The College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy is a theologically based covenant community, dedicated to "recovery of the soul" and promoting competency in the clinical pastoral field.
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Dear Editor:
A recent episode of "Agnes," a refreshingly insightful US comic strip, has the heroine expounding on the topic of a "moral compass" and ending up noting her "faith yardstick," "devotional scale," and "battery-operated spiritual hedge trimmer." There's nothing like starting with a reasonable notion that we should proceed deliberately and driving it into the ground. [Tony Cochran, Creators Syndicate, Inc, 17 June 2006; http://www.creators.com/comics_show.cfm?next=1&ComicName=agn]
As Chaplain Robert Mitchell paraphrased in his well-taken article "Chaplaincy: The New Profession?" some of "the most significant parts" of pastoral practice "don't lend themselves" well to "easy measurement and analysis" [aprs Della Fish & Colin Coles, 1998]. Some of the most significant aspects of pastoral care, counseling, and psychotherapy and of clinical pastoral education don't fare well with "tools" such as Agnes', that attempt to measure and weigh religion or to cut relationship down to size.
Managerial technicians approach persons in need without doubt or humility, as if it were really easy to know what is wrong and what to do. Humanistic artists approach persons in need with faith in their working through together, grasping the importance of valuing what is not easily known. Ignorance is bliss. The less one truly knows, the more everything seems clear-cut. Wisdom is certainly not based on the latest equivalents of a "faith yardstick," "devotional scale," or "battery-operated spiritual hedge trimmer". The more one truly knows, the more everything seems complex.
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Robert Charles Powell, MD, PhD is the leading historian of the clinical pastoral movement. As a practicing psychiatrist, his writings reflect his daily investment in his daily clinical practice of providing psychotherapy and care to his patients.
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at July 27, 2006 5:11 PM
