Posted on 5/12/2022 The politics of these times, and the revelations of the battles again to be fought, are painful distractions from our respect for the spirits and Caring Energy that are not distributed according to arbitrary descriptive labels. We are distracted...
Posted on 4/21/2022 Robert Charles Powell’s classic publication, Clinical Pastoral Education: Fifty Years of Learning through Supervised Encounter with 'Living Human Documents', is reprised and expanded in this first volume of his collected writings...
Posted on 4/19/2022 Until today, I have passively sat aside and chosen not to raise any eyebrows or cause any waves in whatever environment I am in. This past February, especially, I became aware of my ancestors as I watched a television show on a black museum...
Posted on 4/18/2022 If you want to become a competent pastoral clinician, first get a significant grasp of the history and theory of pastoral psychotherapy and its related social science literature. Only then will a religious authority be prepared to engage...
Posted on 4/7/2022 Boisen believed that clinicians should discover for themselves the meaning of the different forms of illness and that psychotherapy depended less on technique than on caring relationships between people In his Exploration of the Inner World …
Posted on 4/6/2022 Raymond Lawrence reminded me to look again at the keynote address by Dr. Robert Dykstra at our 2020 Plenary. I agree with him about the importance of every one of us experiencing that address again.
Posted on 3/25/2022 Gene Allen as we knew him, or as his obituary reads, “the Rev. Dr. Eugene E. Allen,” died on February 11. I would like to extend condolences to his family and to those in our community who were close to him in his late years.
Posted on 3/14/2022 In 2011 Dr. Robert Charles Powell, the leading historian of the Clinical Pastoral movement, was invited by the CPSP–in his words–”to present views on what is wrong with CPSP.” His contribution was the propitious essay...
Posted on 3/9/2022 Robert Charles Powell’s article on Tolerance and Encouragement Within a Covenant of Mutual Accountability is as relevant today as it was first published in 2011. The College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy (CPSP) was founded over three deca
Posted on 3/3/2022 Republished from Nov. 1, 2011 -- The College spoke out against the world into which it was born. Now it must speak out against itself. The College that burst upon the scene twenty-some years ago was an improvement over professional chaplaincy’s past.
Posted on 2/22/2022 We are excited to announce the new publication of documents in the coming days and months that are significant for the future of the CPSP. The PASTORAL REPORT will first republish a 2011 essay from our esteemed historian Robert Powell, MD, PhD...
Posted on 2/3/2022 Both Boisen and Sullivan understood the tragic power of isolation and loneliness to undermine sanity. Both Sullivan and Boisen understood anxiety as a kind of “double-edged sword” – a factor that had to be managed carefully – even tenderly...
Posted on 1/20/2022 The CPSP proudly and boldly proclaims that we fulfill the spirit of Anton Boisen and the heart of pastoral care and psychotherapy. We build formation and accountability around the integrity of our system of Chapters. What does this mean...
Posted on 1/19/2022 In a story told by his child psychologist at St. Luke's-Texas Children's Hospital, Mary Ada Murphy, Ph.D., provided her first-hand account of her relationship with David Vetter, the child known to the world as the "Bubble Boy"...
Posted on 1/17/2022 We thank David Plummer for reintroducing us to this speech by Dr. King. And just this month, we were again reminded that his father changed his own name to Martin Luther in response to a conference he attended in Nazi Germany in 1934...
Posted on 1/6/2022 There is our mission, to bear witness to truths that are greater than the limits of our human doubts and misery and suffering and hopelessness. That is what pastoral psychotherapists, the chaplains, and counselors on the front lines of human loss...
Posted on 1/4/2022 Although I left Haiti 35 years ago, my heart never left the country of my birth. The August 14th earthquake shook the country at the worst possible time in its history. Thankfully, my CPE/T formation prepared me to answer the call to move forward...
Posted on 12/30/2021 Our personal lives can sometimes give us revelations that cross from one area of concern to another, or from one arena of opportunity to another. I am about to embark on another adventure as this old man is now engaged, and...
Posted on 12/28/2021 I previously reported that the Association of Professional Chaplains has just suspended all discussions with the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education regarding a proposed merger. The ACPE described this as a “surprising and abrupt decision.”
Posted on 12/27/2021 There’s an empty stocking hanging by the fireplace this year; no candy, no nuts, no gift. There’s an empty feeling in my heart. This year without you here, my dear…
Posted on 12/23/2021 I can mostly do what I want in my semi-retirement, which means a small clinical caseload, editing the CPSP Pastoral Report, getting engaged (!), and building a stable here on my little ranch for my beloved wife-to-be...
Posted on 12/22/2021 Robert Dykstra has an article of particular interest to our members in settings working with boys and young men: The Unedited Self: Fostering Subversive Imagination in Ministry with Boys and Young Men - Pastoral Psychology. Through the end of Dec...
Posted on 12/20/2021 We are responding to our readers’ requests, the changing times, and the needs of our ministries, with some evolutionary changes at The PASTORAL REPORT. The goal is to become more “professional” in a number of ways...
Posted on 12/17/2021 The first thing to note about this monograph is that it consists of an anthology of ten previously published papers by George Fitchett and his colleagues over the past quarter-century. The ten papers are followed by some thirty pages of commentary...
Posted on 11/12/2021 And my second thought was to begin my tenure with an interview with my colleague and friend, the Rev. Dr. Raymond J. Lawrence, who, with Dr. Perry N. Miller and Robert Clayton, were founders of the College.
