Who are we?
At the AAPC conference last weekend, I made a throwaway remark about "forming good clinicians."Immediately, Lee Butler of Chicago Theological Seminary said something like: "We're not about forming 'good clinicians.' We're about forming pastoral theologians who have good clinical skills."
I appreciate Lee's comment (made to the Association's working group of faculty in graduate programs), not only because I agree but because he has succinctly named a primary issue faced by pastoral counselors today:
- Are we primarily clinicians who also know how to reflect theologically and spiritually on the people and situations we encounter?
OR
- Are we primarily pastoral theologians who also have good clinical skills?
It's not an either/or issue, of course. But it's at the heart of the formation of pastoral counselors today, of my work as a theological educator, and of the crisis of identity faced by AAPC.
The tension between these two approaches was evident--but unnamed--in the comments at a two-part session on theological reflection (during which Lee responded to a case presented by another pastoral counselor) and during much informal conversation at the conference.
(By the way: Don't bother with Wikipedia's entry on pastoral theology--it's hopelessly out of date with the ways the discipline has evolved into the 21st century.)
Labels: AAPC, pastoral counseling, pastoral theology
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, May 01, 2007
New book release
I'm delighted to announce the release of The Formation of Pastoral Counselors: Challenges and Opportunities.Co-edited with Joretta Marshall of Eden Theological Seminary, the book arrived last week in both hard- and soft-cover.
It's the first comprehensive look at what it takes to nurture pastoral counselors for this day and time, paying special attention to the racial, ethnic, sexual, economic, theological, spiritual and theoretical diversities present in today's community of pastoral counselors in North America.
It takes a few months after finishing a project to get some critical distance on it, so I'm always a bit apprehensive the first time I see something I've written (or edited) in print.
But now that I've looked through the finished text, I can honestly say that the book feels like an important and substantial contribution to the future of our discipline.
(Of course, it's up to our peers to decide whether that's true. Many will get a first look at the text later this week during the annual meeting of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors in Portland, Oregon.)
Featuring essays by two dozen of the most prominent clinicians and scholars in the field, the book weaves critical scholarship with practical formation models already at work in pastoral counseling centers around the country.
Contributors include:
- Han van den Blink and Margaret Kornfeld, past presidents of AAPC
- Larry Graham and Jason Whitehead of Iliff School of Theology
- Loren Townsend of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
- Pamela Cooper-White of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
- Joe Driskill of Pacific School of Religion
- Alice Graham of Hood Theological Seminary
- Tapiwa Mucherera of Asbury Theological Seminary
- Joretta Marshall of Eden Theological Seminary
- Zina Jacque of Community Church of Barrington, IL
- Duane Bidwell of Brite Divinity School
- Mark Watts and David Reynolds of Pastoral Counseling Services in New Hampshire
- Rebecca Radillo of New York Theological Seminary
- Kathleen Greider, Bill Clements, and Sam Lee of Claremont School of Theology
- Hunter Hill, Dennett Slemp, and Vic Maloy of the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care and BonnaSue of Eastern Mennonite University
- Charles Mendenhall of Care and Counseling Center of Georgia and Doug Ronsheim of AAPC
Order a copy, take a look, and let me know what you think.
Labels: formation, pastoral counseling, Scholarship
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Sunday, April 22, 2007