Remembering the Interdependent Web
A Pastoral Reflection Paper
Presented to the Faculty of Loyola University Maryland
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
The Degree of Master of Science
Baltimore, Maryland
2013
Abstract
New pastoral counselors integrate personal experience, spirituality, counseling theory, and clinical practice as part of an emerging professional self-concept. In this reflection paper, I use the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web to explore each of these areas. I begin with a definition of the metaphor. My personal journey from childhood, through formation as a Unitarian Universalist minister, and into the Master of Science program in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola University forms the backdrop for my development of this metaphor. My spirituality of counseling, which may also be described as my pastoral theology, is an important aspect of remembering the interdependent web. In particular, my spirituality calls me to connect with—and help my clients to connect with—legacies of resilience, communities of hope, and the present moment as part of the process of remembering the interdependent web. In terms of counseling theory, I use the ways paradigm (Cheston, 2000) to explore client-centered counseling, family systems theory, and Motivational Interviewing as a way of being, way of understanding, and way of intervening, respectively. Each of these counseling modalities is congruent with remembering the interdependent web. Finally, I evaluate my counseling practice so far with illustrations from clinical vignettes and suggest directions for professional development that continue in the vein of remembering the interdependent web.
Note: This is the publically available version of the paper submitted to the faculty of Loyola University Maryland. This version is edited for the purpose of confidentiality.
Table of Contents
Chapter I. Metaphor and Personal Journey
Chapter II. Spirituality of Pastoral Counseling
Chapter III. Theoretical Approach
Chapter IV. Critique and Future Plans
References
Chapter I
The purpose of this paper will be to integrate my understanding of clinical counseling theory and pastoral theology with my personal formation as a minister and pastoral counselor and my clinical experience in pastoral care and counseling. In weaving together these strands of theory and practice, the metaphor I will use for the process of pastoral counseling is “remembering the interdependent web.” In Chapter 1, I will demonstrate the advantages of this metaphor for my understanding of pastoral counseling. The bulk of Chapter 1 will be an account of my vocational journey, including some examples of how the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web has been relevant to my formation so far. In Chapter 2, I will get inside the image of the interdependent web in process as I examine what it means to “connect” in terms of pastoral theology. Chapter 3 will cover my theoretical approaches to counseling and will highlight the use of these theories in remembering the interdependent web. Finally, Chapter 4 will include a critique of my work as a pastoral caregiver and counselor through the lens of remembering the interdependent web. The closing chapter will also include an outline of potential future directions.
I. Metaphor for Counseling
Remembering the interdependent web is the metaphor I use to explore the practice of pastoral counseling, the process of healing for clients, and my continuing professional development. “Remembering” has a dual meaning in this metaphor. The first meaning has to do with calling wisdom or information that is known (but may not be immediately accessible) into consciousness or use. That is, remembering is an act of evocation. In clinical terms, the client and counselor celebrate the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual assets a client already possesses bring those assets into active service through a process of remembering.
The second meaning of “remember” comes from understanding the word “member” to mean a constituent piece of a larger structure, one part to the whole. To “re-member” is to connect a piece again, to restore a bit of wholeness. One imagines closing a wound, replacing a lost or broken component, or exchanging a maladaptive strategy for a life-affirming one. Taking these two senses of “remember” together, a person lifts up the treasures of understanding and functioning that have been available in the past, and a person re-weaves or knits together the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and social connections that support abundant life.
The next part of the metaphor explicitly names interdependence as a central concept for healing and growth. Interdependence is a reality of being human. We rely on each other for encouragement and challenge. When we are at our most vulnerable, we rely on each other for mutual care. We rely on social systems to bring food to our tables and clothing to our backs. Humans are relational creatures. Forming relationships in which a person can give and receive positive support and resources is a key activity to promote abundant living. These relationships include positive friendships and family bonds as well as connections with communities and institutions that provide environments that support thriving.
Beyond human relationships, interdependence is an ecological reality. Every living thing on earth depends on other organisms for food, habitat, enrichment, and returning its remains to the soil. Plants and animals give and receive from other living things in their growth, death, and decay. Understanding our place as human beings in the family of things may carry additional potential for healing and life satisfaction.
The “web” completes the metaphor with a visual icon for the idea of interdependence. A web is a set of connections that is not necessarily hierarchical. In nature, a web makes explicit use of assets in the environment as anchor points. A web is resilient, moving with light breezes and quivering in response to environmental signals to which the weaver must attend. Adding to the resilience, a web is reparative, allowing the weaver to break connections and to form them again in a different way as the environment changes or as the weaver’s needs change. When all else fails, a weaver has the capability to move to a more hospitable location and start the web-building process anew.
Implicit within the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web is the understanding that the Divine is present throughout the system. Whenever there is a move toward balance and wholeness, the Spirit of Life is there in cooperation, providing encouragement and energy for journeys of healing. The Holy works through life-giving relationships.
I believe that people can find resources for wholeness and health in the relational world that already exists. In my Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, unity and love are pre-existing conditions. Unitarian Universalist theology axiomatically assumes that all people are already beloved by the Eternal. Unitarian Universalists have historically been encouraged to respond to this assurance by living in a way that affirms Divine and neighborly love. One way to articulate our mission is that we seek to remove the human-imposed barriers of poverty, hunger, and injustice that hinder human beings from experiencing our sacred gifts.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe I am called to devote my life to right relationship and compassion, to create joy, and to cultivate gratitude in response to love. Right relationship can be understood as a way of being and behaving together that promotes justice and health and that respects the reflection of the Divine within every person. The Holy is always present, and is available as an invisible layer of the interdependent web for people to build from in weaving an abundant life.
II. Personal Journey: Early Experiences
My ability to see the world as an interdependent web infused with love has developed throughout my vocational journey. I have woven my faith and my understanding of my mission together from many strands. Looking back, I know I am part of something larger than myself. I owe whatever success I have achieved to people, networks, and forces that I did not and could not have earned.
My mother was a nurse. So were her most of her friends and my closest aunts. Together, these women were a community of support. They worked incredibly hard, including weekends and night shifts. They spoke directly, moved quickly to solve problems, and were extremely practical. My mother’s DC-area nursing community also knew how to celebrate whenever possible. Whether caring for patients with their teams or sharing joys and sorrows with their colleagues, the nurses talked about their work as a relational process. My best way of describing this aspect of my childhood is that my family raised me in a den of wild nurses. The den of nurses provided my first role models for following a call to a vocation. They used specialized knowledge and fierce compassion to increase health and well being in the world, acutely aware that no one person could accomplish this task alone.
Although my parents had each been involved with conservative religions in their families of origin, they joined a liberal congregation affiliated with the United Church of Christ. My childhood religious education there hinged on stories about Jesus and his acts of healing and compassion. We raised funds for hunger charities, put on pageants to benefit international development projects, and sang holiday carols at the local nursing home. In a church where God is Love, being the people of God meant doing the work of Love. The basic assumption of compassion being a religious act gave me something to hold on to as my theology changed.
Around the age of 14, I had an experience that I interpreted as the presence of the Holy. I knew a sense of unity with the trees, the rocks, and the animals all around my neighborhood. Without hearing any words, I felt that the Eternal had assured me that the route by which I sought the Divine was not important. The important thing was to continue the search for purpose and meaning. I wanted to find a new way of practicing spirituality that helped me remember that sense of cosmic kinship that I had felt during my mystical moment. While I maintained affection for my parents’ church, I spent high school and college exploring feminist and earth-centered religions. I started a Pagan meditation practice in which I organized my thoughts and prayers according to the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. My Jewish friends shared similarities between Pagan cosmology and mysticism in their tradition.
As the first person in the family to go directly from high school to university, I felt it was my responsibility to do something practical and job-oriented with my degree. I also wanted a career that made a positive impact on the world and helped people create meaning. My parents did not pressure me to follow these goals, although I think they were pleased at my priorities. The academic skill I succeeded at most consistently was writing, which led me to major in journalism with a concentration in public relations. I worked in public relations for about five years, mainly for education, nonprofit, and arts organizations, before moving to California with my partner. There, I took a job in the education department of a university art museum.
Moving to California was a difficult transition. I had separated myself from my support network by thousands of miles. New friends did not come easily. My partner was busy with graduate school, and I wondered if I were missing my greater purpose. I missed singing with a group and I wanted to get involved in community service. I looked for a church.
A high school friend of mine had mentioned that the Unitarian Universalist Association had revised its list of sources to include “Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature” (Unitarian Universalist Association, 1995, ¶ 15). The Association’s bylaws also included a covenant “to affirm and promote … respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part” (Unitarian Universalist Association, 1995, ¶ 8). I knew that a Unitarian Universalist congregation was my best bet for a place where I could integrate my Pagan meditation practice, my partner’s Jewish heritage, and my liberal Christian upbringing. I chose a congregation that was relatively small (so that I would not be tempted to sneak out after the service without talking to anyone) and mentioned social justice on their website. After my first Sunday, I felt at home. The members treated me with kindness and acceptance. In listening to the members, I discovered that my own religious ideas and spiritual practices were well within the typical range for the congregation. The minister and I had a lot in common theologically. I joined committees and attended regularly.
III. Personal Journey: Ministerial Formation
I had not been attending the church for very long before I was checking out Unitarian Universalist seminaries and wondering if ministry could be the greater purpose I had been looking for. If heretics like were allowed in Unitarian Universalism, there did not seem to be any major barriers to a career as a religious professional. I imagined that, as a minister, I could use my writing skills, help people find and create meaning, and put energy into caring for the earth and establishing more justice in society. Where I had been making the arts possible for other people in public relations, crafting worship would give me a chance to be directly involved with artists, poets, and musicians.
I imagined that anyone who was thinking of seminary would already be experts in the Bible and in Unitarian Universalist history. I took some community college courses to catch up. Meanwhile, my partner and I got involved with some of the independent Jewish communities in the Bay Area. We joined a congregation in San Francisco that was radically welcoming and post-denominational.
I entered seminary in 1999. After a semester or two, I realized that every student is in the middle of a learning process. I need not have been anxious about comparing myself to my classmates. As my Christian friends put it, “God does not call the qualified. God qualifies the called.” The Bible study I had done at community college and through my Jewish congregation, more than “catching up,” gave me useful knowledge that I could share with my cohort. Another asset I brought was my knowledge of art in world religions, gained through the museum job I kept through the first semester of seminary.
The faculty, staff, and students at my school did an excellent job of affirming the talents we students brought with us from life before ministry while offering opportunities to complete a well-rounded education. None of us could be everything a minister was imagined to be, but we could work together to combine our gifts in community. We could also support each other as we gathered the rest of the tools we needed for our callings—tools such as pastoral care.
One of the ordination requirements was a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). CPE is a supervised training course for ministry in a specialized setting. CPE students provide chaplaincy in places such as mental health institutions, retirement communities, prisons, and hospitals. The pediatric hospital in my hometown was one of the approved sites. The site had a good program, and I could imagine myself serving as a chaplain to critically ill children and their families. I began the CPE unit in June after my first year in seminary.
CPE is a challenging and life-altering process. The CPE student gains pastoral skills and grows into a ministerial identity. My unit of CPE at the pediatric hospital kept its promise. I learned to be present in the face of death. I learned to refrain from giving unsolicited advice, at least some of the time. I learned that even helping professionals who think they speak the same language sometimes need to slow down in order to understand each other. Healing does not mean curing. Wholeness does not mean perfection. Patient care is a team effort. Part of chaplaincy is helping people transition back into the care of their religious communities. These short sayings can’t convey the experience of transformation I went through as I lived through the learning process. I started CPE as a tentative student and I finished with the belief that I could be a minister.
Another requirement of ordination was nine months of full-time internship with a congregation. As an intern for a 300-member congregation, I led small group ministries, taught religious education classes for children and adults, provided pastoral care, and collaborated with the worship team. In all of these instances, I found that being fully present was a prerequisite for effective ministry. No information I could offer in a class was more important. No facilitation technique in small groups or point of brilliant theology mattered if I didn’t show up emotionally and spiritually. My open-hearted attention in that moment made a difference to the children, youth, and adults I ministered with.
I also learned that ministry is not a solo affair. Staff and volunteers work together to build the beloved community and to live out the mission of the congregation. My supervisor took me along to the interfaith clergy group meetings, where we found additional support, ideas, and energy. I learned that I, like the members of a congregation, am a relational creature. I am more resilient when I remember that I am part of a network of care, and when I remember to move in harmony with the forces that create and uphold life. I fell in love with congregational ministry.
IV. Personal Journey: Early Ministerial Career
My first settlement after graduation was as the Assistant Minister for Education for a congregation of about 550 members in central California. It was a new position for the congregation, and they seemed unsure whether they wanted an administrator to recruit volunteers and run the Sunday school or a second preacher who could cover some of the funeral duties. It was difficult to be fully present and also accomplish the detail-oriented tasks. The congregation expected me to be many things, and I found it impossible to fill all of my roles at once.
Despite the challenges, I continued to find meaning in congregational ministry. It was an honor to accompany parishioners through births and deaths. I felt privileged to be able to offer the full attention of pastoral care to children and teens as well as adults. Just as I had found in CPE, children know something about their own souls. Listening to them and validating that they have their own wisdom helps them to believe in their own worth. Children, too, remember the interdependent web.
As an Assistant Minister, my arrangement with the congregation was a temporary contract rather than an open-ended “call,” as it would be for Associate and Senior Ministers. I was discerning whether to pursue a contract renewal or to search for another position when I got the news that my mother had breast cancer. I revised my search so that I could move closer to my parents. It took over six months, but I was able to relocate within a two-hour drive of my family of origin, which was a significant improvement over a six-hour plane ride.
For the next two years, I was a regional denominational staff person for a five-state area. In my first year, I worked with a volunteer team to improve ministries for people in their twenties and thirties. I offered consulting and training services to congregations, goal-setting retreats for congregations with new staff, and exit interviews for departing staff. Our staff group put on conferences and webinars to offer additional resources to congregational staff and volunteers. The position was a rare opportunity for someone my age. I sometimes found it difficult to articulate own needs because I was determined to demonstrate that I deserved the trust placed in me.
Consulting was a whirlwind of activity. The work was both exhilarating and draining. On the exhilarating side, I met amazing and talented people doing important work. I had a chance to travel to placed I would never have gone otherwise and to help generate exciting ideas. On the other hand, driving long distances is not energizing to me. Most of the time, congregations contacted us because something had gone terribly wrong, which meant I spent more time analyzing negative events than helping to create positive events. I rarely had the opportunity to develop long-term pastoral relationships. The position gave me a birds-eye view of many systems of relationships, but no network of support that I could access for myself or feel that I was feeding consistently.
Meanwhile, my mother appeared to recover from her first fight with cancer. She returned to work for a few months. Within a year, pain in her back signaled a deeper problem. Her cancer had metastasized, meaning it had returned and spread. Driving all over five states to face one crisis after another no longer seemed like my calling. I needed to re-evaluate my path.
