IST2012-1HY-SP14 - Pastoral Theology & Care

Instructors: Rev. Dr. Jason C. Whitehead, PhD, Paula Lee and Patrick Prag (Teaching Assistants)
E-mail: jwhitehead@iliff.edu
Office Hours: Mon, Tues, Thurs; 10-4

Course Synopsis

This course introduces the practice of pastoral and spiritual care based upon pastoral, theological, psychological and ethical perspectives. Basic methods and skills of pastoral and spiritual care will be taught, along with an intercultural contextual approach to care that draws upon postmodern approaches to religious knowledge. This course forms students to be pastoral and spiritual caregivers within a spiritually and socially complex world in ways that deeply engage religious and cultural traditions.

Books for the Course

Required

**Doehring, Carrie.  The Practice of Pastoral Care: A Postmodern Approach (2nd ed.).  Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2014.

** This year we will be testing the newest edition of Carrie Doehring's Introductory book in our class. The Word file is posted in the Canvas Files page for you to download. This version is vastly different from the previous text. The upside is that you don't have to buy the required text. The downside is that it is available in virtual form only.

Book Review List (Please choose one to read for this quarter)

Care of Persons, Care of Worlds: A Psychosystems Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling by Larry Graham. ISBN-10: 0687046750 (This book is reserved for students who have already taken a course in theology).

Basic Types of Pastoral Care and Counseling, 3rd Edition by Howard Clinebell. ISBN-10: 0687663806 This book was used as a textbook from the 70’s through the 90’s in more liberal seminaries.

Cultivating Wholeness: A Guide to Care and Counseling in Faith Communities ISBN-10: 0826412327 by Margaret Kornfeld. Also previously used as a textbook, Kornfeld takes a practical approach to teaching readers what to listen for and how to respond in care situations. Kornfeld was influenced by some of the more postmodern approaches to pastoral care and counseling.

Pastoral Care in Context ISBN-10: 0664220347 by John Patton. This text takes a broader view of spiritual/pastoral care, both theologically and historically. Patton highlights the limitations of clinical approaches to care, choosing instead to focus on the communal contextual nature of pastoral care.

Creamer, Debbie. Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities. New York : Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN-10: 0195369157

Leslie, Kristen Jane. When violence is no stranger: pastoral counseling with survivors of acquaintance rape. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002.ASIN: B002SG7N72

Marshall, Joretta L. Counseling Lesbian Partners. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997. ISBN-10: 0664255329

Montilla, R Esteban.  Pastoral Care and Counseling with Latino/as. Augsburg: Fortress Press, May, 2006. ISBN-10: 0800638204

Nelson, James.  Thirst: God and the Alcoholic Experience. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. ISBN-10: 0664226884

Neuger, Christie. Counseling Women: A Narrative, Pastoral Approach. Augsburg: Fortress, 2001. ASIN: B002SG6HVU

Thornton, Sharon G. Broken Yet Beloved: A Pastoral Theology of the Cross. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2002. (Choose this book if you have had at least one course in theology).  ISBN-10: 0827202326

Watkins Ali, Carroll. Survival and Liberation: Pastoral Theology in African American Context. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999. ISBN-10: 0827234430

Whitehead, Jason. Redeeming Fear: A Constructive Theology for Living into Hope. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013. ISBN-10: 0800699149

Wimberley, Edward. Counseling African American Marriages and Families. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997. ISBN-10: 0664256562

See Taylor Library's list of online book sellers for purchasing options.

 

Evaluation

You will be evaluated on your ability to faithfully follow through on the assignments below, both in spirit and in practice.

Instructions for each assignment can be found by following the links under each heading (still under construction at the moment).

 

 

Welcome to Pastoral Theology and Care!

 

Welcome to the online portal for Pastoral Theology and Care. This course is being redesigned this year, both virtually and structurally. Please take a moment and familiarize yourself with the course layout. Below you will find links to the various academic policies and resources we utilize in this course. Moreover, you will find a link to what will be expected of you throughout this quarter.

