Pastoral Counseling is beyond what anybody quoted in a textbook can tell you. Many people will debate that only the clergy can do pastoral counseling. Some even say that everybody does pastoral counseling because we are helping other people to become the “best-version-of-themselves.” This is what we do as pastoral counselors, but we do it…
Throughout this course, I’ve become more familiar with different possibilities for pastoral counseling techniques/methods and the contexts in which they may be appropriately utilized. From my perspective, the way in which pastoral counseling can be enacted varies widely. It is like a Gestalt. The particular pieces may be swapped out or re-arranged to meet the…
Many times throughout the day, we encounter facts, ideas, or individuals that will provide us with an opportunity to reframe a currently held belief. Reframing is a technique we are all familiar with despite whether or not the term is one you have heard before. It is the art and process of considering a situation,…
From what I’ve gathered from our assigned readings and class discussions Pastoral Counseling is: Counseling performed by someone affiliated with a particular religious institution Is not a form of Spiritual Direction (counseling is generally not directive) Is more specific to the particular faith tradition in which it is being carried out in contrast to a…
One of my favorite quotes and one that keeps coming back to me was said by Saint Irenaeus, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” Despite the fact that Saint Irenaeus lived around 130 to 203 AD, these words still strike deeply to the heart. As I sit with this quote again I am…
As I wiser person than me once said, “The more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know.” Throughout this past year of pursuing greater knowledge and skill of the counseling profession, I have learned a great deal. I came to Franciscan University carrying my dream of being a Catholic Counselor beneath…
When searching for a concrete definition of pastoral counseling, one may come across many definitions that vary in their descriptions of what pastoral counseling is or what it looks like in different settings. The adjective, pastoral, suggests to many that pastoral counseling is counseling that is exclusively done by a pastor, priest, or other religious…
After a full day of working a residential site for internship, in the hopes of growing in the field of clinical counseling, I needed to meet another student briefly before returning come back to my Steubenville apartment, to simply relax or to look at other school related project. However, the course of life sometimes leads…
Pastoral counseling is the journeying with another human to the goal of wellness and flourishing human existence. So what does this journey look like practically? First off, pastoral counseling clearly involves a foundation of good counseling. The pastoral counselor must be competent in theories and techniques of the helping profession. After this foundation is established,…
According to Benner, strategic pastoral counseling should be time-limited, holistic, structured, involve assigned homework between sessions, is church based, spiritually focused and explicitly Christian. Some of these aspects overlap with clinical strategies; for example in achieving brief time-limited counseling a pastoral counselor may draw upon the practical skills and clinical techniques of basic listening, being…