Clergy counsel people with aid of good training

Ministers, priests and rabbis have for centuries carried out biblical traditions of “caring and carrying souls.” Indications are that more than 40 percent of people seeking help turn first to their ministers.

Many pastors combine biblical and theological insights with psychology in the behavioral sciences in order to more effectively perform their pastoral and spiritual ministries of healing, sustaining, guiding, reconciling and nurturing.

In 1920, Anton Boisen, a Congressionalist minister and chaplain at a New England mental hospital, began teaching seminary students to minister to patients suffering from mental/emotional illness. He called them “living human documents.”

Thus began the clinical pastoral movement that has grown nationally to more than 500 pastoral counseling centers.

• The American Association of Pastoral Counselors has more than 2,500 members who have completed a rigorous course of training beyond seminary.

• More than 100,000 ministers have had basic training through the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education in hospitals, prisons, counseling centers, children’s homes and centers for aging.

• The Association for Mental Health Clergy provides certification and standards for pastoral services in psychiatric hospitals.

• Locally, the Samaritan Counseling Center of Central Texas, Inc. offers competent pastoral counseling services. They see their ministry as an extension of the church’s pastoral care ministry, and work within the context of respect for each person’s own religious beliefs. They are part of a nationwide network of 90 independently incorporated church-related counseling centers affiliated with the Samaritan Institute of Denver.

John and Mary are referred to a pastoral counselor by their minister. They have been married for 12 years and have two children. About 18 months ago, their oldest child died of leukemia. Since her death their marriage has been troubled, characterized by destructive criticism, blaming, coldness and depression.

The pastoral counselor helps them understand that their deep unresolved grief over their daughter’s is at the core of their marital problems.

The counselor helps them see that it is Ok to be angry at God and that God is able to accept their anger. They realize it is difficult for each to support the other when each feels so much hurt, guilt and anger. This only exaggerates the normal issues of marriage, communication, sex, money, parenting, etc.

Slowly, over a period of time, they begin to support one another and to be more aware that their other child needs relationship and parenting love. Their own spiritual lives are deepened as they allow themselves to grieve fully.

Psychological insights are helpful to the clergy in their pastoral tasks. Most ministers recognize their professional limits and are responsible for referring people to such mental health specialists as psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, marriage and family counselors and pastoral counselors. Psycho means soul, thus psychology is the study of the soul.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 1985