 

Part of the redesign of this course is a new required text, which also requires me to rewrite the lectures and assignments I have been using for the past three plus years. I am excited about the possibilities inherent in this endeavor. However, I also realize there will be growing pains. As we move through this course together, let us all do so with empathy, compassion, and an eye towards increasing our knowledge about and practice of pastoral theology and care.

 

As we engage one another as colleagues, let us do with one eye looking towards the past, our feet firmly planted in the present, and the other eye gazing towards the future. Your story of learning this quarter is part of a history leading up to this moment, but it also impacts future narratives of learning and care. Therefore, let us live together in the present, honoring our experiences and reflecting on how they might impact future communities of care that come into this learning process.

 

Course Objectives, Resources, Policies, and Goals

 

Books and Resources

Overview and Objectives

Evaluation

Policies And Services

Professional Confidentiality

 

How to Navigate this Course

Each week you will find a link to the lectures and assignments for this course on our homepage. When you arrive on the course page for that week you generally find the following headings:

 

Assignments:

 

Readings:

 

Additional Resources:

 

Lecture/Discussion:

 

Looking Ahead:

 

Here is what each heading will cover:

 

Assignments - This will encompass upcoming assignments, as well as, what will be required that week in the discussion board related to the lecture or videos you are asked to watch.

 

Readings - These are the readings for that week. Most likely, the readings will cover several chapters of Carrie Doehring's book. This may seem like a lot of reading; however, I tend to assign blocks of reading that cover multiple weeks of the quarter. Thus, a reading assignment of the Introduction and Chapters 1-3, might be the reading assignment for the first 3 weeks of the course.

 

Additional Resources - This heading explores additional resources that may pertain to our discussion. Most likely, these will be optional resources to explore that can help explain what we are talking about in class.

 

Lecture/Discussion - Under this heading you will find our weekly lectures, videos, and resources that form the primary interaction we will have in this course. Participation in the discussions on a weekly basis is mandatory for this course. Every Sunday a discussion board pertaining to that week's lectures will magically appear. You will have one week to read and reply to the discussion materials, readings, etc. (It will magically disappear on the following Sunday). The discussion boards are your opportunity to share what you are learning with your colleagues, as well as, teach and respond in meaningful ways to their posts. You can find guidelines for commenting and responding here.

 

Looking Ahead -This heading explores upcoming assignments and topics so that you can begin to think ahead about what will be required of you in the class.

 
 
 

 

Welcome to Pastoral Theology and Care!

 

Welcome to the online portal for Pastoral Theology and Care. This course is being redesigned this year, both virtually and structurally. Please take a moment and familiarize yourself with the course layout. Below you will find links to the various academic policies and resources we utilize in this course. Moreover, you will find a link to what will be expected of you throughout this quarter.

 

Part of the redesign of this course is a new required text, which also requires me to rewrite the lectures and assignments I have been using for the past three plus years. I am excited about the possibilities inherent in this endeavor. However, I also realize there will be growing pains. As we move through this course together, let us all do so with empathy, compassion, and an eye towards increasing our knowledge about and practice of pastoral theology and care.

 

As we engage one another as colleagues, let us do with one eye looking towards the past, our feet firmly planted in the present, and the other eye gazing towards the future. Your story of learning this quarter is part of a history leading up to this moment, but it also impacts future narratives of learning and care. Therefore, let us live together in the present, honoring our experiences and reflecting on how they might impact future communities of care that come into this learning process.

 

Course Objectives, Resources, Policies, and Goals

 

Books and Resources

Overview and Objectives

Evaluation

Policies And Services

Professional Confidentiality

 

How to Navigate this Course

Each week you will find a link to the lectures and assignments for this course on our homepage. When you arrive on the course page for that week you generally find the following headings:

 

Assignments:

 

Readings:

 

Additional Resources:

 

Lecture/Discussion:

 

Looking Ahead:

 

Here is what each heading will cover:

 

Assignments - This will encompass upcoming assignments, as well as, what will be required that week in the discussion board related to the lecture or videos you are asked to watch.