V. Personal Journey: Focusing and Prioritizing
I thought about what had been missing during my consulting work and which aspects of ministry I most needed to develop. Pastoral care topped both lists. My understanding of ministry can be imagined as a large circle that encompasses many forms of care that people offer one another as an aspect of faith. Professional clergy offer ministry, yet the lay members of a community also minister to one another. I conceptualize pastoral counseling as a specialized task within the medium circle of pastoral care. Pastoral counseling is a discipline that incorporates listening skills, a theological framework, and psychotherapy techniques to assist clients with goals such as healing, reconciling, and challenging. Pastoral care is an umbrella term that includes functions such as physical care, prayer, and spiritual comfort as well as counseling.
My sense of call is to the ministry in general, although the form of that ministry may change throughout my life in response to experience and professional development. I thought that focusing on either pastoral care in the broad sense or pastoral counseling in the specific sense would help me bridge in the gap that I had been feeling. I considered pursuing chaplaincy or spiritual direction, but the training for both of those options seemed to be limiting and not especially likely to lead to employment.
I chose to apply for Loyola University’s Master of Science in Pastoral Counseling program. As I was filling out my application, I thought about being in school and spending more time visiting with my mother than I had been able to devote while traveling for work. That part of the plan did not turn out to be possible. My mother died in August of 2008. I started at Loyola in September. My first semester, I enrolled in four classes and entered the required personal therapy. I may have processed my grief creatively through coursework, or I may have been using my commitments to avoid grief. I may have been doing both of those things.
In the spring of 2009, I saw a notice on the website of a small Unitarian Universalist congregation in a rural area. They were seeking a part-time minister. After an interview with the search committee over lunch and a few preaching engagements, the congregation voted unanimously to make me their consulting minister. I have been serving this congregation of about 35 members for four years. Their care for one another and their down-to-earth mission has restored my faith in ministry. I am remembering what it means to be part of an interdependent congregational system.
In addition to congregational ministry, the following year brought new reasons to stay mindful of the Source of Love at work in the universe. I gave birth to twins in July 2010 and took a leave of absence from school to care for them. The generosity of neighbors and friends eased our initiation into parenthood. I am even more aware of being part of something larger than myself. As a parent, I am more aware than ever of the gift of vulnerability. There are two pieces of my heart walking around in the world outside my chest. I have a more visceral understanding than I did before of the need people have for each other. I know I can’t control everything. I cannot be completely independent. With that sense of humility, I am more prepared to participate in the interdependence of community, giving and receiving as part of a loving whole.
I returned to school in January 2011 and started my first counseling internship in the fall of 2011. While I never intended to become a specialist with children and youth, my fieldwork for Loyola has shaped me in that direction. I served for one school year as a mental health counselor in an urban, religious, co-educational high school. For my second year, I was a counselor for preschoolers and their families as part of a pilot internship program in a federally-funded agency. I saw a few adults individually during my second clinical year, but most of my clients were children.
In my fieldwork, I saw overlapping systems operating in the lives of children and adolescents. Family systems, cultures, and classroom social structures flowed into one another. Institutions and civic structures such as law enforcement, religious communities, and government agencies all had an impact on their day-to-day lives. If I had tried to take the modernist, atomistic view of clients as isolated beings and apply it to clients who were children and adolescents, I would have missed most of the information I needed. That being said, for all that they are at the mercy of adults, children and adolescents have first-hand knowledge of what kind of coping works for them and what they need for wholeness. Remembering the interdependent web is the best way I have found for accompanying children and adolescents in a journey of healing.
Chapter II
I. Connect as a Concept for Pastoral Theology
In the first chapter of this paper, I elaborated on “remembering the interdependent web” as a metaphor for the process of pastoral counseling. As I explained in the previous chapter, I understand ministry, pastoral care, and pastoral counseling as concepts in relation to one another. My interlaced definitions of these disciplines continue to be relevant in this chapter, as I describe my spirituality of pastoral care and counseling (that is, my pastoral theology). As a minister and a counselor, I provide both pastoral care and pastoral counseling. I can describe these functions separately, but my underlying motivations remain unified. In describing my spirituality of pastoral care and counseling, I will use examples from my professional experience. (Note: for the publicly available version of this paper, I will redact client-related information.)
The word, “connect” illuminates my theology and practice of pastoral counseling. To connect is to participate fully in the interdependent web. Respect for the interdependent web of existence is a cornerstone of the theology of my denomination, Unitarian Universalism. The interdependent web applies to the laws of physics, ecosystems in balance, and right relationship among people, among other frameworks. I believe that the universe is rich with resources for abundant life, and that humans thrive best when someone takes initiative on behalf of healing and growth to move in harmony with those resources.
Clients may seek pastoral care when they have come upon an experience of being “cut off,” such as when depression blocks access to feelings of joy, or when unproductive patterns prevent a family from solving problems together, or when despair over evil in the world impedes a client’s ability to thrive. These are problems of division between an individual and the people, wisdom, or resources that encourage wholeness. A creative response to being “cut off” can be effective. Parker writes about such creativity in Blessing the world: What can save us now (2006). She presents several examples of personal and societal problems that may result in numbness, and acknowledges the likelihood that such experiences will challenge our ability to find meaning. Parker references personal conversations with her colleague Rosemary Chinnici.
We come to a time when we realize that the faith we have inherited is inadequate for what we are facing. Chinnici calls this religious impasse. I’ve learned from her that at such moments we have three choices: We can hold to our religious beliefs and deny our experience, we can hold to our experience and walk away from our religious tradition, or we can become theologians …. Chinnici recommends the third option, and so do I. Theological reflection becomes important precisely at times when human beings find themselves at an impasse between what they have inherited from tradition and what life throws at them. (pp. 6-7)
Parker’s recommendation to “become theologians” is an active response, a positive effort to overcome a division or an impasse. She suggests that we can synthesize religious tradition, honest awareness, and personal experience into new ways of living with hope and meaning. Parker’s recommendation is one of strengthening and re-weaving our bonds to heritage, world community, neighborhoods, and soul in patterns of right relationship. Each facet of becoming theologians is a choice to connect.
There are many kinds of connections that clients make and that I as a counselor make toward healing and growth. I will illustrate three of these themes: Connect with legacies of resilience. Connect with communities of hope. Connect with the present moment.
II. Connect With Legacies of Resilience
Those of us on a healing journey, whether in our roles as seekers or guides, benefit when we connect with legacies of resilience. These legacies might be gathered from the fruits of lived experience, lifted up from the storehouses of family memories, or discovered in the mines of cultural and religious heritage. Through legacies of resilience, people are able to build self-efficacy and to learn by example.
My first year of clinical internship through Loyola was in a religious high school that has been a ministry of self-determination by and for African Americans since the early 1800s. I noticed that students who identified more strongly with a positive family, religious, or cultural history exhibited higher motivation in their schoolwork. Their sense of connection was an asset.
Early in the year, one of my clients expressed the feeling that he was on his own with few supports. We talked about capitalizing on his strengths, and how knowing his challenges could help him to work around them. As we worked together, he remembered people who had encouraged him, reducing his sense of isolation.
The major change in my client seemed to be associated with the depth of material in his African American history class. In counseling, he spoke of his struggle to contextualize information he was never taught in public school. During his study of the 1920s, he asked, “Trayvon Martin, that’s just like a lynching, isn’t it?” It was the first time he initiated discussion of a link between history and current events. He realized that he was not alone in the arc of time, and that passing something to the next generation was a valuable goal. He had found a way to connect with a legacy and a mission that fueled his resilience.
Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin (2004), in their exploration of race and gender in pastoral care, are explicit about the importance of connections with the past. They write:
Historical consciousness is a vital resource for American pastoral care. We must engage it if we are to better understand ourselves and help shape a society worthy of human dwelling. The past has shaped the present and lives on in the present in ways yet to be discovered. By understanding the past, we internalize or incorporate it into our everyday awareness and enable ourselves to use that understanding to our advantage .…The past represents ways of knowing that emerge from struggle and can inform us today. The complex and ambiguous present is the result of the experiences, thinking, and struggles of our ancestors who were born and raised in civilizations and circumstances different from our own. (pp. 55-56)
Connections with history can be spiritually sustaining. I believe that God is present in all of the living forces and atomic bonds that tie the universe together. The universe is of one substance, knit together by a powerful love into an interdependent web of cause and effect, history and future. We are held unconditionally by that love. The Eternal is available to offer comfort and inspiration, yet human activity matters. I believe that the purpose of humanity is one of hospitality, to make the world a fit dwelling place for the Divine. We do this by living in harmony with the natural world, bringing human communities into right and just relationships, practicing compassion, creating beauty, and loving boldly. The Holy was here before humans, and it could be said that we are guests in God’s world, yet honoring the Divine through a practice of hospitality helps me to keep my work centered in love. The Holy dwells within fragile people and ecosystems, which are deserving of tender care.
Even with confidence in eternal, unconditional love, the tasks of justice, compassion, beauty, and stewardship are daunting. By remembering the people in whose footsteps I follow, I gain strategies and confidence that I can continue on this path. Songs, stories, and artwork about community actions of compassion and reverence remind me that the Divine has been breathing with us for a long time. In particular, I am inspired by stories from across the centuries of Unitarian Universalist women who advocated for gender equality. Sexism is a broad systemic problem, and kinship with networks of problem-solvers in the past and present helps me to confront the systemic oppression that remains in the world. I find a sense of hope and renewal in history. An excerpt from “Natural Resources” by Adrienne Rich (1978/1993) comes to mind:
My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
So much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those who, age after age,
perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world. (p. 67)
The poet emphasizes the resilience that stems from connecting with people from “age after age.” On a spiritual level, resilience helps people to continue searching for meaning and to live out what they perceive to be their sacred purposes in the world. On a psychological level, this quality helps people to solve problems and to function in society. Wicks (2010) defines resilience as “the ability to meet, learn from, and not be crushed by the challenges and stresses of life” (p. 3). When people connect with stories and communities that convey resilience from generation to generation, they are able to thrive in multiple dimensions.
Connecting with legacies of resilience not only helps people to feel that they can move forward, but also produces examples of how to move forward. Bandura (1977) identified self-efficacy and vicarious learning as two aspects of social learning theory. My personal experience with feeling renewed by religious history and my client’s example of inspiration from cultural history both suggest that the symbolic modeling of historical material can support self-efficacy and vicarious learning while aiding the spiritual awareness of forces larger than ourselves. Healing and growth in the context of pastoral care is aided by an act of initiative. When people connect with legacies of resilience, they have important tools for taking that initiative.
III. Connect With Communities of Hope
Although much of the spiritual and psychological dominant narrative emphasizes the individual, I have found it vital to connect with communities of hope and to assist my clients to do the same. Communities of hope are networks of people who gather to construct positive meaning and to share encouragement, usually in the context of a larger mission. Congregations can be communities of hope if they provide positive encouragement, but communities of hope need not be explicitly religious. Centers of learning or service can be communities of hope, especially if their members intentionally take time to reflect together on meaning.
Seminary was a community of hope for me. The faculty, staff, and students worked together to solve communal problems such as right relations among drivers in the parking lot, maintaining the shared kitchen, and raising money for the scholarship fund. We gathered each week for worship. The student lounge was a locus of theological discussion as well as laughter and tears about the births, deaths, hopes, and disappointments of human life. When trauma struck, we were prepared to receive the shock, having connected a web of relationships with which we could hold each other and bear the weight together.
One Tuesday morning in my third year at seminary, I was awakened by a phone call from my sister-in-law. She told me that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I turned on the radio. During a transition between reports, NPR played an instrumental version of “Abide With Me.” I realized that I wanted to gather with others in a place where I could hear sacred music and see the faces of compassionate people. Although I was nervous about crossing the bridge between San Francisco and Berkeley, I decided to go to school.
The building was busy in some corners and tearfully quiet in others. Several of my colleagues responded best to crisis by feeding people, and the kitchen echoed with clattering and banging. One of my friends, who had come to seminary following a career in interior design, was helping to arrange the community room into a sacred space appropriate for the occasion. In the coming weeks, the school community would send forth outpourings of poetry, peace advocacy, art, preaching, music, and pastoral letters. In that moment, we focused on the immediate needs of the people around us: food, shelter, and presence.
Worship began soon after I arrived. A visiting professor shared a personal story about his call to ministry during the 1960s. He said that momentous events should and will change our ideas about mission. A day of tragedy brings clarity to questions about why and how we are called to serve. The world needs people to channel their talents toward ministering to others. Perhaps this was what Parker (2006) had in mind when she wrote “Benediction.” It begins:
Your gifts
Whatever you discover them to be
Can be used to bless or curse the world.
The mind’s power,
The strength of the hands,
The reaches of the heart,
The gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting.
Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,
Bind up wounds,
Welcome the stranger,
Praise what is sacred,
Do the work of justice
Or offer love. (pp. 163-164)
The poem goes on to describe the perils and joys of following such a calling. She suggests that love, rage, ritual, and praise are some of the gifts we have on hand. She concludes:
None of us alone can save the world.
Together—that is another possibility,
Waiting. (p. 165)
Parker’s poem not only urges me to accept my gifts and use them well, but it also reminds me that the Source of Love calls us to minister together, networks of people repairing the interdependent web. The diversity of our talents, when woven together, forms a more complete embrace to promote spiritual growth and emotional healing.
I wish for my clients and parishioners that they connect with such communities of hope. I am aware that my care is only one asset that will promote their wellbeing, and that larger systems convened with intention and care make a significant difference. I have seen youth conferences and religious summer camps function as this kind of encouraging network, as well as science fiction conventions, activist groups, and community theater companies. Any place where people wrestle with the big questions and support each other’s maturation is a community of hope.
In my second clinical year at Loyola, I saw the Head Start Parent Council function this way for some of the families. Between long meetings of intense democratic process, reflections on the purpose of early childhood education, and the compassionate attention of the staff to personal as well as logistical matters, parents who were highly involved found a sense of meaning and belonging in the preschool community. Together, the parents set their sights on a good educational experience and a better future for their children. If one of my client families were not a good match for a psychosocial support group or a faith community, I knew I could recommend Head Start’s own activities as a place to connect and to find hope.
Healing what has been divided, including divisions of numbness and oppression, is a spiritual task. Interdependence is honored in many faith traditions, with each one applying its unique vocabulary and values. The Christian argument suggested by Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin (2004) resonates with me. They write:
Estrangement is at the heart of the human condition in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Estrangement is our distance from God, from others, from ourselves, and from purposes that give meaning to our lives. But estrangement is not final. Aphesis (divine forgiveness) is the fundamental element of redemptive work—the overcoming of estrangement ….
The role and work of followers (siblings) is to do the work of reconciliation, the overcoming of estrangement. Lifting the yoke of oppression, not pointing the finger of blame, and not engaging in evil speak but instead offering forgiveness and food to the hungry and satisfying the needs of the afflicted are among the signal acts of redemption in a world marked by estrangement. Followers, or siblings by choice, are called to interrupt and disrupt the powers of estrangement, and to dethrone them. (pp. 129-130)
In other words, when clients can find a sense of belonging, a meaning-making purpose, and a strategy through which they can lessen the emotional distance between themselves and helpful others, they are part of a world movement for overcoming estrangement. To connect with communities of hope is to increase redemptive power in the world.
