PROFESSIONAL CHAPLAINCY

There has been an increasing trend in the pastoral care movement to move away from chaplaincy and pastoral care in favor of promoting and providing "spiritual care." Many hospital departments have changed their names to reflect this shift in philosophy and practice. Spirituality circumvents religion and promotes chaplaincy as a generic practice. Religions are messy. They have rules, doctrines, beliefs, ethics---some of which are flawed to be sure. But religions usually stand for something. Spirituality is an amorphous thing, an oblong blur, with implications of cosmic connection, but with no price tag---no demands no dogmas, and no ethics. Not even a dogma demanding justice and mercy. The only perceptible doctrine promoted by the spirituality movement is that people should feel good about themselves. At its best the clinical pastoral movement teaches religious professionals to be available to everyone. It also teaches them to be critical of all religion---but dismissive of no

Sometime ago Don Berwick, MD spoke about 20 improvements that doctors could make in the end of life care of their patients that begins in a simple conversation. Berwick recommended the following considerations as his top three suggestions: Ask yourself as you see patients, "Would I be surprised if this patient died in the next few months?" For those "sick enough to die," prioritize the patient's concerns - often symptom relief, family support, continuity, advance planning, or spirituality. To eliminate anxiety and fear, chronically ill patients must understand what is likely to happen. When you see a patient who is "sick enough to die" - tell the patient, and start counseling and planning around that possibility. To understand your patients, ask (1) "What do you hope for, as you live with this condition,"(a) "What do you fear?," (b) It is usually hard to know when death is close. If you were to die soon, what would be left undo

CPSP was formed out of the memories of our own experience in clinical training. It was not formed around the corporate bureaucratic model, that by its very nature smothers criticism with public relations and undermines collegiality by promoting patterns of domination and submission. We remembered the redemptive process of our own clinical training, an experience that was marked by deep criticism and deep respect and care, an experience that we would never demean or trivialize by calling it skill training. We experienced our own clinical pastoral process as transformative. We sought in creating CPSP to rekindle the transformative process that seemed to be diminishing in our professional lives. We constructed the Chapter model out of our memories of the clinical training group as the best hope for fostering continuing transformation, individually and corporately. Learn more about CPSP: College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy The College of Pastoral Supervision

The College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy Committed to Continuing Accountability, Standards of Excellence, and Diversity of Opportunity The College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy promotes competency and accountability through an ongoing process of peer review which is a central aspect of our covenant relationship and Chapter life. CPSP is unique among the national pastoral training and certifying organizations in that it is a covenant community. Within Chapter life, CPSP members covenant together to being held mutually responsible to one another for their ongoing professional development and direction. Credential’s held by CPSP members are renewed annually and contingent upon satisfactory participation in Chapter life and the Chapter's recommendation for renewal. CPSP understands its task to be first and foremost theological and that ongoing peer review is centered in the CPSP covenant. Believing that life is best lived by grace, the CPSP communit

Clinical Pastoral Education - An Historical Perspective: In the 1920’s theological education began to be profoundly reshaped by the medical model of education which itself was being transformed in response to the renowned Flexner Report of 1910. Theological education, which was at that point in history almost entirely academic, theoretical, and forensic began to change just as medical education was changing. Pastors began using the mentorship approach to learning “at the bedside” in contact with living persons and their problems. Thus, began the art and science of Clinical Pastoral Training or Education, the disciplined examination of specific cases of pastoral care and counseling, and the application of the clinical method to the work of ministry. Clinical Pastoral Education has come to be known as the study of persons and their problems of relating and structures of meaning. This training has become accepted as a formative component in the preparation of persons for religious mini