 

Readings - These are the readings for that week. Most likely, the readings will cover several chapters of Carrie Doehring's book. This may seem like a lot of reading; however, I tend to assign blocks of reading that cover multiple weeks of the quarter. Thus, a reading assignment of the Introduction and Chapters 1-3, might be the reading assignment for the first 3 weeks of the course.

 

Additional Resources - This heading explores additional resources that may pertain to our discussion. Most likely, these will be optional resources to explore that can help explain what we are talking about in class.

 

Lecture/Discussion - Under this heading you will find our weekly lectures, videos, and resources that form the primary interaction we will have in this course. Participation in the discussions on a weekly basis is mandatory for this course. Every Sunday a discussion board pertaining to that week's lectures will magically appear. You will have one week to read and reply to the discussion materials, readings, etc. (It will magically disappear on the following Sunday). The discussion boards are your opportunity to share what you are learning with your colleagues, as well as, teach and respond in meaningful ways to their posts. You can find guidelines for commenting and responding here.

 

Looking Ahead -This heading explores upcoming assignments and topics so that you can begin to think ahead about what will be required of you in the class.

 
 
 

Assignments: Telling our Stories - Due March 28th
Book Review Choice - Due March 28th
Lecture posting - Due March 30th

Readings:  Doehring - Introduction, Chapters 1-4

 

Additional Resources:

 

 

http://youtu.be/l7AWnfFRc7gThe Empathic Civilization ~10 min.

 

 

elements.jpg

 

 

Lecture/Discussion: The Elements of Care

Introduction

This week we are examining the basic elements of a care-giving relationship. We could all name significant themes and ideas that might inform the type of care we offer another human being. Today, I want to briefly look at four: empathy, empowerment, relationship, and openness. These four themes will continue to pop up at various times in the quarter, and I want to spend some time introducing each one of them here.

 

Empathy

We'll spend a good deal of time on empathy this quarter. Your compassion groups are exercises in an ongoing developmental process concerning being more empathic towards others and yourself. In our text, Carrie describes empathy as having "several components:

 

(a) Caregivers take the perspective of the other person

(b) Caregivers vicariously experience the care seeker’s affect

(c) Caregivers use emotion regulation in order to not be overwhelmed by the other’s emotional state or their own affective response. (Decety & Jackson, 2006, p. 54)

For most people empathy takes two basic forms: empathic concern prompting desires to help and empathic distress prompting desires to withdraw. Emotional regulation plays an important role in how people react to empathic experiences." (p. 81)

 

For those who are more visually minded, the following videos might help a little...

 

http://youtu.be/9_1Rt1R4xbM

 

If you find Murray and Mark a little elementary here is another video that examines the difference between empathy and sympathy...

 

http://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw

 

Empathy is one of the primary ingredients to a care-giving relationship as it connects us to the person and their experiences in life. Without it, you might as well try making Marinara Sauce without tomatoes. Without empathy there is no compassion, no real connection, no real risk in a pastoral conversation. Being with someone during the dark night of their soul, without becoming overwhelmed by the surroundings is a sacred place to be. It is empathy and compassion that helps us honor being in that place with someone.

Empowerment

The second component of our care-giving relationship is empowerment. Entering into the sacred places of another's life puts us in a powerful position. There are all manners of dynamics we need to be aware of in care-giving relationships, none more so than the distribution of power between yourself and a care-seeker.

For me, empowerment ties into the reason why we form these care-giving relationships in the first place. I see the care-giving relationship as being tied to our understanding of the "love ethic" (love of God, neighbor, and self, for you UUs out there, we might think of this in regard to the dignity and worth of humanity). Taken together these form a powerful image of how we are to relate to one another, and frames a beginning sense of power as relational rather than coersive or unilateral.

Robert Mesle, a process philosopher, described relational power as: 

 

(1) the ability to be actively open to and affected by the world around us; (2) the ability to create ourselves out of what we have taken in; and (3) the ability to influence those around us by having first been affected by them (Process Relational Philosophy, 2008, p. 73).