I have learned that remembering my role in a larger picture of wholeness is beneficial to my attitude and to the quality of my work. If I forget about connections, I come to believe that a client or parishioner’s emotional or spiritual health depends mostly on the nature of my intervention. This hubris leads me to be more anxious and less able to access the resources and knowledge I have available to me. Encouraging clients to connect with communities of hope and practicing my own discipline of connecting improves the atmosphere for healing and growth.
In my reflections after I have finished working with a client, I imagine letting go of their hands at the threshold of a web made from light and love. Clients are commended into the caring embrace of networks beyond my understanding. Their communities of support, their connections with meaning or spirituality, and their grasp of their own inner resources will outlast any counseling relationship. May redemption prevail.
IV. Connect With the Present Moment
A third theme that arises in a pastoral theology that celebrates our ability to connect is the capacity to connect with the present moment. This theme includes the ability to face the pain and uncertainty of honest awareness and compassion for the self. When we connect with the present moment, we can spend our energy learning from our challenges and our internal reactions rather than numbing them or covering them up. Practices such as meditation and prayer can help.
When I began my unit of Clinical Pastoral Education thirteen years ago, I had some experience with meditation and prayer, but no consistent practice. I soon realized that I needed some way of regaining my balance during days filled with illness and death. I also learned that, whatever interventions I brought into the room, I also brought myself. Taking time to find my center was of benefit to my clients. I began a daily practice of visiting the hospital’s chapel, quietly singing to the four directions, and listening. When I was finished, I would imagine releasing the spirits of the four directions. Responding to suffering in the environment and the stress of professional transformation, I found a fruitful practice that I continue to develop.
Buddhist author Pema Chödrön (2005) suggests viewing unpleasant situations and feelings as opportunities for learning and growth. She posits that mindfulness helps the practitioner to be honest about what is going on internally. Her meditation instructions include directions about compassion for the practitioner. I appreciate the gentleness of Pema Chödrön’s description. Authenticity may seem brutal or painful, but there is no need to make it worse through self-flagellating criticism. When distractions come up during meditation, the author suggests labeling them using a compassionate inner voice and moving on:
My experience is that by practicing without “shoulds,” we gradually discover our wakefulness and our confidence. Gradually, without any agenda except to be honest and kind, we assume responsibility for being here in this unpredictable world, in this unique moment, in this precious human body. (pp. 172-173)
As a recovering perfectionist, advice like this is helpful. I hesitate to begin what I may not do well. This is in direct conflict with my spiritual beliefs, including the unconditional love and acceptance of the Divine. I believe that we will all end up in union with the Holy, like a drop of rain being received into the ocean. I do not have to prove my worth to win salvation. When I can keep faith with my beliefs, I stand on more stable ground for offering a non-anxious, accepting presence to others.
Acceptance seems to be a key point in sustaining a practice of connecting with the present moment. One Jewish meditation teaching is to regard random thoughts positively. As Kaplan (1985) writes, “No matter where the thoughts lead, there is no cause for concern. A Chasidic teaching says that any thought that enters the mind during meditation does so for a purpose” (p. 61).
Kaplan’s approach matches my theology of Divinity being infused in all things. I share the experience of wandering into mundane thoughts during spiritual practice. When I return to laundry or parenting or whatever the stray thought was about, I remember that there is something holy in what I am doing in that very moment.
Unitarian Universalist approaches have also been helpful to me when it comes to dealing with strong feelings of fear, anger, and despair that arise in meditation and prayer. Parker (2006) advises acceptance in this case, too. “Stillness that listens and rage that protests will lead us to a new covenant, if we have the courage to refuse to flee from our tears and to embody in everyday practices what we have come to know” (p. 88).
To connect with the present moment is to face all of the terrifying horrors and transcendent beauties of the world and our emotional responses to them. Parker suggests that the fruits of meditation and prayer are changes in the way we live. In other words, to connect with the present moment is to move toward healing the world as well as the self. Winning an award for the best, most focused practice is not the point. Serving the Source of Love is the point. When I can honor life by experiencing it fully, when I can sort through my internal reactions in order to offer the most loving response, when I can connect with my own soul and the souls of the people in front of me, meditation and prayer are tools for healing and growth.
V. Closing Summary of Spirituality of Pastoral Counseling
Choosing to connect with legacies of resilience, communities of hope, and the present moment provides sustaining power for the search for health and meaning. This, to me, is the heart of the pastoral counseling relationship. Becoming immersed in legacies of resilience can improve self-efficacy and provide strategies for overcoming obstacles, especially obstacles such as oppression that repeat themselves in a system over time. Awareness of this cloud of witnessing ancestors strengthens the client and the counselor to further the search for growth.
Communities of hope are networks of people, usually organized for a shared purpose, who encourage one another, speak the truth in love, and engage with questions of meaning. When clients and counselors connect with communities of hope, resources for health and spiritual depth are revealed that can enrich and last beyond the counseling relationship.
The present moment offers a variety of gifts for clients and counselors. Whether increasing awareness of reality is called mindfulness meditation, prayer, or simply taking inventory, accepting the truth of situations and emotions fuels positive change. The pastoral counseling relationship thrives when the counselor and client connect with the present moment.
I believe that the universe is knit together in love. When we intentionally connect with the Divine who dwells within people and communities of the past and present, we are actively participating alongside the Eternal with weaving the interdependent web. Bidden or unbidden, the Holy is present in the bonds between atoms, ecosystems, and people. May we attend to the gifts of challenge, comfort, and love that sing within our connections.
Chapter III
I. Counseling Theory and Remembering the Interdependent Web
Within the larger circle of Pastoral Care, the practice of Pastoral Counseling requires specialized knowledge and skills, including an understanding of psychological theories and interventions. Cheston (2000) suggests a paradigm for integrating the tools of different schools of thought into an effective practice for each client’s situation. Cheston calls this the ways paradigm, as it differentiates between the counselor’s way of being, way of understanding, and way of intervening. In my training and supervised practice as a student counselor, I have found this paradigm helpful in weaving together the theories and techniques that may benefit a client.
While there are a variety of theories that I have experimented with in my internship settings, there are a few that have been especially helpful as I assist clients in remembering the interdependent web. As a Unitarian Universalist minister and as a counselor, there is no doubt that person-centered counseling is my predominant way of being. My way of understanding is heavily influenced by family systems theory. While I practice flexibility in my way of intervening, I have often found that Motivational Interviewing fits with both my philosophy and the client’s needs when I work with adolescents and adults. In this chapter, I will explore each of these theories and their relevance to the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web.
II. Way of Being: Person-Centered
As a Unitarian Universalist, respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person is one of my bedrock religious practices. My faith orientation lends itself to the unconditional positive regard suggested in person-centered counseling (Rogers, 1980). Rogers outlined six conditions that were necessary and sufficient for change, including unconditional positive regard by the therapist and perception of empathy by the client.
Furthermore, Rogers suggested that the experience of being empathically heard and understood is essential for a healthy personality (1951, 1969). Rogers theorized that a young person’s experience of unconditional positive regard would lead to the development of a fully functioning personality; that is, one that includes openness, creativity, and responsibility. Much of my clinical and ministerial work has involved children, adolescents, and families. Rogers’ attention to the developmental results of empathy has been useful to me as I develop my professional identity.
For me, unconditional positive regard is a spiritual practice. Acceptance and respect are at the center when souls meet to care for one another. The entire interdependent web of being is spun from the sacred. Connections that are forged in life-affirming relationships resonate with that holy thread. There is something of the Divine in every person. A person-centered way of being challenges me to welcome that piece of the Divine in every client and to open up a space for the Holy to spin in the counseling relationship.
Unlike Rogers, I have not found a person-centered orientation to be sufficient in every case. On the other hand, there are a few clients who made tremendous progress in counseling situations where I provided little more than a holding environment and an open-hearted invitation. It is in these situations that I feel most keenly the unseen presence of the Source of Love, cooperating with the client, the counselor, and the client’s other resources.
One of my adolescent clients was referred to me when she was distressed over a protracted conflict with friends. At the first appointment, listening seemed to be the only rational intervention. Through telling her own story, my client came to understand that her fear of being direct and assertive added to her emotional distress. I affirmed the strategies she was already using, such as taking a time-out or counting to herself during emotionally intense moments. The conflict was resolved within a few weeks, yet my client chose to continue in counseling for eight more sessions so that she could receive encouragement on other change goals, such as regaining the academic momentum she lost during the conflict.
At the time, I was attempting to develop skills in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This was a useful lens for treating many of my clients, but not this one. Try as I might, I could not come up with a satisfying case conceptualization or treatment plan for her using CBT tools. Although I ended up using a different framework for my way of understanding, I realized that the non-directive, affirming way of being that I had started with in the first session was helpful to my client’s continued progress in counseling.
Looking back, I can see how remembering the interdependent web helped me to trust that my way of being could benefit the client. The more I listened to my client, the more I understood the assets she brought to bear. In session, she was able to review the strength and hope she already had, decide for herself how to make and maintain healthy relationships, and notice the robustness of her support network. Remembering that counseling was only part of the web that embraced my client, I could be still and know that the Spirit of Life was present.
III. Way of Understanding: Family Systems Theory
Of the three ways in the paradigm, my way of understanding may be the most obvious in terms of its connection to the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web. I understand clients as whole in themselves, and also as part of systems that are larger than themselves. Each person is connected to significant people and institutions that may help or impede the positive change they seek. Family systems theorists such as Bowen (1978), Friedman (1985), Carter and McGoldrick (1989) conceptualize cases in terms of relationships, making this theory a natural fit for my way of understanding.
I was first introduced to family systems theory in my ministerial training. Pastoral ministry involves the ability to be present with others in their suffering and in their triumph, bearing witness to the fullness of their lives without misappropriating their experiences as our own. Differentiation, a cornerstone concept in the intergenerational family systems approach, describes the process of becoming a centered, flexible, independent person. My early training taught me to minister with people, neither attempting to direct them from the outside nor trying to manipulate families from the inside, but standing beside people during their most tender passages. Differentiation is what allows clergy and helping professionals to stand in that place, neither enmeshed within nor hovering above the people we serve.
Differentiation is also how pastoral caregivers earn the trust of families who invite us to mark with them their intimate moments of birth and death. As a rabbi himself, Friedman (1985) wrote that religious leaders “have an entrée into the multigenerational processes of families that is just not available to any other members of the helping professions no matter what their training or skill. This entrée gives us unusual therapeutic potential” (p. 5). Given the gift of the pastoral perspective, an intergenerational family systems approach is an intuitive choice for me.
In Chapter 2, I mentioned that connecting with legacies of resilience is a key avenue for remembering the interdependent web. Taking the long view, I can help clients recall family members who were challenged by adversity, just as the clients presently in therapy are challenged. Carter and McGoldrick (1989) have shown that a systems approach adds depth in reviewing a family’s challenges and strengths. Reviewing family history may help clients feel less alone in their struggle. This review may also help families discover unfinished business between parents and grandparents, uncover recurring themes of tragedies unspoken (and therefore unhealed), and contextualize the family’s ancestral cultures (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2008).
This last point, taking culture into account, is especially important as we incorporate the realities of a multiracial, multiethnic society into therapeutic practice. Ethnicity and culture are essential to the conversation if family members are expected to enter therapy as whole, authentic people. Carter and McGoldrick have highlighted the influences of culture, class, gender, and sexual orientation on family patterns. Assuming that all clients behave as if they come from the dominant culture, regardless of the clients’ culture and ethnicity, is a form of racism. Anti-racist, anti-oppressive professional practice demands better.
Most of the clients I worked with in my second clinical year were referred because of concerning behavior in a preschooler. Preschoolers are neither reliable reporters nor in charge of arranging most of their external coping resources, making it most prudent to approach these cases as family systems rather than as individual counseling for the identified patient.
One of my preschool clients was referred for aggressive behavior toward peers and teachers and for difficulty with emotional self-regulation. I worked with him individually on reinforcing target behaviors and with his parents on strategies for change.
Although my interventions directly with the child were not drawn from a family systems orientation, I found guidance in a family systems way of understanding. I asked the parents what they were doing at home to help him meet the family’s expectations. Both of his parents described work situations and parenting strategies that called them to be calm and confident. At school, he seemed to have the most difficulty during chaotic free play times. He responded to the teachers’ emotional energy, seeking comfort when they were calm and resisting their directives when teachers were agitated. Bowen (1978) pointed out that behavior patterns emerge when perceived emotional demands cause anxiety. After a certain point, teachers were better able to respond non-anxiously. The preschooler became more cooperative. Teachers changed the way they thought through their responses, and thus disrupted the cycle of emotional reactivity.
The parents in the client family reported that their extended family and church communities had been important sources of support before their child was born. His mother had been avoiding large gatherings out of a concern that her child’s problematic behavior would surface, but his grandmother encouraged her to reconnect. Reconnecting with a faith community turned out to be an experience of belonging and inclusion for both parent and child. The parents’ feeling of spiritual support and multigenerational connection increased their coping ability, which led to increased success with the child’s behavior. A family systems way of understanding led me to anticipate a good prognosis.
The family systems way of understanding is an invaluable tool in remembering the interdependent web. Counselors can help families to re-forge and repair connections in the spirit of interdependence; differentiated relationships are neither cut off nor enmeshed. In family systems theory and in remembering the interdependent web, history, life cycles, and relationships are brought to bear as resources, opportunities for growth, or both.
IV. Way of Intervening: Motivational Interviewing
Given the strength of my commitment to unconditional positive regard and my understanding of influences on the client from outside the therapy room, my way of intervening must respect the client and encourage the client to consider his or her resources beyond counseling. Motivational Interviewing, as described by Miller and Rollnick (2002) fits both of these criteria.
Motivational Interviewing (also known as MI) is a way of intervening that originated in the addictions field (Miller & Rollnick, 2002). Using this method, the practitioner reflects back to the client congruence between values and behaviors and aids the client in linking positive intentions with adaptive behaviors. According to its original authors, MI has a strong person-centered element (Miller & Rollnick, 2009). In a separate article, Miller and Rose (2009) used the history of MI and an overview of clinical data to construct a possible model for how change occurs when MI is employed, suggesting that MI may be a theory of its own rather than simply an intervention.
The themes of autonomy, collaboration, and evocation (ACE) describe the overall spirit of MI (Naar-King & Suarez, 2011). Autonomy involves linking actions to consequences and respecting the extent to which the client has self-determination. The client is responsible for change, and the MI practitioner does not push the client to change prematurely. Evocation means eliciting the client’s reasons for and concerns about change rather than beginning with unsolicited advice. These themes of MI are relevant in a harm-reduction approach, in which a client who makes a decision for positive incremental change is supported rather than pushed to make global changes such as total abstinence from a substance.
During my clinical internships, I found MI to be a useful way of intervening for several of my adult clients and almost all of my adolescent clients. Adolescents often respond more readily to adults who respect their autonomy and who listen to the entire range of their ambivalent thoughts about the future. Naar-King and Suarez point out that MI can help adolescents develop self-governing behavior through its philosophy of taking responsibility for actions and its model of decision making.
