Pastoral Counseling Possible Answers

1. Pastoral Care- is the more or less unstructured general work with youth, couples, couples and other such groups in various types of formal or informal conversations, dialogues and other communicative interactions.-it must hold together religious, ethical and psychological perspectives -brings full witness of the Christian community-even the moral perspective.

Pastoral counseling-more specialized aspect of pastoral care- When individuals seem to need and even request the presence

and attention of the pastor in a more structural relationship in a specific time commitment in a designated place.

- Focus is the individual and his/her problems- Many instances the problem seem to entail some conflict,

ambivalences and depression in the persons capacity to act freely and confidently

- The pastor\religious counselor should bracket temporarily, set aside any developmental impediments which seem to stifle personal growth.

- The problem does not seem to center primarily around the inability to take free and confident action but deals more with the area of value confusion and questions or religious commitment some it deals with both.

Pastoral psychotherapy- most specialized aspect of pastoral care.- more specialized than pastoral counseling- Entails some kind of time limited contacts covering length

and frequency of pastoral conversation.- Have specialized setting and more specialized goals- Addresses more completely at the psychological and

developmental obstacles with the persons life which may be impediments to free and confident thinking, decision making and action.

- In general it resembles psychotherapy but it is still pastoral because it takes place within the moral and religious assumptive world associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition.

2. In highlighting the need for pastoral counseling, there are theological, sociological, and psychological reasons. What do these reasons imply on our understanding of pastoral counseling?

a. theological reasonsBecause human beings are a mixture or synthesis of body and

spirit and human nature. Their behavior is a product of both free decision and various forms of conditionedness.Because pastoral counseling has a part of its assumptive world a belief in God who is both the author of a good creation and the ultimate agent behind all redemptive change. It can take a positive attitude of the possibilities and resources for both the general human growth and redemptive change.

b. sociological reasons;bec. Of the increasing secularization, we tend more and more

to see human problems as either a mother of causality determined developmental and sociological problems or a matter of misused human freedom and less a matter of both.

Bec. Of the mixed nature of human problems, their strong sociological reasons. To develop a new pastoral counseling emphasis in ministry and possibly. Even a new professional sub-specialty called “pastoral psychotherapy”.

c. psychological reasons-Because humans are creatures who are partially subject to the

necessities and biophysical dev. As well as the conditioning of the environment, pastoral counseling needs the assistance of psychological disciplines to aid in the retrospective analysis of these determinants of human behavior.

Because humans are shaped by the developmental and environmental factors, the use of psychological analysis can greatly increase the accuracy of the effects of pastoral counseling to mediate the transformative resources of the Christian Faith.

4. Explain and relate the meaning and implications of the three dialogues pastoral counseling and pastor need to be accountable to?

a. dialogue with the faith tradition-pastoral counselors theological accountability-she continues to study the best in traditional and recent

theological formulations as well as psychotherapeutic theory and to practice the reinterpretation of the faith in the light of what pastoral counseling experience reveals about human life.

-the so-called religious counselor, “Christian Psychologist” may do something like this as a part of personal faith but the pastoral counselor is committed to do so at a level of professional competence and as an expression of accountability to the community of faith that authorizes his ministry.

b. Dialogue with ministerial role, function, and identity expresses both theological and administrative accountability.Theological- requires an on going consideration of what

representative ministry means in terms of historical and contemporary understanding.

- More personal sense bec it raises the existential question “am I still called to this ministry, and do I have the gifts and graces for it?”

Administrative- in the institutional sense of response to a particular religious structure and theological in its question to

the pastoral counselor of how it feels to be identified as a minister.

- How does the pastoral counselor handle hasher embarrassment\ feeling of power in being a minister?

-is there an on going pastoral identity which can be expressed naturally, w/o conscious effort?

C. dialogue with the specific religious community- involves participating in that community as it celebrates and interprets the faith, thus maintaining a common experience with all members of that communion.-here pastoral and religious counselors are alike.-they differ however in that the pastoral counselor is administratively responsible for reporting and interpreting his ministry in terms that can be understood by the authorizing body. Religious counselors have no comparable responsibility for interpreting their function.-the pastoral counseling as a representative member of he religious community (ordained/commissioned) is committed to cope with and even take responsibility for modifying the doctrinal and administrative peculiarities of his/her particular denomination or religious structure in the light if his/her ministry of pastoral counseling.-moreover, this function as a part of the ministry of the authorizing religious group, contributes (at least indirectly) to the pastoral counselor’s particular ministry of counseling.