 

We exercise power in relationship with others, having first been open and receiving what they have to offer. I think this leads us to be empowering rather than powerful. Doehring mentions healing and justice as two key goals of a care-giving relationship and these are often aligned with empowering ways of relating as well. Some simple ways of thinking about empowerment in relationships are:

 

  • Person-first language (ie. - A person suffering from depression, rather than a depressed person); this enables us to see people as people and not people as problems.
  • Active listening - we will talk more about this in the coming weeks. In a nutshell it has to do with being able to reflect what someone is saying with a minimal interpretive/intuitive point added to the statement.
  • My personal favorites are stupidity and curiosity. We can't know what someone is experiencing and/or feeling related to an experience, we can only ask what it is like for them to live through it.


If you want to read another article on relational power, here is a link to one by Bernard Loomer, a process theologian.

 

A note from Patrick Prag: Empowerment also comes to our caregivers when we help them organize their feelings. We do not necessarily have to help them solve their problems but many times care seekers come to us because they do not have a safe, comfortable outlet to sharing their feelings. Or they are confused about what they do feel. For example: helping a careseeker explore her feelings about being disappointed with God may end up being very empowering when she realizes that you are a safe place to explore the full range of her faith experience.

Relationship

In the coming weeks, we will look at some ideas about healthy relationships and our limits (personally and professionally) as care-givers. As we dive into those topics, it will be helpful for you to think about these ideas of relational power and empathy and how they can form a core set of values that inform or theory or theology of care.

 

What I will say about relationships today is that we need to think broadly about pastoral and spiritual care. The issues we face with care-givers often have their roots in communal and cultural injustices. It is not enough for us to think of care-giving as dealing with an individual relationship. Rather, care-giving has far reaching relational implications. Engaging the broader community around issues of justice that develop in pastoral conversations (without the revealing the source of course) helps remind us of the larger implications of what it means to care for one another. As the title of Larry Graham's book suggests, care of persons means caring for the world, and caring for the world is a way to care for persons.

Openness

The final element to care-giving comes from our ability to be open to the people who seek us out. Carrie writes:

 

The process of care begins when caregivers enter into the care seeker’s story-making with a sense of wonder, awe, and humility, opening themselves up to the mystery of life narratives. (p. 9)

 

Openness to the mystery of life narratives; openness to the belief that even though something seems familiar, the story is always new and fresh; openness to the surprising resiliency of humanity in the face of overwhelming odds; openness to the simple ways that people resist the very stories that impact them in life-limiting ways.

Openness bears a striking semblance to curiosity. It means helping someone teach you what it means to be in their shoes. To be open is to realize that no matter how familiar the details, actors, action of a narrative, there is always something new to heard or discovered in its hearing.

Discussion/Response

 

elements-of-care doge.png

 

Pick one of the questions below and use it as the basis for your response to this week's lecture (posted as a reply below). As you are able, link it to your reading in Doehring's book, the book you are reviewing, and/or your own life experiences.

 

  1. You've read my four elements of care, what are some of the elements you would add to this list?
  2. Of the four elements, which do you feel will be the hardest for you to engage? Where do you feel you need to grow the most?
  3. According to your experience and thoughts, how would you rank these four in order of importance to the care-giving relationship? Or, if you have your own list how would you order it and describe it?
  4. Can you name a time recently when you experienced empathy from another person? What was the experience like for you?
  5. Name some of the qualities of openness that are important to you. What are some of the difficult aspects of this theme of care?

 

Looking Ahead:

Next week's lecture: Active Listening

Begin reading your book review choice.

Set-up a regular time to meet with your partner for the Compassion Exercise

Create your plan and explain it to your partner in the exercise

 

Assignments: Telling our Stories - Due March 28th
Book Review Choice - Due March 28th
Lecture posting - Due March 30th

Readings:  Doehring - Introduction, Chapters 1-4

 

Additional Resources:

 

 

http://youtu.be/l7AWnfFRc7gThe Empathic Civilization ~10 min.