One client who responded well to MI was an honor student and a varsity athlete who was referred to counseling when he admitted problematic patterns of alcohol use to a teacher. My client reported that he abstained from alcohol on the night before and the day of a match (he denied symptoms of physical withdrawal), which indicated to me that he was already on the path of making conscious choices about alcohol consumption according to his values and priorities. In discussing his motivations for sustaining his patterns of use and his motivations for change, my client mentioned his peers on the party circuit. He felt resigned to maintaining their acquaintance, even though he did not trust most of them. He also mentioned a young aunt he admired, who encouraged him to examine his patterns of use. As the first in his family to plan to attend college, my client was aware that he was a role model and that his actions had consequences beyond himself.
Taking a step back to consider common threads, nearly all of his significant motivations for change were tied to his network of support. He wanted to be connected with people to whom he could be responsible and who would have concern for him. The relational world held strength and resilience for him. He was already considering the impact of his actions on others. By using MI, I was able to create a space within which my client could recall those resources, draw on his strengths, and act on his motivations for change. Counseling helped him to remember the interdependent web.
V. Closing Summary of Theory of Pastoral Counseling
Remembering the interdependent web is a complex, dynamic process that involves not only the client and the counselor, but also the systems in which each resides. In this context, no single theory is sufficient. The ways paradigm is a useful tool for integrating theories in order to weave together the most effective and respectful course of therapy for the client.
A person-centered way of being is central to my identity and practice as a pastoral counselor. As a person-centered counselor, I trust the client to weave together relational connections, insights, and resources toward healing and growth. Through unconditional positive regard, I help clear a space for the client’s work of remembering and re-membering.
My way of understanding was formed early in my training as a pastoral caregiver. Within the larger circle of pastoral care, my training in pastoral counseling has brought me new resources and insights from the family systems orientation that I can use for the benefit of my clients. Family systems theorists seek to help clients heal cutoffs in relationships, expand their capacities for differentiation (interdependence), and consider the influences of their larger networks. Family systems theory fits with the paradigm of remembering the interdependent web.
Motivational Interviewing is one of the ways of intervening that has been most effective and congruent with the spirit and style I bring to counseling. MI is respectful of the client and cognizant of the world that clients must navigate. In my experience, a course of counseling that includes MI interventions helps the client to discover and recall the resources both within and beyond themselves for positive change. Clients are strengthened in their ability to remember the interdependent web when given an opportunity to collaborate with the counselor.
In this chapter, I have explored the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web in terms of the theories I use in counseling. In the next chapter, I will examine the gifts, limits, and possibilities of my clinical practice.
Chapter IV
I. Weaving and Repairing: Critique of Counseling and Future Plans
In the previous chapter, I outlined the way I combine theories of counseling using the ways paradigm as explained by Cheston (2000). I learned more about these theories as I translated them into practice during my clinical internships. In this final chapter, I will review some of the strengths and weaknesses I discovered in my counseling practice, name a few strategies for professional growth, and outline potential directions for my career. I believe that the process of developing professionally draws from the same source of life and growth that fuels progress in counseling; therefore, I will continue to use the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web during this final chapter.
II. Strengths in Counseling
I have shown several strengths as a counselor so far. Colleagues in my clinical internship small groups and supervisors have affirmed these assets. With their assistance, I have increased my ability to accurately assess my strengths as a counselor. My social justice analysis skills, my multigenerational competence, and my resilience have been useful during my clinical internships, yet it is my client-centered way of being that I count as my most valuable strength.
My client-centered, pastoral way of being is an asset in which I have confidence. Considering that respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person is a bedrock spiritual practice for my faith and that basic listening skills were part of my ministerial training, I have had more time to develop this asset than I have had for other counseling skills. By accepting clients for who and where they are and eliciting their goals, values, and observations they bring from their own experience, I have been able to journey with people who were reluctant to enter counseling.
One of my adult clients was such a reluctant counselee. The district court had mandated anger management training for him following a domestic dispute. He had begun an anger management class, but had found it inconvenient and expensive to attend given the limitations of childcare. At our intake meeting, he expressed an interest in working on coping strategies to deal with economic worries and parenting as well as working on anger management.
In relating his history with counseling and family patterns, Larry voiced recurring themes of abandonment and maladaptive coping. Reflecting back on a previous difficult time in his life, my client said he regretted his choices and was grateful to have moved on. Following this difficult time in his past, he remembered being motivated primarily by a desire to create a better environment for his children. He recalled that life improved for several years, until a he experienced a cluster of negative events. Although he acknowledged that many of his choices were negative, he interpreted his recent behavior as an improvement compared with the way he responded to stress when he was younger. He knew he was capable of positive change, but had little experience of being supported in that change. I hoped that establishing a good rapport would increase my client’s chances for progress.
In our first session, I listened to my client share his story. I communicated interest in his wellbeing and my respect for him as a person. I reflected back to him the elements of his story that showed his capacity to learn and to change, and the strength of his motivation to become a better parent. During the first session, my client showed a limited range of affect, but he verbally expressed interest in returning at the end of the session.
My client reported that he practiced the coping skills he learned in counseling between sessions. Within the safety of the counseling room, he was able to share more about his experiences of trust and betrayal, which led him to better understand the triggers for his anger. He called after his fourth weekly session to reschedule, as he had regained employment. In the weeks following, his range of affect increased. He reported that he was receiving recognition at work for his patience. We tapered off our sessions and completed the planned course of treatment three months later.
In my work with this client, not only was I able to establish rapport with a client who was ambivalent about counseling, I helped the client remember the interdependent web. Knowing that every person is connected with people and systems from outside the counseling room, I considered the larger picture in my case conceptualization. My client expressed feeling isolated in the first session. In time, he was able to recall the potential for positive connections with certain friends and family members. He also started attending family events at the preschool.
I believe that my client-centered way of being was the most effective asset I brought into the counseling relationship, but it was not the only strength I drew from in working with this client. Because of my skills in social justice analysis, I was better able to understand the insidious tenacity of the cycles of poverty and substance use in his community. He entered counseling with a verbalized acceptance of responsibility for his actions and was not looking for excuses, yet I believe that my knowledge of the context for those choices increased my capacity for unconditional positive regard and improved our rapport.
Furthermore, although I did not meet with my client’s family as a whole, my multigenerational competence made a difference in his treatment. Becoming a better parent was his primary motivation, and my understanding of the developmental stages of his children, the stresses and dynamics of a young family, and intergenerational transmission of behavioral patterns helped me to follow his story and to reflect back when he mentioned hopeful signs. I found that my multigenerational competence was similarly useful for every client, as they all had gifts and wounds from their families that were relevant in counseling. People of all ages are involved in remembering the interdependent web.
Finally, my resilience was a positive factor in working with all of my clients. My clinical sites were demanding. At home, I was sandwiched between an ill parent and young children. As I will discuss in the next section, the experience taught me that I needed to improve my self-care practices. At the same time, my ability to stay the course and to continue offering unconditional positive regard to clients was a strength. My resilience, multigenerational competence, and social justice analysis skills are like spokes in the web of my professional identity, held together by the core strength of my client-centered way of being.
III. Growing Edges
As a beginning counselor, I have much to learn. I have identified a few skills that I intend to address in the near future, including explicit spiritual assessment and self-care. While I might categorize these skills as weaknesses, I prefer to call them growing edges in order to emphasize the developmental nature of counseling skills.
I am an ordained minister, firm in my personal identity as a religious leader. At the same time, my role as an intern was to offer counseling in mainly secular modalities such as mental health. It is important to me that clients feel free to express their religious and spiritual ideas without intimidation. For this reason, I rarely disclose my ordained status or bring up my personal faith when I am in a secular counseling role. I take special care to follow the client’s lead in matters of spirituality and faith because it is so vital that I not be coercive in this area.
In my second internship, the required intake forms for children and families included brief questions about religious affiliation and community involvements, but nothing in-depth. If the client family did not report spirituality or religion as being an important resource at the outset, I generally waited for the parents to bring up the topic before asking more questions about it. My growing edge turned out to be timidity with respect to explicit spiritual and religious assessment.
In one of my client families, the parents’ religious differences impacted their relationship. On their intake form, the mother reported the father’s religion as Catholic, but had left the religion line blank for herself and the children. I inferred that religion was not a major resource for her. Sessions were very full with play therapy and debriefing the week, and it did not occur to me to follow up on the unfilled blank.
During the debriefing conversations alone with the mother, I came to understand that one of the tensions in the family had to do with differences in culture and values between the two parents. They each had unspoken expectations about gender roles, the importance of extended family gatherings, and the necessity of assimilating into what the mother identified as educated culture. Furthermore, the mother brought an attitude of urgency to her behavioral expectations and had difficulty overcoming perfectionism.
In the middle of a seven-month course of therapy, the mother mentioned that she had been raised in a certain very conservative Christian denomination, but had not attended since leaving home. Her self-disclosure led to more conversations about what she had learned in her childhood church about gender, children, and the importance of being correct. I realized that she had been through what Pargament (2007) would describe as spiritual disengagement, but had retained some of the inflexible rules she had learned in her early religious training.
If I had done more explicit spiritual assessment as Pargament suggests, I might have had more information early in the counseling process about the spiritual aspect of the mother’s struggle with flexibility and the religious and cultural aspects of her relationship with the children’s father. One of my mistakes in working with this family was in not following my model of remembering the interdependent web. Helping the family find positive links to their spiritual resources could have been an effective strategy. Instead, I worked with what was in front of me without asking enough questions about the networks of relationships that the clients brought with them. That being said, there was plenty to work with given the information I had, and family therapy with young children requires an ability to stay focused on the present. After the mother brought up the topic of religion, I was able to follow her lead and to include spirituality among the other dimensions that we discussed in session. Pargament does not suggest a formal, standardized spiritual assessment, but does present tools for ongoing, client-centered assessment and case conceptualization. In the future, I will make better use of resources for spiritual assessment.
In addition to my caution about coercive spirituality and religious power dynamics, my lapse in remembering the interdependent web may have had something to do with the erosion of my self-care during the second clinical year. In addition to a rigorous internship and coursework, I was also serving a congregation and caring for my own family In order to squeeze the additional hours into my schedule, the thing I chose to sacrifice was self-care. I let my exercise and meditation practices lie fallow. With my own spirit so neglected, it is possible that I was less equipped than usual to address the spiritual lives of my clients.
The good news is that the situation was temporary. A new internship supervisor joined the project in the third quarter and streamlined certain processes. I found work/life balance to be easier for the remainder of the academic year.
Healing is possible. I have re-initiated my exercise and meditation practices and have gotten more involved with creative pursuits. I have been spending more time with my family, connecting with friends, and going to collegial meetings. I feel more like myself than I did at the most intense moments of my clinical internship. As I go forward, I will seek opportunities in environments that will support my efforts at self-care. I will need to remember my own connections to the interdependent web in order to maintain my health and offer my best service to clients.
IV. Potential for Growth
A helping professional can build competency in a number of ways. I plan to address my growing edges with supervision, collegial groups, and interdisciplinary continuing education. As I have mentioned in previous chapters, my professional self-concept is as a pastoral caregiver with a specialized skill set of pastoral counseling. I hope to develop as a whole professional, addressing competencies that will be relevant in both parish ministry and counseling.
Mentoring is an important part of my professional growth plan, especially as it relates to my new skills in counseling. In my previous experiences with counseling supervision, I have been given generous opportunities to reflect personally and pastorally, to appreciate the strengths I might have otherwise minimized, and to relate as a colleague to a more experienced counselor. Supervisors and mentors have provided leads for practical resources and exciting new research. Some of them have offered judicious self-disclosure that provides me with the benefit of their experience. My Loyola-based supervisors have been trained in pastoral perspectives, which has been fruitful. Going forward, I will seek supervisors and mentors who have pastoral training. Ideally, I will find a mentor who has can appreciate the balance I hope to cultivate in my counseling and religious professional roles.
Another valuable resource I have found in professional development is participation in collegial groups. The small group supervision class has been such a positive experience, as was the combined supervision group of social work and pastoral counseling interns at my site in my first clinical year. I am working on developing a small collegial group of Unitarian Universalist ministers whose work extends past the walls of the church building. Such a group could help me to balance expectations for different roles, find perspective on ministerial identity in non-traditional settings, and experience supportive community. On a larger scale, I would like to attend more professional conferences, membership meetings, and events for all of my roles. Collegial groups have helped me to cement my professional identity, to improve my understanding of best practices, and to find companionship among people who understand my occupational joys and challenges.
Interdisciplinary continuing education is a third way that I plan to address professional growth. As often as possible, I would like to attend continuing education events that attract professionals from different perspectives. I find that when I can learn alongside social workers, theologians, ministers, and other diverse professionals, I am energized by the exchange and come away with a richer referral network. I have already attended a continuing education event that brought together pastoral counselors, educational psychologists, and school counselors to discuss spirituality and healing in children who have experienced trauma. The event was exciting and gave me a better sense of how much more I have to learn. I am particularly interested in learning more about play therapy, Motivational Interviewing, and adolescent spiritual coping.
The common thread in all of these professional development plans is that they involve human connection. Mentoring, collegial gatherings, and interdisciplinary continuing education will all help me to strengthen my networks of support. By putting time and energy into relationships with colleagues, I will have more confidence in the universe of resources available to clients when they leave my care. Professional development will help me to remember the interdependent web.
V. Statement of Personal Ministerial Directions
Given the competencies I have gained so far, I have a number of options for my future career. The experiences I have gained cross into several areas, creating a kind of interdependent web of professional skills. My experiences in congregational ministry, counseling practice, pastoral theology, mentoring and program development, and advocacy all lead to different possibilities for future directions. The career paths that seem most prominent in my immediate future are congregational ministry and licensed counseling practice.
The more I have learned about counseling, the more I have come to appreciate what I have already learned about congregational ministry. Counseling is a powerful modality for equipping clients to meet their goals, but at the end of the day, most clients need supportive communities. Strong congregations can fulfill this function. The world needs communities where people can experience positive regard. As a minister, I help warm, accepting, meaning-making congregations thrive. I would even go so far as to say that the congregations I serve meet the criteria Rogers set out for an ongoing, person-centered community (1980). Even if my primary work ends up being outside the church, I plan to stay rooted in a congregation.
As for my specialized training, I can envision incorporating counseling into my professional portfolio alongside parish work. It seems to me that not many counselors are trained to work with young people on spiritual and mental health dimensions. Possibilities include a mixed-setting ministry that includes congregational ministry as well as pastoral counseling with children and youth in the community. Connections between ways of ministering and across parish lines are part of a robust, interdependent web.
VI. Conclusion
In this paper, I have presented an analysis of my personal journey, pastoral theology, counseling theory, and counseling practice through the lens of remembering the interdependent web. In a pastoral counseling relationship, the client and the counselor both bring connections resources into the room that will facilitate healing and growth. Recalling those resources and re-weaving positive connections is a spiritual as well as an emotional and cognitive process. My personal theory and practice of counseling works best with a client-centered way of being, a way of understanding that takes families and systems into account, and a respectful way of intervening. I look forward to putting these ideas into practice after graduation.
