaders of the movement, inspired by George Albert Coe, were arguing that modern psychology could transform Sunday schools into resources for "adjustment" to God and neighbor and for self-realization. Students of theology were intoduced to the writings of Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Otto Rank, usually in courses on educational psychology that emphasized the plasticity of human nature and the possibilities of intelligent self-direction and agjustment.

Clinical Pastoral Education

The next encounter between psychology and Christian theology was a happy and productive one. It took place in the 1920s with the birth of the movement known as Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). CPE is professional education for ministry which brings theological students, ordained clergy, members of religious orders, and qualified laypersons into a supervised encounter with living human documents in order to develop their pastoral identity, interpersonal competence, spirituality, the skills of pastoral assessment, interprofessional collaboration, group leadership, group care and counseling, and pastoral theological reflection. Its founders were the Rev. Anton T. Boisen of Worcester, Mass., William S. Keller, M.D. of Cincinnati, and Richard C. Cabot, M.D. of Boston.

The heart of CPE was and still is supervised encounter with living human documents. The role of the supervisors is not to teach but primarily to enable others to observe for themselves, to evolve their own conclusions and applications, and above all to grow. CPE links theological education and ministry with the world of health, welfare, and penal organizations primarily.

As far as psychology is concerned, two views of the self have shaped supervisory assumptions and goals. The Boston group with Richard Cabot and Rollin Fairbanks (The Institute of Pastoral Care), drawing on Scottish common sense, emphasized reliance on rationality and self-control. Ethical formation meant stability and growth: facing the facts, overcoming self-deception, conforming to the real. Theirs was the optimistic, "once born" religious experience (as described by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902). The New York group (The Council for Clinical Training under the leadership of Helen Flanders Dunbar, a psychiatrist, drawing on depth psychology, defined the self with images of conflict, non-rational feelings and inner chaos. Their goal is freeing persons from rigid, destructive patterns of behaviors and expectations. Liberation requires understanding one's inner conflicts. Theirs was the pessimistic, "twice born" religious experience of James's Varieties. In 1967 the two groups merged into The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education.

The goals of CPE are several. The foundation and center of CPE is the formation of pastoral identity in seminarians and clergy. It aims at fostering the sense of one's self as a representative of God and of a specific community of faith, the bearer of a religious tradition, and the affirmation of one's authority as a minister. In addition, shaped by Russell Dicks' use of the verbatim in the 1930s, Carl Rogers' client-centered therapy in 1940s, as well as sensitivity training and the encounter group movement of the 1950s, CPE continues to place high value upon interpersonal competence. The skills of active listening, interpretation, and confrontation serve the goals of congruent communication and authentic personhood in relation to others. Other goals of CPE include fostering professional competence in ministry, integration of theology and ministry, development of spiritual life through spiritual guidance and spiritual formation, and ethical awareness.

The methods most frequently used in CPE are verbatims (Russell Dicks: background information, description of event, evaluation), case conferences (Boisen, Richard Cabot, Paul Johnson), seminars and personal growth groups.

Finally, CPE is carried out in a variety of settings. Begun in mental hospitals, general hospitals, and social agencies, CPE moved into prisons, university campuses, and medical schools, into military establishments and parishes. The last setting acquires particular importance, because the living human document in parish CPE is no longer the person in crisis and/or pathology but rather the person in normal, ordinary, routine pilgrimage of life.

Today Clinical Pastoral Education and pastoral counseling training, begun in the United States in the 1920s, have gone global. It took roots in the post World War II years in Northern Europe and is being widely adopted as an essential part of ministerial training Southeast Asia, New Zealand and Australia, Africa and South America.

Reaction of Neo-Orthodox Theology

Before achieving its worldwide expansion, however, CPE with its positive reception of psychological approaches into theology and ministerial training was subjected to a severe challenge, particularly in the forties and fifties. Its fierce critic was a movement in Protestant theology called "Neo-Orthodox" or "dialectical theology" associated with the Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968). In reaction to nineteenth century liberal theology (Friedrich Schleiermacher's [1768-1834] Brief Outline of the Study of Theology) which, in his view, compromised the transcendence of God, Barth emphasized the absolute otherness of God and rejected any attempt to accommodate the spirit of modernity. Barth held that God can be known only through revelation. He reduced all secular disciplines to total ignorance as far as the truth of God and humanity is concerned. They are nothing but unredeemed expressions of human fallenness.