 

 

elements.jpg

 

 

Lecture/Discussion: The Elements of Care

Introduction

This week we are examining the basic elements of a care-giving relationship. We could all name significant themes and ideas that might inform the type of care we offer another human being. Today, I want to briefly look at four: empathy, empowerment, relationship, and openness. These four themes will continue to pop up at various times in the quarter, and I want to spend some time introducing each one of them here.

 

Empathy

We'll spend a good deal of time on empathy this quarter. Your compassion groups are exercises in an ongoing developmental process concerning being more empathic towards others and yourself. In our text, Carrie describes empathy as having "several components:

 

(a) Caregivers take the perspective of the other person

(b) Caregivers vicariously experience the care seeker’s affect

(c) Caregivers use emotion regulation in order to not be overwhelmed by the other’s emotional state or their own affective response. (Decety & Jackson, 2006, p. 54)

For most people empathy takes two basic forms: empathic concern prompting desires to help and empathic distress prompting desires to withdraw. Emotional regulation plays an important role in how people react to empathic experiences." (p. 81)

 

For those who are more visually minded, the following videos might help a little...

 

http://youtu.be/9_1Rt1R4xbM

 

If you find Murray and Mark a little elementary here is another video that examines the difference between empathy and sympathy...

 

http://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw

 

Empathy is one of the primary ingredients to a care-giving relationship as it connects us to the person and their experiences in life. Without it, you might as well try making Marinara Sauce without tomatoes. Without empathy there is no compassion, no real connection, no real risk in a pastoral conversation. Being with someone during the dark night of their soul, without becoming overwhelmed by the surroundings is a sacred place to be. It is empathy and compassion that helps us honor being in that place with someone.

Empowerment

The second component of our care-giving relationship is empowerment. Entering into the sacred places of another's life puts us in a powerful position. There are all manners of dynamics we need to be aware of in care-giving relationships, none more so than the distribution of power between yourself and a care-seeker.

For me, empowerment ties into the reason why we form these care-giving relationships in the first place. I see the care-giving relationship as being tied to our understanding of the "love ethic" (love of God, neighbor, and self, for you UUs out there, we might think of this in regard to the dignity and worth of humanity). Taken together these form a powerful image of how we are to relate to one another, and frames a beginning sense of power as relational rather than coersive or unilateral.

Robert Mesle, a process philosopher, described relational power as: 

 

(1) the ability to be actively open to and affected by the world around us; (2) the ability to create ourselves out of what we have taken in; and (3) the ability to influence those around us by having first been affected by them (Process Relational Philosophy, 2008, p. 73).

 

We exercise power in relationship with others, having first been open and receiving what they have to offer. I think this leads us to be empowering rather than powerful. Doehring mentions healing and justice as two key goals of a care-giving relationship and these are often aligned with empowering ways of relating as well. Some simple ways of thinking about empowerment in relationships are:

 

  • Person-first language (ie. - A person suffering from depression, rather than a depressed person); this enables us to see people as people and not people as problems.
  • Active listening - we will talk more about this in the coming weeks. In a nutshell it has to do with being able to reflect what someone is saying with a minimal interpretive/intuitive point added to the statement.
  • My personal favorites are stupidity and curiosity. We can't know what someone is experiencing and/or feeling related to an experience, we can only ask what it is like for them to live through it.


If you want to read another article on relational power, here is a link to one by Bernard Loomer, a process theologian.

 

A note from Patrick Prag: Empowerment also comes to our caregivers when we help them organize their feelings. We do not necessarily have to help them solve their problems but many times care seekers come to us because they do not have a safe, comfortable outlet to sharing their feelings. Or they are confused about what they do feel. For example: helping a careseeker explore her feelings about being disappointed with God may end up being very empowering when she realizes that you are a safe place to explore the full range of her faith experience.

Relationship

In the coming weeks, we will look at some ideas about healthy relationships and our limits (personally and professionally) as care-givers. As we dive into those topics, it will be helpful for you to think about these ideas of relational power and empathy and how they can form a core set of values that inform or theory or theology of care.

