John Edgerton, CPSP President, announces that the CPSP Governing Council will meet November 4-5, 2010 in Raleigh, NC at the Hilton Raleigh-Durham Airport at Research Triangle Park. The meeting will convene at 7:00 PM on the 4th. It will re-convene 8:30 AM on the 5th and conclude at 12:00 Noon. Meals will be provided by CPSP.

Participants are to directly contact the hotel and make their own arrangements. Be sure, however, you request the CPSP room rate. There is a free shuttle service provided by the hotel that makes frequent runs to and from the hotel and airport.

The Governing Council has significant work before it as it provides leadership for CPSP's mission and its future directions. All Chapters are encouraged by John Edgerton to send their Chapter Convener or representative from the Chapter. He further reminds Chapters that it is important to establish, when needed, financial resources to help insure Chapter representation at meetings of the Governing Council.

The National Clinical Training Seminar (NCTS) is right around the corner.

The NCTS will meet October 11 and 12th, 2010. IMPORTANT: The event will be held in a new venue: Stella Maris Retreat Center located at 981 Ocean Avenue, Elberon, NJ 07740.

Our theme for the upcoming fall NCTS is: “On the Varieties of Courage: Anton Boisen, Daniel Berrigan, Frank Serpico and The Pursuit of Liberty and Happiness.

The featured presenter Joseph M. Kramp, PhD candidate Drew University will use Heinz Kohut’s theory as a framework for his presentation. Most of his presentation will focus on Anton Boisen's autobiography.

Last week I visited Fort Hood in Texas to provide a consultation to the Family Life section of the Army’s chaplaincy corp. I was invited by Dave Scheider and Lance Sneath. Lance is on partial medical leave due to his debilitating Gulf War syndrome, one of 125,000 victims of flawed anti-radiation medicine. Dave is directing the training program for the time being.

The Family Life chaplains have an excellent facility, soon to be expanded. There are multiple counseling rooms with state of the art electronics that enable clinical supervisors to monitor the work of their trainees.

One of the remarkable aspects of Army chaplaincy is that they are currently much more advanced than the civilian sector in the matter of training their chaplains to work clinically with troubled families. The Army has integrated psychology and religion in a way that the civilian sector should emulate.

The clinical training program at Fort Hood, the largest military base in the country, the home of two divisions, is overall very impressive. Chaplains who go through the clinical training program simultaneously earn an M.S. degree in counseling awarded by Texas A&M University. This program is one of the most promising programs I have visited both in terms of the seriousness of the clinical supervision and teaching, and the quality of the trainees, as well as the infrastructure support.

On my visit I also consulted with the Lake Belton Chapter, which is made up largely of military chaplains based at Fort Hood. Some of their certified chaplains are currently and temporarily stationed in overseas bases and communicate with the Chapter by phone and skype for the time being.

I also made a visit to Utah and found a considerable amount of energy and enthusiasm for the expanding clinical training programs there. I was consultant to the clinical program at the Veterans Administration program in Salt Lake City. Chaplain Mark Allison supervises the program there.

The Deseret News published an article on 7/29/2010 featuring the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) graduation service held at the George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salt Lake City, UT.

Eighteen trainees graduated from the VA's accredited College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy's CPE training program directed by CPSP Diplomate, Mark Allison.

One of the CPE graduates, Chaplain Jody Smith was quoted:

It is an amazing journey," Smith said. "It will bring you both closer to God as well as help you develop awareness of what our veterans have done for us, and the journey our patients go through, and recognizing that spirituality is an inherent component of that healing equation.

Raymond Lawrence, CPSP General Secretary, was in attendance and is featured in a photo where he received an American Indian blessing during the Chaplain Graduation Ceremony at the VA Medical Center.

A 77-year-old black male Baptist patient, for example, underwent assumed routine surgery, had an unexpected stroke, and was dying. His shocked sisters and nephew expressed considerable anger at a family meeting: “He just came in for this surgery,” one said. “He was all-right when he got here. Now look at him. He’s dying! He may be just a patient to you, but he's our brother and uncle.”