Neo-orthodox theology's hostility to psychology in general and to pastoral counseling and psychotherapy in particular was driven by two concerns. First, psychology and psychotherapy, at least as developed by Freud, was anti-theistic and anti-religious. Freud's notion of religion as an "illusion," appropriate to an immature stage of human development, was anathema to Christian theologians. Furthermore, even when psychology was not explicitly atheistic, the mechanistic determinism of behavioristic psychotherapies and the secular humanism of the so-called "Third Force," that is, the humanistic-existential psychology (e.g., Abraham Maslow [1908-70) and Carl Rogers [1902-87]) are also under suspicion. The second concern regards the nature of therapy itself. Neo-Orthodox tend to look upon the claim of psychotherapies to bring about psychic healing as a form of Pelagianism, that is, a human attempt at self-salvation, which is contrary to its understanding of justification and salvation as pure grace. Furthermore, both Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians object to the overly optimistic view of the "human potential" held by some existential-humanistic psychologists (e.g., Carl Rogers) and their consequent disregard for the human capacity for evil.

Theology in the "Age of Psychology"

Despite the critique of Neo-Orthodox theology, psychology continued to exercise a profound influence on theology and on theological training of future priests, ministers, and rabbis. As mentioned above, the Clinical Pastoral Education became widespread after the Second World War. By 1955, about four thousand Protetant ministers had learned something about psychological theory in clinical settings. Indeed, in 1957 Life magazine noted that Americans were living in the "age of psychology," and the popular religious revival of the 1950s rested in large part on the reinterpretation of religion as "God's psychiatry."

The proliferation of departments of religious studies in American universities during the 1960s led to a growing interest in understanding religion as a general human phenomenon, and religious scholars found psychology a useful tool. Joseph Campbell, for instance, drew upon Jung in his studies of myth and symbolism; Mary Douglas used psycholinguistics to study symbol systems; Mircea Eliade cited the usefulness of depth psychology for the understanding of religious symbols; and Paul Pruyser attempted to reinvigorate the psychology of religion as a means to study religious experiences and beliefs.

Critical observers of modern America have described it as a "therapeutic culture" thoroughly governed by psychological modes of interpreting reality. They also have argued that modern religion has attempted to survive in a secular culture by grabbing the coattails of psychology and claiming to share its therapeutic powers. Whatever the accuracy of such claims, it is clear that the current close and complex alliance between religion and psychology in America has deep rooted in early American colonial theology and is here to stay.

PASTORAL COUNSELING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY: A DISTINCTIVE DISCIPLINE?

One of the many progenies of the union between theology and psychology is the new discipline of pastoral psychology and the practices of pastoral counseling and psychotherapy. By pastoral psychology is meant a body of knowledge which views religious beliefs and practices as integrative forces in the psychological and sociological dimensions of human experience.

Pioneers of Pastoral Psychology

Important pioneers and shapers of this discipline include the following authors whose works appeared in the 1930s and 1940s: Seward Hiltner, Religion and Health (1943)and Pastoral Counseling (1949); Charles Holman, The Cure of Souls: A Socio-Psychological Approach (1932); Karl Stolz, Pastoral Psychology (1932); John Sutherland Bonnell, Pastoral Psychiatry (1938); Richard Cabot and Russell Dicks, The Art of Ministering to the Sick (1936); Rollo May, The Art of Counseling (1939); Russell Dicks, Pastoral Work and Patoral Counseling (1944); Carroll Wise, Pastoral Counseling: Theory and Practice (1951); Wayne Oates, The Christian Pastor (1951); and Paul Johnson, Psychology of Pastoral Care (1953). Three professional journals are very influential: The Journal of Pastoral Care (1947), The Journal of Clinical Pastoral Work (1947), and Pastoral Psychology (1950).