 

What I will say about relationships today is that we need to think broadly about pastoral and spiritual care. The issues we face with care-givers often have their roots in communal and cultural injustices. It is not enough for us to think of care-giving as dealing with an individual relationship. Rather, care-giving has far reaching relational implications. Engaging the broader community around issues of justice that develop in pastoral conversations (without the revealing the source of course) helps remind us of the larger implications of what it means to care for one another. As the title of Larry Graham's book suggests, care of persons means caring for the world, and caring for the world is a way to care for persons.

Openness

The final element to care-giving comes from our ability to be open to the people who seek us out. Carrie writes:

 

The process of care begins when caregivers enter into the care seeker’s story-making with a sense of wonder, awe, and humility, opening themselves up to the mystery of life narratives. (p. 9)

 

Openness to the mystery of life narratives; openness to the belief that even though something seems familiar, the story is always new and fresh; openness to the surprising resiliency of humanity in the face of overwhelming odds; openness to the simple ways that people resist the very stories that impact them in life-limiting ways.

Openness bears a striking semblance to curiosity. It means helping someone teach you what it means to be in their shoes. To be open is to realize that no matter how familiar the details, actors, action of a narrative, there is always something new to heard or discovered in its hearing.

Discussion/Response

 

elements-of-care doge.png

 

Pick one of the questions below and use it as the basis for your response to this week's lecture (posted as a reply below). As you are able, link it to your reading in Doehring's book, the book you are reviewing, and/or your own life experiences.

 

  1. You've read my four elements of care, what are some of the elements you would add to this list?
  2. Of the four elements, which do you feel will be the hardest for you to engage? Where do you feel you need to grow the most?
  3. According to your experience and thoughts, how would you rank these four in order of importance to the care-giving relationship? Or, if you have your own list how would you order it and describe it?
  4. Can you name a time recently when you experienced empathy from another person? What was the experience like for you?
  5. Name some of the qualities of openness that are important to you. What are some of the difficult aspects of this theme of care?

 

Looking Ahead:

Next week's lecture: Active Listening

Begin reading your book review choice.

Set-up a regular time to meet with your partner for the Compassion Exercise

Create your plan and explain it to your partner in the exercise

 

 

Assignments:

Lecture Posting - Due April 6th

Compassion Group Summary - Due April 6th

Compassion plan - Due April 6th

Readings: Doehring - Introduction, Chapters 1-4
Additional Resources:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3MCJZ7OGRk&feature=share&list=PL0Iq5_Y7Dui-KRC5Z4ordPG1j7syCsLhq

 

 

 

listening.jpg

 

Lecture/Discussion:

Introduction

This week we will be looking at what it means to be an active listener in a conversation. In the additional resources section you will find a video on Motivational Interviewing that I would also recommend you take a look at as we go through this course.

 

Listening

Listening in a care-giving relationship is more an art than a science. Certainly, we can practice particular techniques and hone our listening skills; however, in the end we are called upon to put together the pieces of someone's experiences we are given into a more complete picture. When we enter a care-giving relationship, it most often revolves around a problem, experience or situation that dominates a care-receiver's field of vision.

 

Our role is to not only hear the details of what is being said but also to take small interpretive risks. We do this in order to help others develop a clearer a snapshot of who they are in this moment. While some of this will seem natural to many of you, I would challenge you to remember that being an active embodied listener in a care-giving relationship is part of our lifelong learning. Carrie outlines the role listening plays in the care-giving relationship on page 31 in her book (the graph).

 

Listening has been talked about in many ways, two of which we will examine today. The first is found in the third Chapter of Carrie's book, embodied listening; the second, active listening, is a phrase often used in psychological circles to denote a particular practical style of listening. Finally, this lecture ends with some of the basic ideas of Motivational Interviewing.

Embodied Listening 

 

Carrie begins her third chapter with these words "Communication is more than words. Our bodies convey a lived theology that may not be fully integrated with what we say we believe and value—our espoused theology" (p. 100). Embodied listening, as I understand it, is a stance towards the self, others, and the world. It is a way of seeing the relational dynamics of a care-giving relationship that orients it towards greater compassion and respect.

