John H. Patton

Clinical Hermeneutics: Soft Focus in Pastoral Counseling and Theology

Not long ago a student who had applied unsuccessfully for our doctoral program in pastoral counseling wrote angrily to me that the admissions committee which had interviewed him was trying to change the way he interpreted the Bible. Initially, I shook my head sadly regretting that the student had so greatly misunderstood our intent. Later, I realized that he had perceived a great deal more than he was consciously aware of. We were indeed telling him that he would need a different way of interpreting the Bible and, in fact, almost everything else. The committee had been trying to introduce him to a new hermeneutic-a clinical hermeneutics with a softer focus.

Propositions and pilgrimage.

The propositions for discussion are found in this editorial. They are the emerging convictions of this particular editor, designed to stimulate your thought and writing on the same issues rather than claiming to be complete or adequate exposition of anyone point. They are unapologetically a mixture of the normative and descriptive-the way this editor believes pastoral counseling ought to be and the way it actually is. Hopefully, both the is and the ought will become clearer through our discussion. Write your own brief response to one or more of the propositions, not in terms of whats wrong with the position stated here, but your own constructive view.

Book Review: Experiential Psychotherapy: A Symphony of SelvesExperiential Psychotherapy: A Symphony of Selves.FelderRichard E. and WeissAvrum Geurin (Lanham, MD University Press of America, 1991.) 164 pp.

power differential is particularly strong and an important corrective to the denial of many parish clergy. Readers should be aware that they will find more questions than answers. On the other hand, we applaud the exciting and provocative dialogue which will be encouraged among readers. The church must be a safe place for people. When pastors are having sex with their parishioners, the church is not a safe place (p. 50). -Donald C. Houts, Ph.D.

An Experiential Theory of Selfhood and Relationality: Implications for Pastoral Care and Counseling

The Art of Intimacy is the all for marketing title which Prentice Hall has given to the book by the father and son team, Tom and Pat Malone, on the experiential dimensions of selfhood and relationality. The book may be too long for the casual reader who is simply looking for better ways of thinking about what he or she is experiencing in life and in therapy. It is about the art of intimacy, but a more accurate title would have been the authors original one, The Intimate Self.

Toward a Theology of Pastoral Event: Reflections on the Work of Seward Hiltner

Examines via illustration and discussion the principle characteristics of the pastoral event in terms of its particularity, its personal qualities, and its pastoral meaning. Acknowledges Seward Hiltners supervisory and methodological concerns as contributing to the beginnings of an authentic understanding of the pastoral event and to the development of an operations centered theology.

A Context for Communication

I had the opportunity this past summer to attend the European Conference on Pastoral Care and Counseling in Turku, Finland. The thematic input for the conference was interesting and stimulating, but I found the major impact to be the powerful experience of persons of different national and cultural experience trying to communicate with each other around their common commitment to the caring ministry. The powerful polarities of what is common to us all and what is special or unique to each person, family and nationality was again played out. In my small group, for example, where there were persons of seven different nationalities ostensibly discussing the theme of the conference from our differing perspectives, I found myself unconsciously acting out myoid family drama. When the young Hungarian felt confused by what seemed like an attack for an older German woman, my spontaneous response was that of my father, reassuring him that women were like that, but it would work out all right anyway. Only hours later was I able to realize what I had done and share it with my family. Those common themes manage to play themselves out wherever we are and whatever the cast of characters.

The International Pastoral Care and Counseling Movement: What is It?

I must acknowledge from the outset that I cannot really answer the question posed by the title of this editorial. For some time I have been searching for the international movements organizing principle, internal dynamic, or even the boundaries between what it is and is not. There are a number of important features of the movement, some of which I touch on here, but as yet it is difficult to go beyond the image used by the Dutch pastoral theologian, Heije Faber, who once described the international movement as an invisible community.

Pulling Things Together

Not long ago I was talking at lunch with a colleague of many years, Dean Tom Pugh of the Interdenominational Theological Center. The topic of our discussion, as I suppose it usually is, was the field of pastoral care. This time our concern was with the question of what should be included in the teaching of pastoral care and why. Some things which clearly seemed to be part of the field when Tom and I began our discussions years ago no longer belong just to us. Action and reflection upon ones ministry, the use of case material, small group interaction, and a number of other things have been incorporated into general theological education. We have, perhaps, become successful evangelists for our methodology, but in doing so have lost some of our own identity.

There's Something about Lost Sheep

Theres something about lost sheep that gets to me. My CPE supervisor or pastoral counselor would probably question me about my need to be needed, and theres no doubt that I have that need. But there seems to me to be more to it than that. I remember years ago hearing a layman complain about his pastor, Since he was in training at that mental hospital, you have to be crazy to get his attention. Im fairly clear that theres some truth in that accusation about me also, although the craziness Im speaking of is not so much pathology as it is an in-touch-ness with depth. The lost, crazy and lonely bring out something in me that seems real and important in a world and a church that often appears to be drowning in trivia. So theres not much doubt that I need that lost sheep as much as he needs me-maybe more so.

A Pastoral Perspective on Marriage and Family Counseling

I believe that my practice of marriage and family counseling is and ought to be affected significantly by assumptions and beliefs about the nature of marriage and the family derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition and from counseling practice understood as a dimension of ministry. I would like to identify some of those assumptions and beliefs and then suggest their implications for practice. First, the nature of marriage and the family.