References
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Presented to the Faculty of Loyola University Maryland
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
The Degree of Master of Science
Baltimore, Maryland
2013
Abstract
New pastoral counselors integrate personal experience, spirituality, counseling theory, and clinical practice as part of an emerging professional self-concept. In this reflection paper, I use the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web to explore each of these areas. I begin with a definition of the metaphor. My personal journey from childhood, through formation as a Unitarian Universalist minister, and into the Master of Science program in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola University forms the backdrop for my development of this metaphor. My spirituality of counseling, which may also be described as my pastoral theology, is an important aspect of remembering the interdependent web. In particular, my spirituality calls me to connect with—and help my clients to connect with—legacies of resilience, communities of hope, and the present moment as part of the process of remembering the interdependent web. In terms of counseling theory, I use the ways paradigm (Cheston, 2000) to explore client-centered counseling, family systems theory, and Motivational Interviewing as a way of being, way of understanding, and way of intervening, respectively. Each of these counseling modalities is congruent with remembering the interdependent web. Finally, I evaluate my counseling practice so far with illustrations from clinical vignettes and suggest directions for professional development that continue in the vein of remembering the interdependent web.
Note: This is the publically available version of the paper submitted to the faculty of Loyola University Maryland. This version is edited for the purpose of confidentiality.
Table of Contents
Chapter I. Metaphor and Personal Journey
Chapter II. Spirituality of Pastoral Counseling
Chapter III. Theoretical Approach
Chapter IV. Critique and Future Plans
References
Chapter I
The purpose of this paper will be to integrate my understanding of clinical counseling theory and pastoral theology with my personal formation as a minister and pastoral counselor and my clinical experience in pastoral care and counseling. In weaving together these strands of theory and practice, the metaphor I will use for the process of pastoral counseling is “remembering the interdependent web.” In Chapter 1, I will demonstrate the advantages of this metaphor for my understanding of pastoral counseling. The bulk of Chapter 1 will be an account of my vocational journey, including some examples of how the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web has been relevant to my formation so far. In Chapter 2, I will get inside the image of the interdependent web in process as I examine what it means to “connect” in terms of pastoral theology. Chapter 3 will cover my theoretical approaches to counseling and will highlight the use of these theories in remembering the interdependent web. Finally, Chapter 4 will include a critique of my work as a pastoral caregiver and counselor through the lens of remembering the interdependent web. The closing chapter will also include an outline of potential future directions.
I. Metaphor for Counseling
Remembering the interdependent web is the metaphor I use to explore the practice of pastoral counseling, the process of healing for clients, and my continuing professional development. “Remembering” has a dual meaning in this metaphor. The first meaning has to do with calling wisdom or information that is known (but may not be immediately accessible) into consciousness or use. That is, remembering is an act of evocation. In clinical terms, the client and counselor celebrate the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual assets a client already possesses bring those assets into active service through a process of remembering.
The second meaning of “remember” comes from understanding the word “member” to mean a constituent piece of a larger structure, one part to the whole. To “re-member” is to connect a piece again, to restore a bit of wholeness. One imagines closing a wound, replacing a lost or broken component, or exchanging a maladaptive strategy for a life-affirming one. Taking these two senses of “remember” together, a person lifts up the treasures of understanding and functioning that have been available in the past, and a person re-weaves or knits together the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and social connections that support abundant life.
The next part of the metaphor explicitly names interdependence as a central concept for healing and growth. Interdependence is a reality of being human. We rely on each other for encouragement and challenge. When we are at our most vulnerable, we rely on each other for mutual care. We rely on social systems to bring food to our tables and clothing to our backs. Humans are relational creatures. Forming relationships in which a person can give and receive positive support and resources is a key activity to promote abundant living. These relationships include positive friendships and family bonds as well as connections with communities and institutions that provide environments that support thriving.
Beyond human relationships, interdependence is an ecological reality. Every living thing on earth depends on other organisms for food, habitat, enrichment, and returning its remains to the soil. Plants and animals give and receive from other living things in their growth, death, and decay. Understanding our place as human beings in the family of things may carry additional potential for healing and life satisfaction.
The “web” completes the metaphor with a visual icon for the idea of interdependence. A web is a set of connections that is not necessarily hierarchical. In nature, a web makes explicit use of assets in the environment as anchor points. A web is resilient, moving with light breezes and quivering in response to environmental signals to which the weaver must attend. Adding to the resilience, a web is reparative, allowing the weaver to break connections and to form them again in a different way as the environment changes or as the weaver’s needs change. When all else fails, a weaver has the capability to move to a more hospitable location and start the web-building process anew.
Implicit within the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web is the understanding that the Divine is present throughout the system. Whenever there is a move toward balance and wholeness, the Spirit of Life is there in cooperation, providing encouragement and energy for journeys of healing. The Holy works through life-giving relationships.
I believe that people can find resources for wholeness and health in the relational world that already exists. In my Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, unity and love are pre-existing conditions. Unitarian Universalist theology axiomatically assumes that all people are already beloved by the Eternal. Unitarian Universalists have historically been encouraged to respond to this assurance by living in a way that affirms Divine and neighborly love. One way to articulate our mission is that we seek to remove the human-imposed barriers of poverty, hunger, and injustice that hinder human beings from experiencing our sacred gifts.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe I am called to devote my life to right relationship and compassion, to create joy, and to cultivate gratitude in response to love. Right relationship can be understood as a way of being and behaving together that promotes justice and health and that respects the reflection of the Divine within every person. The Holy is always present, and is available as an invisible layer of the interdependent web for people to build from in weaving an abundant life.
II. Personal Journey: Early Experiences
My ability to see the world as an interdependent web infused with love has developed throughout my vocational journey. I have woven my faith and my understanding of my mission together from many strands. Looking back, I know I am part of something larger than myself. I owe whatever success I have achieved to people, networks, and forces that I did not and could not have earned.
My mother was a nurse. So were her most of her friends and my closest aunts. Together, these women were a community of support. They worked incredibly hard, including weekends and night shifts. They spoke directly, moved quickly to solve problems, and were extremely practical. My mother’s DC-area nursing community also knew how to celebrate whenever possible. Whether caring for patients with their teams or sharing joys and sorrows with their colleagues, the nurses talked about their work as a relational process. My best way of describing this aspect of my childhood is that my family raised me in a den of wild nurses. The den of nurses provided my first role models for following a call to a vocation. They used specialized knowledge and fierce compassion to increase health and well being in the world, acutely aware that no one person could accomplish this task alone.
Although my parents had each been involved with conservative religions in their families of origin, they joined a liberal congregation affiliated with the United Church of Christ. My childhood religious education there hinged on stories about Jesus and his acts of healing and compassion. We raised funds for hunger charities, put on pageants to benefit international development projects, and sang holiday carols at the local nursing home. In a church where God is Love, being the people of God meant doing the work of Love. The basic assumption of compassion being a religious act gave me something to hold on to as my theology changed.
Around the age of 14, I had an experience that I interpreted as the presence of the Holy. I knew a sense of unity with the trees, the rocks, and the animals all around my neighborhood. Without hearing any words, I felt that the Eternal had assured me that the route by which I sought the Divine was not important. The important thing was to continue the search for purpose and meaning. I wanted to find a new way of practicing spirituality that helped me remember that sense of cosmic kinship that I had felt during my mystical moment. While I maintained affection for my parents’ church, I spent high school and college exploring feminist and earth-centered religions. I started a Pagan meditation practice in which I organized my thoughts and prayers according to the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. My Jewish friends shared similarities between Pagan cosmology and mysticism in their tradition.
As the first person in the family to go directly from high school to university, I felt it was my responsibility to do something practical and job-oriented with my degree. I also wanted a career that made a positive impact on the world and helped people create meaning. My parents did not pressure me to follow these goals, although I think they were pleased at my priorities. The academic skill I succeeded at most consistently was writing, which led me to major in journalism with a concentration in public relations. I worked in public relations for about five years, mainly for education, nonprofit, and arts organizations, before moving to California with my partner. There, I took a job in the education department of a university art museum.
Moving to California was a difficult transition. I had separated myself from my support network by thousands of miles. New friends did not come easily. My partner was busy with graduate school, and I wondered if I were missing my greater purpose. I missed singing with a group and I wanted to get involved in community service. I looked for a church.
A high school friend of mine had mentioned that the Unitarian Universalist Association had revised its list of sources to include “Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature” (Unitarian Universalist Association, 1995, ¶ 15). The Association’s bylaws also included a covenant “to affirm and promote … respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part” (Unitarian Universalist Association, 1995, ¶ 8). I knew that a Unitarian Universalist congregation was my best bet for a place where I could integrate my Pagan meditation practice, my partner’s Jewish heritage, and my liberal Christian upbringing. I chose a congregation that was relatively small (so that I would not be tempted to sneak out after the service without talking to anyone) and mentioned social justice on their website. After my first Sunday, I felt at home. The members treated me with kindness and acceptance. In listening to the members, I discovered that my own religious ideas and spiritual practices were well within the typical range for the congregation. The minister and I had a lot in common theologically. I joined committees and attended regularly.
III. Personal Journey: Ministerial Formation
I had not been attending the church for very long before I was checking out Unitarian Universalist seminaries and wondering if ministry could be the greater purpose I had been looking for. If heretics like were allowed in Unitarian Universalism, there did not seem to be any major barriers to a career as a religious professional. I imagined that, as a minister, I could use my writing skills, help people find and create meaning, and put energy into caring for the earth and establishing more justice in society. Where I had been making the arts possible for other people in public relations, crafting worship would give me a chance to be directly involved with artists, poets, and musicians.
I imagined that anyone who was thinking of seminary would already be experts in the Bible and in Unitarian Universalist history. I took some community college courses to catch up. Meanwhile, my partner and I got involved with some of the independent Jewish communities in the Bay Area. We joined a congregation in San Francisco that was radically welcoming and post-denominational.
I entered seminary in 1999. After a semester or two, I realized that every student is in the middle of a learning process. I need not have been anxious about comparing myself to my classmates. As my Christian friends put it, “God does not call the qualified. God qualifies the called.” The Bible study I had done at community college and through my Jewish congregation, more than “catching up,” gave me useful knowledge that I could share with my cohort. Another asset I brought was my knowledge of art in world religions, gained through the museum job I kept through the first semester of seminary.
The faculty, staff, and students at my school did an excellent job of affirming the talents we students brought with us from life before ministry while offering opportunities to complete a well-rounded education. None of us could be everything a minister was imagined to be, but we could work together to combine our gifts in community. We could also support each other as we gathered the rest of the tools we needed for our callings—tools such as pastoral care.
One of the ordination requirements was a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). CPE is a supervised training course for ministry in a specialized setting. CPE students provide chaplaincy in places such as mental health institutions, retirement communities, prisons, and hospitals. The pediatric hospital in my hometown was one of the approved sites. The site had a good program, and I could imagine myself serving as a chaplain to critically ill children and their families. I began the CPE unit in June after my first year in seminary.
CPE is a challenging and life-altering process. The CPE student gains pastoral skills and grows into a ministerial identity. My unit of CPE at the pediatric hospital kept its promise. I learned to be present in the face of death. I learned to refrain from giving unsolicited advice, at least some of the time. I learned that even helping professionals who think they speak the same language sometimes need to slow down in order to understand each other. Healing does not mean curing. Wholeness does not mean perfection. Patient care is a team effort. Part of chaplaincy is helping people transition back into the care of their religious communities. These short sayings can’t convey the experience of transformation I went through as I lived through the learning process. I started CPE as a tentative student and I finished with the belief that I could be a minister.
Another requirement of ordination was nine months of full-time internship with a congregation. As an intern for a 300-member congregation, I led small group ministries, taught religious education classes for children and adults, provided pastoral care, and collaborated with the worship team. In all of these instances, I found that being fully present was a prerequisite for effective ministry. No information I could offer in a class was more important. No facilitation technique in small groups or point of brilliant theology mattered if I didn’t show up emotionally and spiritually. My open-hearted attention in that moment made a difference to the children, youth, and adults I ministered with.
I also learned that ministry is not a solo affair. Staff and volunteers work together to build the beloved community and to live out the mission of the congregation. My supervisor took me along to the interfaith clergy group meetings, where we found additional support, ideas, and energy. I learned that I, like the members of a congregation, am a relational creature. I am more resilient when I remember that I am part of a network of care, and when I remember to move in harmony with the forces that create and uphold life. I fell in love with congregational ministry.
IV. Personal Journey: Early Ministerial Career
My first settlement after graduation was as the Assistant Minister for Education for a congregation of about 550 members in central California. It was a new position for the congregation, and they seemed unsure whether they wanted an administrator to recruit volunteers and run the Sunday school or a second preacher who could cover some of the funeral duties. It was difficult to be fully present and also accomplish the detail-oriented tasks. The congregation expected me to be many things, and I found it impossible to fill all of my roles at once.
Despite the challenges, I continued to find meaning in congregational ministry. It was an honor to accompany parishioners through births and deaths. I felt privileged to be able to offer the full attention of pastoral care to children and teens as well as adults. Just as I had found in CPE, children know something about their own souls. Listening to them and validating that they have their own wisdom helps them to believe in their own worth. Children, too, remember the interdependent web.
As an Assistant Minister, my arrangement with the congregation was a temporary contract rather than an open-ended “call,” as it would be for Associate and Senior Ministers. I was discerning whether to pursue a contract renewal or to search for another position when I got the news that my mother had breast cancer. I revised my search so that I could move closer to my parents. It took over six months, but I was able to relocate within a two-hour drive of my family of origin, which was a significant improvement over a six-hour plane ride.
For the next two years, I was a regional denominational staff person for a five-state area. In my first year, I worked with a volunteer team to improve ministries for people in their twenties and thirties. I offered consulting and training services to congregations, goal-setting retreats for congregations with new staff, and exit interviews for departing staff. Our staff group put on conferences and webinars to offer additional resources to congregational staff and volunteers. The position was a rare opportunity for someone my age. I sometimes found it difficult to articulate own needs because I was determined to demonstrate that I deserved the trust placed in me.
Consulting was a whirlwind of activity. The work was both exhilarating and draining. On the exhilarating side, I met amazing and talented people doing important work. I had a chance to travel to placed I would never have gone otherwise and to help generate exciting ideas. On the other hand, driving long distances is not energizing to me. Most of the time, congregations contacted us because something had gone terribly wrong, which meant I spent more time analyzing negative events than helping to create positive events. I rarely had the opportunity to develop long-term pastoral relationships. The position gave me a birds-eye view of many systems of relationships, but no network of support that I could access for myself or feel that I was feeding consistently.
Meanwhile, my mother appeared to recover from her first fight with cancer. She returned to work for a few months. Within a year, pain in her back signaled a deeper problem. Her cancer had metastasized, meaning it had returned and spread. Driving all over five states to face one crisis after another no longer seemed like my calling. I needed to re-evaluate my path.
