When, therefore, Chaplain George Hull included in his invitational e-mail the phrase that on this occasion I should “hold forthon your passion,” I found myself reflecting on the few passions that remain when one’s body refuses to “rise to the occasions,” occasions that at one time I assumed with blissful optimism. As my family physician quarterly reminds me: “You need to get your body to catch up with your mind.” I think he means that comment to be a compliment, but I would, in all honesty, gladly loan a pittance of my psyche to my soma, if I could.

I can say, however, still with honesty devoid of denial, that I do have a few passions remaining, two of which I would like to note on this occasion. One of them, I trust, will be of interest to members of this group. The second one, which I’ll save to last and make quite brief, may or may not touch the interest zones of this gathering.

The first has to do with what I think and feel is happening in the overall attempts to meet the extraordinary needs of people suffering from one or more of the mental disorders that we find catalogued in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Although I have been pretty much “out of the loop” since my tenure ended as Chair of the Editorial Committee and Managing Editor of The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling and my ministerial assignment as a pastoral psychotherapist at The Coastal Samaritan Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, I still serve regularly as a Adjunct Professor in a Masters Degree professional counseling program at a Webster University site. In that capacity I regularly teach courses in Psychopathology, Psychodiagnostics, and Professional Orientation and Ethics. Periodically, I facilitate and supervise students in their required practicum experiences. About 90% of these candidates are African Americans, the first generation of their ethnic group to reach the graduate level in education, and most of them are women. As a result, for the past decade my close-up professional experiences have been limited, and much of my impression – and thus my first passion – revolves around this rather slender sample. And from what I observe, and from what I hear from the conversations I have with these candidates, most of whom are already involved in some form of mental health services, things in the mental health trenches are not going that well.

I hear this, and I now say this, from a perspective honed after nearly half a century participating in the pastoral psychology, pastoral care and counseling, and Clinical Pastoral Education movements, and as a long-time professor and supervisor in a Ph.D. program in pastoral psychotherapy. In a way, associating with at least two generations of caregivers within these contexts has been a learning experience requiring a series of changes, and like most such dynamic projects there have been highs and lows in negotiating these intellectual and practical modes.

In my graduate school days (a phrase incidentally I struggle to keep out of my 21st century didactic vocabulary), I was immersed in psychodynamic and existential approaches linked to a person-centered ethos having its roots in a personalistic philosophy. My current students, should I slip into the lingo of any one of these meaning systems, stare blankly at me, their eyes seemingly saying, “What the hell is this old white guy talking about?” When, however, I blurt the initials “CBT” (cognitive-behavioral-therapy), they brighten up and know I am now talking about real psychotherapy. I receive equally puzzling stares should I refer to having seen a client for six months or a year or more, or, heaven forbid, twice a week for twelve months!
Recently in conversation with a colleague of mine, a man still very much involved in the current practice areas and a director of a mental health center, he explained in quite clear reasoning, that psychotherapy is no longer a viable option in his shop – it is a matter of assessment, possibly a pharmacological hit, or a referral out to one or more of the various programs in the wider community.

To make a very long account a mite shorter and surely an oversimplification, I, banged up and bleeding, find myself holding desperately to a notion of what psychotherapy ought to be. Said better, I suggest, is what one member of your group put it in your newsletter: “We are in danger of losing our soul.” (I might add that should I in a lecture or a discussion regarding referrals drop the phrase “pastoral psychotherapist,” I get those same blank stares previously noted.)

As I write this lament, I fully realize that I may be over generalizing and guilty of building my remarks on an extremely slim sample – and I hope that’s so. In fact, my “passion” is that I still hold to the notion that trying to challenge this drift, or dash, into a “managed care” environment is a sort of a personal mission, not foreign to my identity as a minister. But there are days when this quasi-mission passion is threatened by the fear that I might, at any moment, be cannibalized, if not by the natives then by the pharmacological establishment.

So to end this verbal tantrum, I am especially delighted that it is the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy that is giving me this award, a group I believe is trying to hold to the best in some of our original understandings of the nature of the healing arts and of supervisory processes.

My second passion I would like to share with you I have come to believe is perhaps partly a defense against the onslaughts implicit in the first one. It is the daily ritual of creative writing that I have developed in the past decade.

Actually, writing – that is, writing and publishing beyond the publish-or-perish requirement of the Academy – goes far back in my life. My first published poem was accepted when, as a teenager in Army basic training, I naively sent a poem titled “Carolina Moon” to The Southern Literary Messenger, a rather prestigious literary magazine that at one time was edited by Edgar Allen Poe. In a sense, that poem illustrates this second passion of mine that clings to the notion that one can, and should, write about any and all deeply felt issues, no matter how large or how insignificant those issues may be to others. Here’s that teenager’s take on such an “insignificant” experience.

I’ve heard songs, read books, watched movies
Of the Carolina moon;
I, poor soldier, have at last
Seen it, oversoon.

I’ve heard of lost lovers rejoined
Because of the Carolina moon;
I, poor soldier, have seen it,
But not on a honeymoon.

I’ve sung the sweet, impressive song
Called “Carolina Moon.”
Now each morning at reveille
I see it all too soon.

As I blink my eyes at the romantic moon
That makes the lovers swoon,
I know it’s time to hit the floor –
Damn that Carolina moon!

No, I will agree, not great poetry, but it does capture a splash of a lonely soldier’s experience, far from home for the first time.

Since my early retirement from my university, I’ve managed in this vein to write and publish five novels, each one based on a splash of reality in my personal life – experiences like the agonies and possible consequences of complicated bereavement, the angst of being the recipient of those who abuse their power, and the awesome aspects of authentic friendships.

It’s true, none of my stories and the characters I have created to make plain and entertaining these themes, will ever be best sellers – but they have provided a sort of prophylactic against some of the assaults noted in passion one.

Thus it is that passion two is not unrelated to passion one – at least not in the mind of this 85-year-old whose professional élan may be, as youth are apt to put it, “past it,” but who nevertheless can still feel deep appreciation when his work is recognized by colleagues, friends, and strangers.

Again, thank you members of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy for this recognition. And may you have the courage, will, and opportunity to continue to demonstrate the crucial values of those forms of clinical supervision and psychotherapy that have proven effective in confronting those powers -- whether conscious or unconscious -- that have targeted the diminishment of the human soul.
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