Pastoral Counseling

As suggested above, pastoral counseling is a specialized type of pastoral care offered in response to individual, couples, or families who are experiencing a pain in their lives and willing to seek help from their pastors in order to deal with it. A pastoral counselor or psychotherapist is a person with commitment to and education for religious ministry who is functioning in an appropriate setting for ministry and accountable to a recognized religious community. The criteria for what pastoral counseling and psychotherapy are have more to do with the person and his or her accountability to the religious community than with the psychological methods used.

The Distinctiveness of Pastoral Counseling

What distinguishes pastoral counseling from other forms of counseling and psychotherapy is the role and accountability of the counselor and his or her understanding and expression of the pastoral relationship. Usually, this relationship is that of an ordained minister. However, even when the counselor is not an ordained person, she or he still acts as a representative of the community whose religious vision, theological understanding, and moral and spiritual practices inform his or her counseling activity.

Ways of Fulfilling the Accountability to the Religious Community

One way for the pastoral counselor to discharge both her or his administrative and the theological accountability to the community is to carry out a continuing dialogue with three elements: first, the faith tradition; second, the role, function, and identity of the minister; and third, the specific religious community. The first dialogue is an expression of the pastoral counselor's theological accountability. He or she must be familiar with the Christian story and its best theological intepretations in light of which he or she understands human life and all its problems. The pastoral counselor makes an explicit appeal to the Christian frame of reference and its faith categories to interpret the problems presented by the counselee and assist him or her to overcome them. Because Christian faith accepts a God who is both the author of a good creation and the ultimate agent of redemptive transformation, the pastoral counselor is interested not only in promoting human growth, the development of basic human capacities, and mental health of the counselee, but also in helping the counselee overcome inordinate self-interest which is called sin in Christian language and receive the redemptive transformation from God which is called conversion and salvation in Christian language. In this way, the growth-producing and curative powers of the counselor are relativized and seen as the instrument which God uses to achieve healing and growth in the counselee.

The second dialogue concerning the pastoral counselor's role, function, and identity is primarily a reflection of his a her adminstrative accountability. The counselor asks herself or himself questions such as the following: Do I still feel called to this ministry and do I have the gifts and graces for it? Do I feel embarrassed to be called "pastoral" counselor or psychotherapist because I represent a religious community rather than an academic guild?

The third dialogue with his or her specific religious community involves participating in that community as it preaches, celebrates, and lives its faith, thus maintaining a common experience with other members of the faith community.

Pastoral Counseling Process

Broadly speaking, what happens in pastoral counseling is the telling of stories, genuinely undertanding them as they are presented, and interpreting them in the light of the Christian Story believed in, proclaimed, celebrated, and lived by the community. It usually involves assisting the counselee to experience and interpret new possibilities of selfhood, relationship and behavior. It is the pastoral relationship, however, that is basic in enabling conselees to move toward the fundamental humanness of telling their stories rather than presenting all the bad things that have happened to them. The pastoral counselor's skill in relating to the counselee is threefold: first, hearing and accurately understanding the story as it is presented; and secondly, interpreting it in terms that makes the counselee recognize that she or he is significantly responsible for the events of his or her life; and third, offering resources from the Christian tradition with which the counselee can resolve or at least cope with his or her problem.

Preference of Humanistic Psychology

As far as psychological therapies are concerned, pastoral counselors and psychotherapists feel free to make use of any method and approach as long as these do not contradict the theological traditions of their religious communities. Nevertheles, because of their mechanistic determinism, psychoanalytic and behavioristic psychotherapeutic approaches do not appeal to Christian counselors. By contrast, humanistic-existential psychology as the "Third Force," with its rejection of the claim of value-neutral objectivism, has from its very beginning been favorably received by Christian theology. Rather it argues that such objectivism leads destructive social orientations such as Indeed, Abraham Maslow's emphasis on the capacity for goodness, creativity and freedom within people; his notion of a self-actualized person as characterized by self-acceptance, acknowledgement of others, openness, autonomy and independence, and compassion with strong moral and ethical convictions; his contention that the "core religious experience" is the basis of personal spirituality and that these "peak experiences" are a continuing part of the healthy spiritual life, all this is heartily welcomed by Christian psychologists.