V. Personal Journey: Focusing and Prioritizing
I thought about what had been missing during my consulting work and which aspects of ministry I most needed to develop. Pastoral care topped both lists. My understanding of ministry can be imagined as a large circle that encompasses many forms of care that people offer one another as an aspect of faith. Professional clergy offer ministry, yet the lay members of a community also minister to one another. I conceptualize pastoral counseling as a specialized task within the medium circle of pastoral care. Pastoral counseling is a discipline that incorporates listening skills, a theological framework, and psychotherapy techniques to assist clients with goals such as healing, reconciling, and challenging. Pastoral care is an umbrella term that includes functions such as physical care, prayer, and spiritual comfort as well as counseling.
My sense of call is to the ministry in general, although the form of that ministry may change throughout my life in response to experience and professional development. I thought that focusing on either pastoral care in the broad sense or pastoral counseling in the specific sense would help me bridge in the gap that I had been feeling. I considered pursuing chaplaincy or spiritual direction, but the training for both of those options seemed to be limiting and not especially likely to lead to employment.
I chose to apply for Loyola University’s Master of Science in Pastoral Counseling program. As I was filling out my application, I thought about being in school and spending more time visiting with my mother than I had been able to devote while traveling for work. That part of the plan did not turn out to be possible. My mother died in August of 2008. I started at Loyola in September. My first semester, I enrolled in four classes and entered the required personal therapy. I may have processed my grief creatively through coursework, or I may have been using my commitments to avoid grief. I may have been doing both of those things.
In the spring of 2009, I saw a notice on the website of a small Unitarian Universalist congregation in a rural area. They were seeking a part-time minister. After an interview with the search committee over lunch and a few preaching engagements, the congregation voted unanimously to make me their consulting minister. I have been serving this congregation of about 35 members for four years. Their care for one another and their down-to-earth mission has restored my faith in ministry. I am remembering what it means to be part of an interdependent congregational system.
In addition to congregational ministry, the following year brought new reasons to stay mindful of the Source of Love at work in the universe. I gave birth to twins in July 2010 and took a leave of absence from school to care for them. The generosity of neighbors and friends eased our initiation into parenthood. I am even more aware of being part of something larger than myself. As a parent, I am more aware than ever of the gift of vulnerability. There are two pieces of my heart walking around in the world outside my chest. I have a more visceral understanding than I did before of the need people have for each other. I know I can’t control everything. I cannot be completely independent. With that sense of humility, I am more prepared to participate in the interdependence of community, giving and receiving as part of a loving whole.
I returned to school in January 2011 and started my first counseling internship in the fall of 2011. While I never intended to become a specialist with children and youth, my fieldwork for Loyola has shaped me in that direction. I served for one school year as a mental health counselor in an urban, religious, co-educational high school. For my second year, I was a counselor for preschoolers and their families as part of a pilot internship program in a federally-funded agency. I saw a few adults individually during my second clinical year, but most of my clients were children.
In my fieldwork, I saw overlapping systems operating in the lives of children and adolescents. Family systems, cultures, and classroom social structures flowed into one another. Institutions and civic structures such as law enforcement, religious communities, and government agencies all had an impact on their day-to-day lives. If I had tried to take the modernist, atomistic view of clients as isolated beings and apply it to clients who were children and adolescents, I would have missed most of the information I needed. That being said, for all that they are at the mercy of adults, children and adolescents have first-hand knowledge of what kind of coping works for them and what they need for wholeness. Remembering the interdependent web is the best way I have found for accompanying children and adolescents in a journey of healing.
Chapter II
I. Connect as a Concept for Pastoral Theology
In the first chapter of this paper, I elaborated on “remembering the interdependent web” as a metaphor for the process of pastoral counseling. As I explained in the previous chapter, I understand ministry, pastoral care, and pastoral counseling as concepts in relation to one another. My interlaced definitions of these disciplines continue to be relevant in this chapter, as I describe my spirituality of pastoral care and counseling (that is, my pastoral theology). As a minister and a counselor, I provide both pastoral care and pastoral counseling. I can describe these functions separately, but my underlying motivations remain unified. In describing my spirituality of pastoral care and counseling, I will use examples from my professional experience. (Note: for the publicly available version of this paper, I will redact client-related information.)
The word, “connect” illuminates my theology and practice of pastoral counseling. To connect is to participate fully in the interdependent web. Respect for the interdependent web of existence is a cornerstone of the theology of my denomination, Unitarian Universalism. The interdependent web applies to the laws of physics, ecosystems in balance, and right relationship among people, among other frameworks. I believe that the universe is rich with resources for abundant life, and that humans thrive best when someone takes initiative on behalf of healing and growth to move in harmony with those resources.
Clients may seek pastoral care when they have come upon an experience of being “cut off,” such as when depression blocks access to feelings of joy, or when unproductive patterns prevent a family from solving problems together, or when despair over evil in the world impedes a client’s ability to thrive. These are problems of division between an individual and the people, wisdom, or resources that encourage wholeness. A creative response to being “cut off” can be effective. Parker writes about such creativity in Blessing the world: What can save us now (2006). She presents several examples of personal and societal problems that may result in numbness, and acknowledges the likelihood that such experiences will challenge our ability to find meaning. Parker references personal conversations with her colleague Rosemary Chinnici.
We come to a time when we realize that the faith we have inherited is inadequate for what we are facing. Chinnici calls this religious impasse. I’ve learned from her that at such moments we have three choices: We can hold to our religious beliefs and deny our experience, we can hold to our experience and walk away from our religious tradition, or we can become theologians …. Chinnici recommends the third option, and so do I. Theological reflection becomes important precisely at times when human beings find themselves at an impasse between what they have inherited from tradition and what life throws at them. (pp. 6-7)
Parker’s recommendation to “become theologians” is an active response, a positive effort to overcome a division or an impasse. She suggests that we can synthesize religious tradition, honest awareness, and personal experience into new ways of living with hope and meaning. Parker’s recommendation is one of strengthening and re-weaving our bonds to heritage, world community, neighborhoods, and soul in patterns of right relationship. Each facet of becoming theologians is a choice to connect.
There are many kinds of connections that clients make and that I as a counselor make toward healing and growth. I will illustrate three of these themes: Connect with legacies of resilience. Connect with communities of hope. Connect with the present moment.
II. Connect With Legacies of Resilience
Those of us on a healing journey, whether in our roles as seekers or guides, benefit when we connect with legacies of resilience. These legacies might be gathered from the fruits of lived experience, lifted up from the storehouses of family memories, or discovered in the mines of cultural and religious heritage. Through legacies of resilience, people are able to build self-efficacy and to learn by example.
My first year of clinical internship through Loyola was in a religious high school that has been a ministry of self-determination by and for African Americans since the early 1800s. I noticed that students who identified more strongly with a positive family, religious, or cultural history exhibited higher motivation in their schoolwork. Their sense of connection was an asset.
Early in the year, one of my clients expressed the feeling that he was on his own with few supports. We talked about capitalizing on his strengths, and how knowing his challenges could help him to work around them. As we worked together, he remembered people who had encouraged him, reducing his sense of isolation.
The major change in my client seemed to be associated with the depth of material in his African American history class. In counseling, he spoke of his struggle to contextualize information he was never taught in public school. During his study of the 1920s, he asked, “Trayvon Martin, that’s just like a lynching, isn’t it?” It was the first time he initiated discussion of a link between history and current events. He realized that he was not alone in the arc of time, and that passing something to the next generation was a valuable goal. He had found a way to connect with a legacy and a mission that fueled his resilience.
Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin (2004), in their exploration of race and gender in pastoral care, are explicit about the importance of connections with the past. They write:
Historical consciousness is a vital resource for American pastoral care. We must engage it if we are to better understand ourselves and help shape a society worthy of human dwelling. The past has shaped the present and lives on in the present in ways yet to be discovered. By understanding the past, we internalize or incorporate it into our everyday awareness and enable ourselves to use that understanding to our advantage .…The past represents ways of knowing that emerge from struggle and can inform us today. The complex and ambiguous present is the result of the experiences, thinking, and struggles of our ancestors who were born and raised in civilizations and circumstances different from our own. (pp. 55-56)
Connections with history can be spiritually sustaining. I believe that God is present in all of the living forces and atomic bonds that tie the universe together. The universe is of one substance, knit together by a powerful love into an interdependent web of cause and effect, history and future. We are held unconditionally by that love. The Eternal is available to offer comfort and inspiration, yet human activity matters. I believe that the purpose of humanity is one of hospitality, to make the world a fit dwelling place for the Divine. We do this by living in harmony with the natural world, bringing human communities into right and just relationships, practicing compassion, creating beauty, and loving boldly. The Holy was here before humans, and it could be said that we are guests in God’s world, yet honoring the Divine through a practice of hospitality helps me to keep my work centered in love. The Holy dwells within fragile people and ecosystems, which are deserving of tender care.
Even with confidence in eternal, unconditional love, the tasks of justice, compassion, beauty, and stewardship are daunting. By remembering the people in whose footsteps I follow, I gain strategies and confidence that I can continue on this path. Songs, stories, and artwork about community actions of compassion and reverence remind me that the Divine has been breathing with us for a long time. In particular, I am inspired by stories from across the centuries of Unitarian Universalist women who advocated for gender equality. Sexism is a broad systemic problem, and kinship with networks of problem-solvers in the past and present helps me to confront the systemic oppression that remains in the world. I find a sense of hope and renewal in history. An excerpt from “Natural Resources” by Adrienne Rich (1978/1993) comes to mind:
My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
So much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those who, age after age,
perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world. (p. 67)
The poet emphasizes the resilience that stems from connecting with people from “age after age.” On a spiritual level, resilience helps people to continue searching for meaning and to live out what they perceive to be their sacred purposes in the world. On a psychological level, this quality helps people to solve problems and to function in society. Wicks (2010) defines resilience as “the ability to meet, learn from, and not be crushed by the challenges and stresses of life” (p. 3). When people connect with stories and communities that convey resilience from generation to generation, they are able to thrive in multiple dimensions.
Connecting with legacies of resilience not only helps people to feel that they can move forward, but also produces examples of how to move forward. Bandura (1977) identified self-efficacy and vicarious learning as two aspects of social learning theory. My personal experience with feeling renewed by religious history and my client’s example of inspiration from cultural history both suggest that the symbolic modeling of historical material can support self-efficacy and vicarious learning while aiding the spiritual awareness of forces larger than ourselves. Healing and growth in the context of pastoral care is aided by an act of initiative. When people connect with legacies of resilience, they have important tools for taking that initiative.
III. Connect With Communities of Hope
Although much of the spiritual and psychological dominant narrative emphasizes the individual, I have found it vital to connect with communities of hope and to assist my clients to do the same. Communities of hope are networks of people who gather to construct positive meaning and to share encouragement, usually in the context of a larger mission. Congregations can be communities of hope if they provide positive encouragement, but communities of hope need not be explicitly religious. Centers of learning or service can be communities of hope, especially if their members intentionally take time to reflect together on meaning.
Seminary was a community of hope for me. The faculty, staff, and students worked together to solve communal problems such as right relations among drivers in the parking lot, maintaining the shared kitchen, and raising money for the scholarship fund. We gathered each week for worship. The student lounge was a locus of theological discussion as well as laughter and tears about the births, deaths, hopes, and disappointments of human life. When trauma struck, we were prepared to receive the shock, having connected a web of relationships with which we could hold each other and bear the weight together.
One Tuesday morning in my third year at seminary, I was awakened by a phone call from my sister-in-law. She told me that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I turned on the radio. During a transition between reports, NPR played an instrumental version of “Abide With Me.” I realized that I wanted to gather with others in a place where I could hear sacred music and see the faces of compassionate people. Although I was nervous about crossing the bridge between San Francisco and Berkeley, I decided to go to school.
The building was busy in some corners and tearfully quiet in others. Several of my colleagues responded best to crisis by feeding people, and the kitchen echoed with clattering and banging. One of my friends, who had come to seminary following a career in interior design, was helping to arrange the community room into a sacred space appropriate for the occasion. In the coming weeks, the school community would send forth outpourings of poetry, peace advocacy, art, preaching, music, and pastoral letters. In that moment, we focused on the immediate needs of the people around us: food, shelter, and presence.
Worship began soon after I arrived. A visiting professor shared a personal story about his call to ministry during the 1960s. He said that momentous events should and will change our ideas about mission. A day of tragedy brings clarity to questions about why and how we are called to serve. The world needs people to channel their talents toward ministering to others. Perhaps this was what Parker (2006) had in mind when she wrote “Benediction.” It begins:
Your gifts
Whatever you discover them to be
Can be used to bless or curse the world.
The mind’s power,
The strength of the hands,
The reaches of the heart,
The gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting.
Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,
Bind up wounds,
Welcome the stranger,
Praise what is sacred,
Do the work of justice
Or offer love. (pp. 163-164)
The poem goes on to describe the perils and joys of following such a calling. She suggests that love, rage, ritual, and praise are some of the gifts we have on hand. She concludes:
None of us alone can save the world.
Together—that is another possibility,
Waiting. (p. 165)
Parker’s poem not only urges me to accept my gifts and use them well, but it also reminds me that the Source of Love calls us to minister together, networks of people repairing the interdependent web. The diversity of our talents, when woven together, forms a more complete embrace to promote spiritual growth and emotional healing.
I wish for my clients and parishioners that they connect with such communities of hope. I am aware that my care is only one asset that will promote their wellbeing, and that larger systems convened with intention and care make a significant difference. I have seen youth conferences and religious summer camps function as this kind of encouraging network, as well as science fiction conventions, activist groups, and community theater companies. Any place where people wrestle with the big questions and support each other’s maturation is a community of hope.
In my second clinical year at Loyola, I saw the Head Start Parent Council function this way for some of the families. Between long meetings of intense democratic process, reflections on the purpose of early childhood education, and the compassionate attention of the staff to personal as well as logistical matters, parents who were highly involved found a sense of meaning and belonging in the preschool community. Together, the parents set their sights on a good educational experience and a better future for their children. If one of my client families were not a good match for a psychosocial support group or a faith community, I knew I could recommend Head Start’s own activities as a place to connect and to find hope.
Healing what has been divided, including divisions of numbness and oppression, is a spiritual task. Interdependence is honored in many faith traditions, with each one applying its unique vocabulary and values. The Christian argument suggested by Smith and Riedel-Pfaefflin (2004) resonates with me. They write:
Estrangement is at the heart of the human condition in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Estrangement is our distance from God, from others, from ourselves, and from purposes that give meaning to our lives. But estrangement is not final. Aphesis (divine forgiveness) is the fundamental element of redemptive work—the overcoming of estrangement ….
The role and work of followers (siblings) is to do the work of reconciliation, the overcoming of estrangement. Lifting the yoke of oppression, not pointing the finger of blame, and not engaging in evil speak but instead offering forgiveness and food to the hungry and satisfying the needs of the afflicted are among the signal acts of redemption in a world marked by estrangement. Followers, or siblings by choice, are called to interrupt and disrupt the powers of estrangement, and to dethrone them. (pp. 129-130)
In other words, when clients can find a sense of belonging, a meaning-making purpose, and a strategy through which they can lessen the emotional distance between themselves and helpful others, they are part of a world movement for overcoming estrangement. To connect with communities of hope is to increase redemptive power in the world.