Sympathetic staff persons tried to reassure the family that the medical treatment of the patient was thorough, that strokes after surgery, while uncommon, do occur, and that the patient may have had an unknown medical condition that contributed to the stroke. The intellectual, rational, and probably accurate explanations of what possibly happened did not console the family. What seemed to be helpful in shedding light on their feelings of shock and anger was my reflecting how they must feel in assuming their loved one was undergoing routine surgery, then suddenly seeing him dying from a stroke. The pastoral relationship I already had established with the sisters and nephew evidently contributed to whatever degree of being understood they felt at that family meeting. A primary challenge was to hear and understand and reflect their feelings—which may be more difficult if one’s own feelings are unduly pressuring one to convince a family of one’s best medical efforts.

The ShoreUpdate.com published an article about the the Shore Health System's CPE clinical training program. David Berg, a CPSP Diplomate, directs the program at the Memorial Hospital at Easton, Dorchester General Hospital in Cambridge and Shore Regional Cancer Center in Easton. CPE Interns provide ministry as clinical chaplains in each of these clinical settings.

The program's training structure has been designed to enable busy community clergy and seminarians to participate while get continuing their parish and divinity school responsibilities.

To read the article, click here.

Perry Miller, Editor
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Frank had great difficulty communicating to me what he wanted to tell people. He had been tall and stocky, but was now extremely thin and weak, and his hair prematurely white. At times, during our conversation, his voice would grow faint and fade and his eyes would close.

“ One of the things I always feared was cancer,” Frank began. “When the doctor told me that a cat scan revealed I had pancreatic cancer in a very advanced stage and only had six months, plus or minus, to live, I was naturally scared. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it except determine my attitude.”

Frank’s attitude was one of the messages he wanted to share with people. “I could either roll over and die, and some people literally do that. Or I could acquiesce, go along with it, not do much of anything, give in. Or I could fight it, go down kicking. I was determined I wasn’t going to die just by giving up. No matter what the quality of life was toward the end,” he continued, “it was still more important than not having any life. The more you give in the less quality you have.”

Francine Hernandez, NCTS Coordinator, announces that the fall 2010 gathering of the CPSP National Clinical Training Seminar will occur October 11 and 12th, 2010. IMPORTANT: The event will be held in a new venue: Stella Maris Retreat Center located at 981 Ocean Avenue, Elberon, NJ 07740.

The featured presenter will be Joseph M. Kramp, a doctoral candidate in psychology of religion at Drew University. He holds the M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary and has completed the Clinical Pastoral Education internship and residency at
BroMenn Hospital (Bloomington, IL) and Sequoia Hospital (Redwood City, CA). His dissertation topic is a psychological biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

As always, central to the mission of the NCTS is clinical case presentation and consultation within the context of psychodynamic small group process. All participants are to prepare and bring clinical cases for reflection and review.

Additional NCTS information, including the NCTS Registration Form will be will be posted on the PR in the near future.

Mark your calendar and make you plans to attend the NCTS this fall.

The Rev. Doctor John Edgerton, CPSP President, will be attending the Annual Meeting of the Association of Pastoral Supervisors and Educators (APSE) held in Nottingham, England on June 24, 2010. He will be representing CPSP and will bring greetings from our community.

The Reverend Robin Shohet will deliver the Keynote Address, Passionate & Spirited Supervision.

The APSE is a recently formed pastoral organization committed to the mission of advancing Clinical Pastoral Education in the UK. The history and story of the APSE seems reflective of CPSP's meager beginnings where only a handful gather to launch a movement.

We of the CPSP Community wish our friends and colleagues in the UK well as they gatherer to consider significant and practical issues in the field of clinical pastoral supervision.