Similarly, Carl Rogers' non-directive or client-centered form of counseling with the requirements of empathic understanding, unconditional positive regard, and congruence on the therapist's part exerted a powerful influence on pastoral counseling and clinical pastoral education (Seward Hiltner, Paul Johnson, Howard Clinebell).

Furthermore, Christian theology finds deep resonances with humanistic psychology's emphasis on conscious experience (what the individual feels, thinks, believes, values, fears, is angered by), self-awareness (this capacity sets humans apart from others), proactivity (the future-oriented thrust), ethics (value judgments), self-determination (freedom and responsibility), wholism (totality), growth and enhancement (the innate drive to self-realization, to become a completely and uniquely human as possible), and individual uniqueness (opposition to generalizations, averages, and abstraction). Contributions of Humanistic Psychology to Pastoral Counseling

1. Consequently, pastoral counseling derives its approach and method from the major themes and values of humanistic psychology. Thus, in pastoral care and counseling, trained in humanistic psychology with its undertanding of the whole person as a subject in his or her development throughout life cycles, ministers are alert to the ways in which any and all of the experiences and problems people bring to them reflect fundamental understandings and commitments of the whole person in his or her subjectivity.

2. Ministers informed by humanistic psychology also know that the royal road to discovery of the whole person is the individual's subjective experience of his or her world and self, and that the ongoing process of awareness provides initial clues to a person's self-image, values, and outlook on life. The implication of these claims for pastoral counseling lies in the weight they place on a broad array of research methods, several of which have been salient in the cure of souls tradition. Reflection and analysis based on journals, diaries, autobiographies, case studies, and verbatim reports are examples.

3. Furthermore, given the emphasis of existential psychology on the full realization of the human potential, pastoral counselors can compare and contrast Maslow's models of self-actualization with the Christian images of maturity and holiness as embodied by the saints and outstanding Christians.

4. In addition, humanistic psychology's positive appreciation for interpersonal experience and encounter confirms the Christian conviction that community and mutual sharing are indispensable to authentic Christian life and ministry. Pastoral counselors can make good use of support groups, growth groups, self-help and Bible study groups as effective vehicles for persons' exploration of their capacities for creativity, love, and honesty through self-disclosure, support, confrontation, and emotional release.

5. Again, non-directive or group-centered leadership in the therapies espoused by existential psychology is believed to be compatible with the image of the church as a community of equal disciples (Elizabeth Fiorenza) in which the minister is a "servant leader." In spite of the possibility of degenerating into confusion and demoralization, this non-directive and group-centered model of counseling can spark and actualize the potential latent in the counselee and the community.

6. Viewing persons as agents who are purposive and discover the meaning in life, humanistic psychology understands perception itself not simply as a purely intellectual act but also as a valuing process. Knowledge comes from valuing. In this mold, pastoral counselors can make use of a wide range of practical methods, from Viktor Frankl's logotheray to value clarification exercises, to help the counselee's enhance the meaning of life from the perspective of the Christian faith.

7. Finally, some humanistic psychologists see special meaning in intensified experiences when people cross the boundaries of ego-regulated consciousness. Conversion and mystical states are examples of these "peak experiences." Obviously, pastoral counselors can attend to these experiences if their counselees have had them and possibly even promote them. Prayer, spiritual direction, administration of sacraments, liturgical celebrations, discussion of mysticism, reading of devotional classics, retreats, etc. can be effective means to help counselees oversome their pains and problems.

PASTORAL COUNSELING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY: FUTURE DIRECTIONS

As has already pointed out, psychology and Christian theology have now become partners in a common enterprise that has become international. American CPE centers and pastoral graduate programs have attracted many clergy-trainees from Europe and other parts of the world during recent decades. Many of these have returned to their homelands to establish training programs similar to American models.