I have learned that remembering my role in a larger picture of wholeness is beneficial to my attitude and to the quality of my work. If I forget about connections, I come to believe that a client or parishioner’s emotional or spiritual health depends mostly on the nature of my intervention. This hubris leads me to be more anxious and less able to access the resources and knowledge I have available to me. Encouraging clients to connect with communities of hope and practicing my own discipline of connecting improves the atmosphere for healing and growth.
In my reflections after I have finished working with a client, I imagine letting go of their hands at the threshold of a web made from light and love. Clients are commended into the caring embrace of networks beyond my understanding. Their communities of support, their connections with meaning or spirituality, and their grasp of their own inner resources will outlast any counseling relationship. May redemption prevail.
IV. Connect With the Present Moment
A third theme that arises in a pastoral theology that celebrates our ability to connect is the capacity to connect with the present moment. This theme includes the ability to face the pain and uncertainty of honest awareness and compassion for the self. When we connect with the present moment, we can spend our energy learning from our challenges and our internal reactions rather than numbing them or covering them up. Practices such as meditation and prayer can help.
When I began my unit of Clinical Pastoral Education thirteen years ago, I had some experience with meditation and prayer, but no consistent practice. I soon realized that I needed some way of regaining my balance during days filled with illness and death. I also learned that, whatever interventions I brought into the room, I also brought myself. Taking time to find my center was of benefit to my clients. I began a daily practice of visiting the hospital’s chapel, quietly singing to the four directions, and listening. When I was finished, I would imagine releasing the spirits of the four directions. Responding to suffering in the environment and the stress of professional transformation, I found a fruitful practice that I continue to develop.
Buddhist author Pema Chödrön (2005) suggests viewing unpleasant situations and feelings as opportunities for learning and growth. She posits that mindfulness helps the practitioner to be honest about what is going on internally. Her meditation instructions include directions about compassion for the practitioner. I appreciate the gentleness of Pema Chödrön’s description. Authenticity may seem brutal or painful, but there is no need to make it worse through self-flagellating criticism. When distractions come up during meditation, the author suggests labeling them using a compassionate inner voice and moving on:
My experience is that by practicing without “shoulds,” we gradually discover our wakefulness and our confidence. Gradually, without any agenda except to be honest and kind, we assume responsibility for being here in this unpredictable world, in this unique moment, in this precious human body. (pp. 172-173)
As a recovering perfectionist, advice like this is helpful. I hesitate to begin what I may not do well. This is in direct conflict with my spiritual beliefs, including the unconditional love and acceptance of the Divine. I believe that we will all end up in union with the Holy, like a drop of rain being received into the ocean. I do not have to prove my worth to win salvation. When I can keep faith with my beliefs, I stand on more stable ground for offering a non-anxious, accepting presence to others.
Acceptance seems to be a key point in sustaining a practice of connecting with the present moment. One Jewish meditation teaching is to regard random thoughts positively. As Kaplan (1985) writes, “No matter where the thoughts lead, there is no cause for concern. A Chasidic teaching says that any thought that enters the mind during meditation does so for a purpose” (p. 61).
Kaplan’s approach matches my theology of Divinity being infused in all things. I share the experience of wandering into mundane thoughts during spiritual practice. When I return to laundry or parenting or whatever the stray thought was about, I remember that there is something holy in what I am doing in that very moment.
Unitarian Universalist approaches have also been helpful to me when it comes to dealing with strong feelings of fear, anger, and despair that arise in meditation and prayer. Parker (2006) advises acceptance in this case, too. “Stillness that listens and rage that protests will lead us to a new covenant, if we have the courage to refuse to flee from our tears and to embody in everyday practices what we have come to know” (p. 88).
To connect with the present moment is to face all of the terrifying horrors and transcendent beauties of the world and our emotional responses to them. Parker suggests that the fruits of meditation and prayer are changes in the way we live. In other words, to connect with the present moment is to move toward healing the world as well as the self. Winning an award for the best, most focused practice is not the point. Serving the Source of Love is the point. When I can honor life by experiencing it fully, when I can sort through my internal reactions in order to offer the most loving response, when I can connect with my own soul and the souls of the people in front of me, meditation and prayer are tools for healing and growth.
V. Closing Summary of Spirituality of Pastoral Counseling
Choosing to connect with legacies of resilience, communities of hope, and the present moment provides sustaining power for the search for health and meaning. This, to me, is the heart of the pastoral counseling relationship. Becoming immersed in legacies of resilience can improve self-efficacy and provide strategies for overcoming obstacles, especially obstacles such as oppression that repeat themselves in a system over time. Awareness of this cloud of witnessing ancestors strengthens the client and the counselor to further the search for growth.
Communities of hope are networks of people, usually organized for a shared purpose, who encourage one another, speak the truth in love, and engage with questions of meaning. When clients and counselors connect with communities of hope, resources for health and spiritual depth are revealed that can enrich and last beyond the counseling relationship.
The present moment offers a variety of gifts for clients and counselors. Whether increasing awareness of reality is called mindfulness meditation, prayer, or simply taking inventory, accepting the truth of situations and emotions fuels positive change. The pastoral counseling relationship thrives when the counselor and client connect with the present moment.
I believe that the universe is knit together in love. When we intentionally connect with the Divine who dwells within people and communities of the past and present, we are actively participating alongside the Eternal with weaving the interdependent web. Bidden or unbidden, the Holy is present in the bonds between atoms, ecosystems, and people. May we attend to the gifts of challenge, comfort, and love that sing within our connections.
Chapter III
I. Counseling Theory and Remembering the Interdependent Web
Within the larger circle of Pastoral Care, the practice of Pastoral Counseling requires specialized knowledge and skills, including an understanding of psychological theories and interventions. Cheston (2000) suggests a paradigm for integrating the tools of different schools of thought into an effective practice for each client’s situation. Cheston calls this the ways paradigm, as it differentiates between the counselor’s way of being, way of understanding, and way of intervening. In my training and supervised practice as a student counselor, I have found this paradigm helpful in weaving together the theories and techniques that may benefit a client.
While there are a variety of theories that I have experimented with in my internship settings, there are a few that have been especially helpful as I assist clients in remembering the interdependent web. As a Unitarian Universalist minister and as a counselor, there is no doubt that person-centered counseling is my predominant way of being. My way of understanding is heavily influenced by family systems theory. While I practice flexibility in my way of intervening, I have often found that Motivational Interviewing fits with both my philosophy and the client’s needs when I work with adolescents and adults. In this chapter, I will explore each of these theories and their relevance to the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web.
II. Way of Being: Person-Centered
As a Unitarian Universalist, respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person is one of my bedrock religious practices. My faith orientation lends itself to the unconditional positive regard suggested in person-centered counseling (Rogers, 1980). Rogers outlined six conditions that were necessary and sufficient for change, including unconditional positive regard by the therapist and perception of empathy by the client.
Furthermore, Rogers suggested that the experience of being empathically heard and understood is essential for a healthy personality (1951, 1969). Rogers theorized that a young person’s experience of unconditional positive regard would lead to the development of a fully functioning personality; that is, one that includes openness, creativity, and responsibility. Much of my clinical and ministerial work has involved children, adolescents, and families. Rogers’ attention to the developmental results of empathy has been useful to me as I develop my professional identity.
For me, unconditional positive regard is a spiritual practice. Acceptance and respect are at the center when souls meet to care for one another. The entire interdependent web of being is spun from the sacred. Connections that are forged in life-affirming relationships resonate with that holy thread. There is something of the Divine in every person. A person-centered way of being challenges me to welcome that piece of the Divine in every client and to open up a space for the Holy to spin in the counseling relationship.
Unlike Rogers, I have not found a person-centered orientation to be sufficient in every case. On the other hand, there are a few clients who made tremendous progress in counseling situations where I provided little more than a holding environment and an open-hearted invitation. It is in these situations that I feel most keenly the unseen presence of the Source of Love, cooperating with the client, the counselor, and the client’s other resources.
One of my adolescent clients was referred to me when she was distressed over a protracted conflict with friends. At the first appointment, listening seemed to be the only rational intervention. Through telling her own story, my client came to understand that her fear of being direct and assertive added to her emotional distress. I affirmed the strategies she was already using, such as taking a time-out or counting to herself during emotionally intense moments. The conflict was resolved within a few weeks, yet my client chose to continue in counseling for eight more sessions so that she could receive encouragement on other change goals, such as regaining the academic momentum she lost during the conflict.
At the time, I was attempting to develop skills in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This was a useful lens for treating many of my clients, but not this one. Try as I might, I could not come up with a satisfying case conceptualization or treatment plan for her using CBT tools. Although I ended up using a different framework for my way of understanding, I realized that the non-directive, affirming way of being that I had started with in the first session was helpful to my client’s continued progress in counseling.
Looking back, I can see how remembering the interdependent web helped me to trust that my way of being could benefit the client. The more I listened to my client, the more I understood the assets she brought to bear. In session, she was able to review the strength and hope she already had, decide for herself how to make and maintain healthy relationships, and notice the robustness of her support network. Remembering that counseling was only part of the web that embraced my client, I could be still and know that the Spirit of Life was present.
III. Way of Understanding: Family Systems Theory
Of the three ways in the paradigm, my way of understanding may be the most obvious in terms of its connection to the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web. I understand clients as whole in themselves, and also as part of systems that are larger than themselves. Each person is connected to significant people and institutions that may help or impede the positive change they seek. Family systems theorists such as Bowen (1978), Friedman (1985), Carter and McGoldrick (1989) conceptualize cases in terms of relationships, making this theory a natural fit for my way of understanding.
I was first introduced to family systems theory in my ministerial training. Pastoral ministry involves the ability to be present with others in their suffering and in their triumph, bearing witness to the fullness of their lives without misappropriating their experiences as our own. Differentiation, a cornerstone concept in the intergenerational family systems approach, describes the process of becoming a centered, flexible, independent person. My early training taught me to minister with people, neither attempting to direct them from the outside nor trying to manipulate families from the inside, but standing beside people during their most tender passages. Differentiation is what allows clergy and helping professionals to stand in that place, neither enmeshed within nor hovering above the people we serve.
Differentiation is also how pastoral caregivers earn the trust of families who invite us to mark with them their intimate moments of birth and death. As a rabbi himself, Friedman (1985) wrote that religious leaders “have an entrée into the multigenerational processes of families that is just not available to any other members of the helping professions no matter what their training or skill. This entrée gives us unusual therapeutic potential” (p. 5). Given the gift of the pastoral perspective, an intergenerational family systems approach is an intuitive choice for me.
In Chapter 2, I mentioned that connecting with legacies of resilience is a key avenue for remembering the interdependent web. Taking the long view, I can help clients recall family members who were challenged by adversity, just as the clients presently in therapy are challenged. Carter and McGoldrick (1989) have shown that a systems approach adds depth in reviewing a family’s challenges and strengths. Reviewing family history may help clients feel less alone in their struggle. This review may also help families discover unfinished business between parents and grandparents, uncover recurring themes of tragedies unspoken (and therefore unhealed), and contextualize the family’s ancestral cultures (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2008).
This last point, taking culture into account, is especially important as we incorporate the realities of a multiracial, multiethnic society into therapeutic practice. Ethnicity and culture are essential to the conversation if family members are expected to enter therapy as whole, authentic people. Carter and McGoldrick have highlighted the influences of culture, class, gender, and sexual orientation on family patterns. Assuming that all clients behave as if they come from the dominant culture, regardless of the clients’ culture and ethnicity, is a form of racism. Anti-racist, anti-oppressive professional practice demands better.
Most of the clients I worked with in my second clinical year were referred because of concerning behavior in a preschooler. Preschoolers are neither reliable reporters nor in charge of arranging most of their external coping resources, making it most prudent to approach these cases as family systems rather than as individual counseling for the identified patient.
One of my preschool clients was referred for aggressive behavior toward peers and teachers and for difficulty with emotional self-regulation. I worked with him individually on reinforcing target behaviors and with his parents on strategies for change.
Although my interventions directly with the child were not drawn from a family systems orientation, I found guidance in a family systems way of understanding. I asked the parents what they were doing at home to help him meet the family’s expectations. Both of his parents described work situations and parenting strategies that called them to be calm and confident. At school, he seemed to have the most difficulty during chaotic free play times. He responded to the teachers’ emotional energy, seeking comfort when they were calm and resisting their directives when teachers were agitated. Bowen (1978) pointed out that behavior patterns emerge when perceived emotional demands cause anxiety. After a certain point, teachers were better able to respond non-anxiously. The preschooler became more cooperative. Teachers changed the way they thought through their responses, and thus disrupted the cycle of emotional reactivity.
The parents in the client family reported that their extended family and church communities had been important sources of support before their child was born. His mother had been avoiding large gatherings out of a concern that her child’s problematic behavior would surface, but his grandmother encouraged her to reconnect. Reconnecting with a faith community turned out to be an experience of belonging and inclusion for both parent and child. The parents’ feeling of spiritual support and multigenerational connection increased their coping ability, which led to increased success with the child’s behavior. A family systems way of understanding led me to anticipate a good prognosis.
The family systems way of understanding is an invaluable tool in remembering the interdependent web. Counselors can help families to re-forge and repair connections in the spirit of interdependence; differentiated relationships are neither cut off nor enmeshed. In family systems theory and in remembering the interdependent web, history, life cycles, and relationships are brought to bear as resources, opportunities for growth, or both.
IV. Way of Intervening: Motivational Interviewing
Given the strength of my commitment to unconditional positive regard and my understanding of influences on the client from outside the therapy room, my way of intervening must respect the client and encourage the client to consider his or her resources beyond counseling. Motivational Interviewing, as described by Miller and Rollnick (2002) fits both of these criteria.
Motivational Interviewing (also known as MI) is a way of intervening that originated in the addictions field (Miller & Rollnick, 2002). Using this method, the practitioner reflects back to the client congruence between values and behaviors and aids the client in linking positive intentions with adaptive behaviors. According to its original authors, MI has a strong person-centered element (Miller & Rollnick, 2009). In a separate article, Miller and Rose (2009) used the history of MI and an overview of clinical data to construct a possible model for how change occurs when MI is employed, suggesting that MI may be a theory of its own rather than simply an intervention.
The themes of autonomy, collaboration, and evocation (ACE) describe the overall spirit of MI (Naar-King & Suarez, 2011). Autonomy involves linking actions to consequences and respecting the extent to which the client has self-determination. The client is responsible for change, and the MI practitioner does not push the client to change prematurely. Evocation means eliciting the client’s reasons for and concerns about change rather than beginning with unsolicited advice. These themes of MI are relevant in a harm-reduction approach, in which a client who makes a decision for positive incremental change is supported rather than pushed to make global changes such as total abstinence from a substance.
During my clinical internships, I found MI to be a useful way of intervening for several of my adult clients and almost all of my adolescent clients. Adolescents often respond more readily to adults who respect their autonomy and who listen to the entire range of their ambivalent thoughts about the future. Naar-King and Suarez point out that MI can help adolescents develop self-governing behavior through its philosophy of taking responsibility for actions and its model of decision making.