Perry Miller, Editor

I sit with my mother now in the middle stage of Alzheimer’s. She too, is surrounded by what remains of her life: a silk flower arrangement to brighten up the room, a crucifix, a picture frame, a radio. Her bed is close to the ground to lessen the likelihood of a fall. Her closet, once filled with designer clothes and more than a hundred pairs of shoes is now two feet wide and filled with elastic waist pants and shirts that have become stained and beaten by the commercial laundry machines. Her shoe collection is now an array of slip-ons and Velcro strap shoes designed for ease and stability and definitely not for looks.

My mother’s disease has progressed rapidly over the last 18 months. She has gone from living in her own apartment, to assisted living and now a nursing home. She is relaying to me her boredom, depression and lack of meaning in her life. She struggles with word retrieval making it hard for her to communicate what she is thinking and feeling. Sometimes I can’t make sense of what she is saying. I sit quietly. She says to me “You’re not saying anything.” She’s right. I don’t know what to say. This is what brought me to Clinical Pastoral Education Training.

What started as a desire for skills, training, and knowledge turned into a unit of self-discovery, education, challenges and camaraderie peppered with moments of ultimate joy and appreciation to utter heart break. When I chose my site placement, a mother’s and children’s homeless shelter, I wanted something outside of my comfort zone to challenge me professionally, educationally and spiritually. Despite our obvious differences, our similarities as mothers created a space for trust and security which led to, not only moments of connection between us, but opened up a portal into my own struggles with transition and uncertainty, and magnified my frustration with injustice, inequality and bureaucracies. I learned about the world of domestic violence, sexual abuse and living in recovery. I recognized the effects of trauma in both the women and the children they were caring for. I was pushed to the limit of my emotions, and into the depths of my soul.

We invite persons interested in offering such a workshop to write a summary with name and subject of workshop to Al Henager, 2011 CPSP Plenary Workshop Coordinator. Please be sure to put Plenary Workshop in the subject area when sending Al Henager your email.

CPSP Delegation members, Annari Griesel, John deVelder, and Rabbi Dr. Einat Ramon, who helped initiate CPE in Israel

More than five years ago, the Executive Director of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains, Cecille Asekoff had a dream of starting CPE in Israel. Rabbi Zahara Davidowitz has fulfilled that dream by supervising CPE for the past four summers through the Schechter Seminary in Jerusalem. Zahara is a Diplomate of CPSP in the New York/New Jersey Chapter.

Since Zahara began the first CPE programs in 2006 interest in CPE and professional chaplaincy is growing in Israel. This May, the NAJC invited a delegation of about fifteen ACPE and CPSP leaders to attend the Fourth National Conference on spiritual care in Jerusalem. There were about 140 Israelis from 20 organizations all doing creative things in spiritual care. Our CPSP delegation included Rev. Dr. Annari Griesel, Rabbi David Glicksman, and Rev. Dr. John deVelder. The plan was for leaders of both organizations to consult with leaders in Israel about Standards and ways of developing CPE programs that fit the Israeli context.

John deVelder with Devorah Corn of Tishkofet (Life's Door) one of 20 organizations at the Conference, Cecille Asekof, Executive Director of NAJC and Teresa Snorton, Executive Director of ACPE

Many of the ACPE delegation are members of the ACPE Board. They saw the effect of four years of CPSP work and they remarked that cooperating with CPSP made sense. Some said that we should do more projects together. Out of these cordial and enthusiastic conversations about the exciting things happening in Israel several ACPE leaders offered to speak up in the ACPE Board to work toward mutual understanding and cooperation. What an outcome of a trip to Israel that ACPE and CPSP might begin a peace process.

John deVelder explaining the Chapter model of CPSP to spiritual care Leaders in Israel

We in the CPSP delegation are hopeful that both organizations will enter into a process to develop ways of dealing with conflicts and find more ways to work together in the important work of Clinical Pastoral Education not only in Israel but also in the USA and all over the world.