 

Embodied listening begins with a reflective understanding of the self and the narratives that guide how we understand the world. In conversations with others we experience an embodied reaction to what we hear, see, smell, and so forth. All of these cues signal particular reactions in us and, as a result, we respond in particular ways to the people in front of us. Out of this processed reflexivity, we can develop a greater awareness of our own triggers, but also begin to incorporate a more compassionate stance toward the other. The compassion exercise we are doing this quarter is one way of beginning to reflect on the triggers in our lives and develop an awareness of how we respond to others in constructive and destructive ways.

 

Embodied listening can help us understand a bit better the "why" of how we react to certain situations and people. Moreover, because of its inherent emotional component, there is the possibility of hearing another through a wider lens of justice. One that points us in the direction of passionate action on behalf of justice and change as we broaden the narratives of another to include issues of oppression and culturally derived life-limiting narratives. (For those who are so inclined to know a bit more, narrative therapy and practice is based on the ideas of a socially constructed reality. Inherent in the practice of narrative therapists is a broader approach that seeks justice on a communal and cultural level for people who's lives are impacted by culturally-derived life, if you are interested in more resources, just ask me).

 

Embodied listening also sets us up to hear another person's stories through our "best" self. It allows us to experience compassion for what we bring with us, so that we might share that experience of compassion with another. Basically, it sets us up to listen actively and seek appropriate, empowered forms of change.

Active Listening

 

We all get distracted while conversing with others, our wheels are turning and anxiety kicks in as we look for answers; thus, there is no perfect pastoral presence. However, with practice we can shorten the duration of our distraction, putting it in the appropriate place so that we can get back to the relationship at hand. Then, rather than worrying about fixing or solving, we can be about the task of bearing gifts we are given in the form of the stories and struggles of another.

 

Active listening is a particular way of hearing, using our embodied selves. It uses a variety of techniques to co-create a thick description of a care-receiver's experiences. In the edition of her book, Carrie names the particulars of active-listening as: paraphrasing, clarifying, interpreting and appropriate self-disclosure (p. 37). Used appropriately, these four tools can help us clarify and make more complex the stories that people share with us. This, in turn, can help them place an event in the larger context of their lives. Below you will find a brief description of each of these listening tools:

 

  • Paraphrasing - Paraphrasing is similar to writing a book report on a story you just read. It involves carefully listening to the plot, characters and action of the story being told and then summarizing that story back to the person who gave to you.
  • Clarifying -Clarifying is most often an exercise in the careful questioning. It is not about a personal search for more facts or information, though you might learn a bit more from a persons answers to your questions. Clarifying questions help the care-receiver dive into the complexity of their stories and search for connections that will help them understand it differently.
  • Interpreting -Interpreting is where most of the risk in a pastoral care conversation is taken by you, the care-giver. Interpreting is not about doling out wisdom or wrapping things up in a neat package to give to the care-receiver. To interpret is to take a tentative step in putting together the pieces of a story and then seeking the care-receiver's input as to whether the interpretation was correct. Interpretive statements might give voice to an emotion the care-receiver exhibits but is not naming; or, it might make a judgment statement that seems obvious, but unnamed. We cannot be tied to our own interpretations, as they are meant to be a small gift to the care-receiver to unpack and see if it fits what they are describing.
  • Self-disclosure -We cannot go anywhere without taking our selves with us. No conversation is devoid of our perspective, experiences and memories. My understanding concerning self-disclosure in pastoral care settings boils down to asking ourselves the question: "how do we think a personal story will help the care-receiver?" If we think a personal experience will help a care-receiver see their own story differently and perhaps more clearly, then self-disclosure may provide a vital connection in a caring relationship. On the other hand, if a story we are about to tell speaks only of the great way we handled a situation, then it may distract from the pastoral tasks at. Remember, once you self-disclose, that story becomes a part of the conversation, we should make sure that it will contribute rather than distract from what is happening.