One client who responded well to MI was an honor student and a varsity athlete who was referred to counseling when he admitted problematic patterns of alcohol use to a teacher. My client reported that he abstained from alcohol on the night before and the day of a match (he denied symptoms of physical withdrawal), which indicated to me that he was already on the path of making conscious choices about alcohol consumption according to his values and priorities. In discussing his motivations for sustaining his patterns of use and his motivations for change, my client mentioned his peers on the party circuit. He felt resigned to maintaining their acquaintance, even though he did not trust most of them. He also mentioned a young aunt he admired, who encouraged him to examine his patterns of use. As the first in his family to plan to attend college, my client was aware that he was a role model and that his actions had consequences beyond himself.
Taking a step back to consider common threads, nearly all of his significant motivations for change were tied to his network of support. He wanted to be connected with people to whom he could be responsible and who would have concern for him. The relational world held strength and resilience for him. He was already considering the impact of his actions on others. By using MI, I was able to create a space within which my client could recall those resources, draw on his strengths, and act on his motivations for change. Counseling helped him to remember the interdependent web.
V. Closing Summary of Theory of Pastoral Counseling
Remembering the interdependent web is a complex, dynamic process that involves not only the client and the counselor, but also the systems in which each resides. In this context, no single theory is sufficient. The ways paradigm is a useful tool for integrating theories in order to weave together the most effective and respectful course of therapy for the client.
A person-centered way of being is central to my identity and practice as a pastoral counselor. As a person-centered counselor, I trust the client to weave together relational connections, insights, and resources toward healing and growth. Through unconditional positive regard, I help clear a space for the client’s work of remembering and re-membering.
My way of understanding was formed early in my training as a pastoral caregiver. Within the larger circle of pastoral care, my training in pastoral counseling has brought me new resources and insights from the family systems orientation that I can use for the benefit of my clients. Family systems theorists seek to help clients heal cutoffs in relationships, expand their capacities for differentiation (interdependence), and consider the influences of their larger networks. Family systems theory fits with the paradigm of remembering the interdependent web.
Motivational Interviewing is one of the ways of intervening that has been most effective and congruent with the spirit and style I bring to counseling. MI is respectful of the client and cognizant of the world that clients must navigate. In my experience, a course of counseling that includes MI interventions helps the client to discover and recall the resources both within and beyond themselves for positive change. Clients are strengthened in their ability to remember the interdependent web when given an opportunity to collaborate with the counselor.
In this chapter, I have explored the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web in terms of the theories I use in counseling. In the next chapter, I will examine the gifts, limits, and possibilities of my clinical practice.
Chapter IV
I. Weaving and Repairing: Critique of Counseling and Future Plans
In the previous chapter, I outlined the way I combine theories of counseling using the ways paradigm as explained by Cheston (2000). I learned more about these theories as I translated them into practice during my clinical internships. In this final chapter, I will review some of the strengths and weaknesses I discovered in my counseling practice, name a few strategies for professional growth, and outline potential directions for my career. I believe that the process of developing professionally draws from the same source of life and growth that fuels progress in counseling; therefore, I will continue to use the metaphor of remembering the interdependent web during this final chapter.
II. Strengths in Counseling
I have shown several strengths as a counselor so far. Colleagues in my clinical internship small groups and supervisors have affirmed these assets. With their assistance, I have increased my ability to accurately assess my strengths as a counselor. My social justice analysis skills, my multigenerational competence, and my resilience have been useful during my clinical internships, yet it is my client-centered way of being that I count as my most valuable strength.
My client-centered, pastoral way of being is an asset in which I have confidence. Considering that respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person is a bedrock spiritual practice for my faith and that basic listening skills were part of my ministerial training, I have had more time to develop this asset than I have had for other counseling skills. By accepting clients for who and where they are and eliciting their goals, values, and observations they bring from their own experience, I have been able to journey with people who were reluctant to enter counseling.
One of my adult clients was such a reluctant counselee. The district court had mandated anger management training for him following a domestic dispute. He had begun an anger management class, but had found it inconvenient and expensive to attend given the limitations of childcare. At our intake meeting, he expressed an interest in working on coping strategies to deal with economic worries and parenting as well as working on anger management.
In relating his history with counseling and family patterns, Larry voiced recurring themes of abandonment and maladaptive coping. Reflecting back on a previous difficult time in his life, my client said he regretted his choices and was grateful to have moved on. Following this difficult time in his past, he remembered being motivated primarily by a desire to create a better environment for his children. He recalled that life improved for several years, until a he experienced a cluster of negative events. Although he acknowledged that many of his choices were negative, he interpreted his recent behavior as an improvement compared with the way he responded to stress when he was younger. He knew he was capable of positive change, but had little experience of being supported in that change. I hoped that establishing a good rapport would increase my client’s chances for progress.
In our first session, I listened to my client share his story. I communicated interest in his wellbeing and my respect for him as a person. I reflected back to him the elements of his story that showed his capacity to learn and to change, and the strength of his motivation to become a better parent. During the first session, my client showed a limited range of affect, but he verbally expressed interest in returning at the end of the session.
My client reported that he practiced the coping skills he learned in counseling between sessions. Within the safety of the counseling room, he was able to share more about his experiences of trust and betrayal, which led him to better understand the triggers for his anger. He called after his fourth weekly session to reschedule, as he had regained employment. In the weeks following, his range of affect increased. He reported that he was receiving recognition at work for his patience. We tapered off our sessions and completed the planned course of treatment three months later.
In my work with this client, not only was I able to establish rapport with a client who was ambivalent about counseling, I helped the client remember the interdependent web. Knowing that every person is connected with people and systems from outside the counseling room, I considered the larger picture in my case conceptualization. My client expressed feeling isolated in the first session. In time, he was able to recall the potential for positive connections with certain friends and family members. He also started attending family events at the preschool.
I believe that my client-centered way of being was the most effective asset I brought into the counseling relationship, but it was not the only strength I drew from in working with this client. Because of my skills in social justice analysis, I was better able to understand the insidious tenacity of the cycles of poverty and substance use in his community. He entered counseling with a verbalized acceptance of responsibility for his actions and was not looking for excuses, yet I believe that my knowledge of the context for those choices increased my capacity for unconditional positive regard and improved our rapport.
Furthermore, although I did not meet with my client’s family as a whole, my multigenerational competence made a difference in his treatment. Becoming a better parent was his primary motivation, and my understanding of the developmental stages of his children, the stresses and dynamics of a young family, and intergenerational transmission of behavioral patterns helped me to follow his story and to reflect back when he mentioned hopeful signs. I found that my multigenerational competence was similarly useful for every client, as they all had gifts and wounds from their families that were relevant in counseling. People of all ages are involved in remembering the interdependent web.
Finally, my resilience was a positive factor in working with all of my clients. My clinical sites were demanding. At home, I was sandwiched between an ill parent and young children. As I will discuss in the next section, the experience taught me that I needed to improve my self-care practices. At the same time, my ability to stay the course and to continue offering unconditional positive regard to clients was a strength. My resilience, multigenerational competence, and social justice analysis skills are like spokes in the web of my professional identity, held together by the core strength of my client-centered way of being.
III. Growing Edges
As a beginning counselor, I have much to learn. I have identified a few skills that I intend to address in the near future, including explicit spiritual assessment and self-care. While I might categorize these skills as weaknesses, I prefer to call them growing edges in order to emphasize the developmental nature of counseling skills.
I am an ordained minister, firm in my personal identity as a religious leader. At the same time, my role as an intern was to offer counseling in mainly secular modalities such as mental health. It is important to me that clients feel free to express their religious and spiritual ideas without intimidation. For this reason, I rarely disclose my ordained status or bring up my personal faith when I am in a secular counseling role. I take special care to follow the client’s lead in matters of spirituality and faith because it is so vital that I not be coercive in this area.
In my second internship, the required intake forms for children and families included brief questions about religious affiliation and community involvements, but nothing in-depth. If the client family did not report spirituality or religion as being an important resource at the outset, I generally waited for the parents to bring up the topic before asking more questions about it. My growing edge turned out to be timidity with respect to explicit spiritual and religious assessment.
In one of my client families, the parents’ religious differences impacted their relationship. On their intake form, the mother reported the father’s religion as Catholic, but had left the religion line blank for herself and the children. I inferred that religion was not a major resource for her. Sessions were very full with play therapy and debriefing the week, and it did not occur to me to follow up on the unfilled blank.
During the debriefing conversations alone with the mother, I came to understand that one of the tensions in the family had to do with differences in culture and values between the two parents. They each had unspoken expectations about gender roles, the importance of extended family gatherings, and the necessity of assimilating into what the mother identified as educated culture. Furthermore, the mother brought an attitude of urgency to her behavioral expectations and had difficulty overcoming perfectionism.
In the middle of a seven-month course of therapy, the mother mentioned that she had been raised in a certain very conservative Christian denomination, but had not attended since leaving home. Her self-disclosure led to more conversations about what she had learned in her childhood church about gender, children, and the importance of being correct. I realized that she had been through what Pargament (2007) would describe as spiritual disengagement, but had retained some of the inflexible rules she had learned in her early religious training.
If I had done more explicit spiritual assessment as Pargament suggests, I might have had more information early in the counseling process about the spiritual aspect of the mother’s struggle with flexibility and the religious and cultural aspects of her relationship with the children’s father. One of my mistakes in working with this family was in not following my model of remembering the interdependent web. Helping the family find positive links to their spiritual resources could have been an effective strategy. Instead, I worked with what was in front of me without asking enough questions about the networks of relationships that the clients brought with them. That being said, there was plenty to work with given the information I had, and family therapy with young children requires an ability to stay focused on the present. After the mother brought up the topic of religion, I was able to follow her lead and to include spirituality among the other dimensions that we discussed in session. Pargament does not suggest a formal, standardized spiritual assessment, but does present tools for ongoing, client-centered assessment and case conceptualization. In the future, I will make better use of resources for spiritual assessment.
In addition to my caution about coercive spirituality and religious power dynamics, my lapse in remembering the interdependent web may have had something to do with the erosion of my self-care during the second clinical year. In addition to a rigorous internship and coursework, I was also serving a congregation and caring for my own family In order to squeeze the additional hours into my schedule, the thing I chose to sacrifice was self-care. I let my exercise and meditation practices lie fallow. With my own spirit so neglected, it is possible that I was less equipped than usual to address the spiritual lives of my clients.
The good news is that the situation was temporary. A new internship supervisor joined the project in the third quarter and streamlined certain processes. I found work/life balance to be easier for the remainder of the academic year.
Healing is possible. I have re-initiated my exercise and meditation practices and have gotten more involved with creative pursuits. I have been spending more time with my family, connecting with friends, and going to collegial meetings. I feel more like myself than I did at the most intense moments of my clinical internship. As I go forward, I will seek opportunities in environments that will support my efforts at self-care. I will need to remember my own connections to the interdependent web in order to maintain my health and offer my best service to clients.
IV. Potential for Growth
A helping professional can build competency in a number of ways. I plan to address my growing edges with supervision, collegial groups, and interdisciplinary continuing education. As I have mentioned in previous chapters, my professional self-concept is as a pastoral caregiver with a specialized skill set of pastoral counseling. I hope to develop as a whole professional, addressing competencies that will be relevant in both parish ministry and counseling.
Mentoring is an important part of my professional growth plan, especially as it relates to my new skills in counseling. In my previous experiences with counseling supervision, I have been given generous opportunities to reflect personally and pastorally, to appreciate the strengths I might have otherwise minimized, and to relate as a colleague to a more experienced counselor. Supervisors and mentors have provided leads for practical resources and exciting new research. Some of them have offered judicious self-disclosure that provides me with the benefit of their experience. My Loyola-based supervisors have been trained in pastoral perspectives, which has been fruitful. Going forward, I will seek supervisors and mentors who have pastoral training. Ideally, I will find a mentor who has can appreciate the balance I hope to cultivate in my counseling and religious professional roles.
Another valuable resource I have found in professional development is participation in collegial groups. The small group supervision class has been such a positive experience, as was the combined supervision group of social work and pastoral counseling interns at my site in my first clinical year. I am working on developing a small collegial group of Unitarian Universalist ministers whose work extends past the walls of the church building. Such a group could help me to balance expectations for different roles, find perspective on ministerial identity in non-traditional settings, and experience supportive community. On a larger scale, I would like to attend more professional conferences, membership meetings, and events for all of my roles. Collegial groups have helped me to cement my professional identity, to improve my understanding of best practices, and to find companionship among people who understand my occupational joys and challenges.
Interdisciplinary continuing education is a third way that I plan to address professional growth. As often as possible, I would like to attend continuing education events that attract professionals from different perspectives. I find that when I can learn alongside social workers, theologians, ministers, and other diverse professionals, I am energized by the exchange and come away with a richer referral network. I have already attended a continuing education event that brought together pastoral counselors, educational psychologists, and school counselors to discuss spirituality and healing in children who have experienced trauma. The event was exciting and gave me a better sense of how much more I have to learn. I am particularly interested in learning more about play therapy, Motivational Interviewing, and adolescent spiritual coping.
The common thread in all of these professional development plans is that they involve human connection. Mentoring, collegial gatherings, and interdisciplinary continuing education will all help me to strengthen my networks of support. By putting time and energy into relationships with colleagues, I will have more confidence in the universe of resources available to clients when they leave my care. Professional development will help me to remember the interdependent web.
V. Statement of Personal Ministerial Directions
Given the competencies I have gained so far, I have a number of options for my future career. The experiences I have gained cross into several areas, creating a kind of interdependent web of professional skills. My experiences in congregational ministry, counseling practice, pastoral theology, mentoring and program development, and advocacy all lead to different possibilities for future directions. The career paths that seem most prominent in my immediate future are congregational ministry and licensed counseling practice.
The more I have learned about counseling, the more I have come to appreciate what I have already learned about congregational ministry. Counseling is a powerful modality for equipping clients to meet their goals, but at the end of the day, most clients need supportive communities. Strong congregations can fulfill this function. The world needs communities where people can experience positive regard. As a minister, I help warm, accepting, meaning-making congregations thrive. I would even go so far as to say that the congregations I serve meet the criteria Rogers set out for an ongoing, person-centered community (1980). Even if my primary work ends up being outside the church, I plan to stay rooted in a congregation.
As for my specialized training, I can envision incorporating counseling into my professional portfolio alongside parish work. It seems to me that not many counselors are trained to work with young people on spiritual and mental health dimensions. Possibilities include a mixed-setting ministry that includes congregational ministry as well as pastoral counseling with children and youth in the community. Connections between ways of ministering and across parish lines are part of a robust, interdependent web.
VI. Conclusion
In this paper, I have presented an analysis of my personal journey, pastoral theology, counseling theory, and counseling practice through the lens of remembering the interdependent web. In a pastoral counseling relationship, the client and the counselor both bring connections resources into the room that will facilitate healing and growth. Recalling those resources and re-weaving positive connections is a spiritual as well as an emotional and cognitive process. My personal theory and practice of counseling works best with a client-centered way of being, a way of understanding that takes families and systems into account, and a respectful way of intervening. I look forward to putting these ideas into practice after graduation.
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