John Edgerton, CPSP President

Twenty years ago, at a place called Phoebe Needles’ Conference Center in Calloway, Virginia a small group of people gathered to define the type of community they wanted in the pastoral care movement. While they were at Phoebe Needles’ Conference Center they began to put together the ingredients of an alternative pastoral care community whereby the members of that community would see themselves as spiritual pilgrims seeking a collegial and professional relationship with each other. They thought this community first and last would be theological. They imagined that this community would deal with such things as accreditation, certification, and ethics complaints through what they were to call “chapters”. The chapters were made up of small groups of people that would share life together, but would also challenge each other. This new organization, as they envisioned it, would be for the purposes of recovering soul. It would value personal authority and creativity. It would live by grace. And it would value persons more than institutions. After the people at this particular meeting spelled out these ingredients they were put in the format which would become known as the CPSP Covenant that was written by Raymond Lawrence.

Now whether consciously or unconsciously when this group of people decided to form an alternative community they aligned themselves with the prophetic tradition arising out of such sections of the Old Testament as Jeremiah and Second Isaiah. Walter Brueggeman said in his book, Hopeful Imagination, “The central task of ministry is the formation of a community with an alternative liberated imagination that has the courage and freedom to act on a different vision and a different perception of reality”.

Twenty years ago when the original founders of CPSP put their vision of a new pastoral care community in to words through the CPSP Covenant. An alternative community with a liberated imagination was formed. We may not have known that, but that is what we were doing. It is certainly what has transpired. We defined ourselves. We were not defined by someone else and we left ourselves free to act on a different vision and a different perception of reality. We were not captives to any Babylonian interpretation of what reality is and therefore we were able to set up a community that would travel light, be liberated and have the capacity for creative imagination.

“Be Strong! Take Courage! All Ye Who Hope in the Lord” 1

– Comments Honoring the Rev. Dr. John Edwin Harris –

delivered in Columbus, OH, on 11 April 2010 at the Plenary of

the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy

– on the 85th anniversary of the movement for a specifically clinical chaplaincy

– on the 75th anniversary of H[elen] Flanders Dunbar’s article:
“The Clinical Training of Theological Students”

– on the 60th anniversary of the final edition of Anton Theophilus Boisen’s hymnal:
Hymns of Hope and Courage 2

Robert Charles Powell, MD, PhD

Each year the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy presents “The Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902-1959) Award for Significant Contributions to the Field of Clinical Pastoral Training.” Many of those new to this world of clinical pastoral training, education, and transformation may not know who this mysterious Helen Flanders Dunbar was – so let me make several prefatory comments.

In a nutshell, she was the one who translated Anton Boisen’s thought-provoking ponderings about an intimate relationship between religion and medicine into a movement – a now world-wide movement – that has forever changed the definition of “chaplaincy” and of what constitutes “pastoral care,” “pastoral counseling,” and “pastoral psychotherapy”.

Dunbar was brilliant – and sincere.

To some extent just noting that she finished her first magnum opus in April 1927, graduated cum laude from seminary in May 1927, and finished her first year of medical school in June 1927 says it all.

Seventy-five years ago, in 1935, her second magnum opus was published
and she added a third doctorate to those bestowed in 1929 and 1930.

Seventy-five years ago, in 1935, having solidified during the previous decade the foundations of the clinical pastoral movement, she launched the psychosomatic movement – viewing these as broad parallel programs for “healing and wholeness”. 3

Francine Hernandez, National Clinical Training Seminar Coordinator, informed the PR that Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D will be the guest presenter for the NCTS held May 3-4, 2010 at the Carmel Retreat located in Mahwah, New Jersey. As the NCTS presenter, Dr. Alberts will explore the subject, The Humanology of Pastoral Care
Pastoral and Prophetic Dimensions. Below you can download a file containing several of his article. Participants are encouraged to read the articles as preparation for the NCTS.

In addition, one can download the file containing the NCTS Schedule.
FILES FOR DOWNLOAD:
Download file: William Albert's Articles

Download 2010 NCTS Spring Schedule file

-Perry Miler, Editor