Also numerous pastoral counseling centers have sprung up to respond to the needs of parishioners. There is a diversity of styles in the organization and administration of pastoral counseling centers. The following is a partial list of models: 1. Parish staff counselor; 2. Parish-based pastoral counseling service; 3. Community-based pastoral counseling center; 4. Pastoral counseling group practice; 5. Satellite pastoral counseling service; 6. Seminary and university counseling services; 7. Hospital outpatient pastoral counseling services; 8. Judicatory counseling service; 9. Denominational social service agency; 10. Pastoral counseling in church information centers; 11. Association-based pastoral counseling service.

There are numerous ways by which quality control in pastoral counsling senters is handled in the U.S. The etablishment of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC) in 1963 was a response to the pressing need to develop practice and training standards as well as norms for certification of individuals (member, fellow, diplomate) and accreditation of institutions for the practice and teaching of pastoral counseling.

Despite their phenomenal expansion, pastoral counseling and psychotherapy are facing numerous challenges opening up new directions. In the concluding part of this lecture I will single out some of these for consideration.

1. There is a lively interest in discovering and developing the intimate connections between counseling and the theological, ecclesiological, and ethical aspects of Christian life. The trend today is clearly in the direction of reaffirming the distinctively religious and theological dimensions of pastoral counseling and of using religious resources found in scripture, theology, and devotional literature.

2. There is a deep concern to retrieve the tradition of spiritual direction and connect with pastoral counseling. There is recognized the importance of attending not only to the psyche but also the spirit, not only to ego-development but also to ego-surrendering, not only to psychological health and adjustment but also self-transcendence or simply to attentive waiting on God. Pastoral counsling and spiritual direction are seen as two complementary and mutually dependent disciplines of pastoral care.

3. There is an increasing interest in systems- and relationship-oriented ways of understanding human problems and facilitating healing and growth. Increasingly it is understood that the primary unit of pastoral counseling is not the individual but the married couple, the family, the group, or, in a few instances, whole communities. It is argued that one-to-one counseling is unproductive in many instances because the relevant pathology is woven into the fabric of the entire system. Consequently, the need is felt of a team of leaders, sharing and enriching the counseling process from the resources of differing ages, genders, styles, and life experiences.

4. There is a determination to bridge the chasm between personal and societal healing by using counseling methods (individual and group) to empower people to correct the social injustices which are the hidden roots of many personal problems. The various trends of liberation theology have made a notable contribution to this awareness. They argue that one should conceive of pastoral care fundamentally as the care not of individuals but society itself. That is, one should understand the needs and hurts of individuals in thier primary relationships, in terms of the macrosocial power rleationships of domination and exploitation. Jurgen Habermas argues that pychoanalysis itself is intrinsically praxis-oriented by virtue of its commitment to the elimination of ideological distortion and instrumental rationalism. Hence, pastoral counseling must identify possibilities for radical change toward a society in which human beings exercise fully their capacity for self-conscious control over social processes.

5. There is a growing commitment to transcend the middle-class, Protestant, Caucasian, North American, largely male origins and limitations of the therapeutic movement by becoming more intercultural in perspective. In this way, the Western and Eastern psychologies and their respective psychotherapeutic approaches and methods can enrich each other (Ken Wilber "spectrun psychology"). See David Augsburger, Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures (1986).

6. There are efforts to train more women clergy in pastoral counseling and to balance the field's masculine orientation with insights from feminist theology and psychotherapy.

7. There is atrend toward broadening the conceptual maps of the field by drawing on newer therapies including the "right brain" and body therapies.

8. There are efforts to make pastoral counseling more wholistic by aiming at the healing and growth of all dimensions of human beings, not just their minds and spirits.

9. There is a commitment to strengthen the empirical research base of the pastoral counseling movement.

10. There is a trend with sweeping implications for the future of pastoral counseling aiming at incorporating such high-tech communication instruments as computers, videocassettes, cable TV, teleconferencing, and satellite communication networking in all dimensions of pastoral counseling -- clinical services,training, preventative education, research, and interprofessional collaboration.