 

For those who are a bit more visually minded, check out the following chart from Imelda Bickham, an organizational consultant, about different levels of active listening:

 

Active-listening-chart week 2.png

 

Active listening coupled with a stance of embodied listening provides a powerful praxis (practice + theory) for grounding our care of one another. Listening with compassion; hearing through our own processed reality; grounding ourselves in the idea that most people already have the solutions they seek; all of these give us the tools and perspectives needed to care for another person; to interview them as they seek to rewrite the narratives that limit their lives.

 

Motivational Interviewing

Carrie grounds the care-giving process in the techniques of Motivational Interviewing (p. 105), which she lists as "partnership, acceptance, compassion and evocation (eliciting the care seeker’s perspectives, strengths, and motivation) (Miller & Rollnick, 2012, p. 15), all of which are conveyed in words, tone of voice, facial expression, and body language" (p. 105). Take at the chart below, copied from Carrie's book (p. 107). It takes you through the types of responses you might utilize in a care-giving relationship. I found this helpful in beginning to think about how I might categorize some of my own conversations and the intent of the words I used in conversation with others.

 

Typology

Phases of Intercultural Care

Descriptions

Verbal Examples

Power Dynamics

Following/ Asking

(F-A)

Establishing trust by inviting care seekers to take the lead; expressing compassion in body language

Asking open-ended questions typically used to start a conversation; using a soft tone of voice, softened facial muscles, and a calm demeanor

“How are things going?”

Care seeker uses agential power in telling his or her story.

Caregiver uses receptive power in stepping with compassion into the care seeker’s world.

Following/ Listening (F-L)

Establishing trust and conveying compassion by echoing back words and phrases care seekers use in a gentle nonjudgmental way.

Listening with responses that indicate caregivers are following closely.

“Hmm-hmm”

Nodding silently

Invitations to say more

Following/ informing (F-I)

Establishing trust by only asking for information that is closely related to what the care seeker has already shared

Following closely on a care seeker’s explicit or implicit need for information, caregivers would normally ask permission before shifting into informing

“I have had some experience with that [problem/issue]; would it be helpful to hear about that?”

Guiding/ Asking

 (G-A)

Once trust is established, asking questions that use paraphrases that begin to co-create meanings

Asking open ended questions that use paraphrases to guide the conversation, often towards co-creating meanings and finding spiritual practices that help

“What happens when you try to [change that behavior]?”

Care seeker predominately uses agential power;

Caregiver predominantly uses receptive power and uses agential power to the extent of guiding co-creation of meanings and exploring spiritual practices

Guiding/ Listening (G-L)

Once trust is established, listening closely to how care seekers respond to the process of co-creating meanings

Following the care seeker’s lead closely and beginning to offer paraphrasing responses to guide the conversation

“I’m interested in hearing more about how this [paraphrase by introducing closely related ways of describing the care seeker’s experience]”

Guiding/ Informing (G-I)

Once trust is established and compassion has been conveyed, beginning to co-create meanings by sharing information

Asking permission to guide the conversation by sharing information that comes out of the co-creating phase

“I’m familiar with what has helped other people with this problem. I’d like to share some of that information with you…”

Directing/ Listening (D-L)

Caregivers take the lead temporarily by noting something they want to follow up on, usually to do with the contract of care or assessing risk.

Listening to how people respond and noting if there is something you want to (1) talk about later, or (2) ask permission to

 talk about later

“I want to hear more about this, and I may need to follow up with some questions of my own.”

Caregiver takes the lead, after asking permission, usually to clarify the implicit or explicit contract of care or assess risk.

Directing/ Asking

(D-A)

Caregivers take the lead by asking about something they want to follow up on, usually to do with the contract of care or assessing risk.

Taking the lead by summing up and paraphrasing, and asking question based on co-created meanings

 

“Could I stop you for a moment and ask a question about how safe you feel right now?”

Directing/ Informing (D-I)

Caregivers take the lead, often temporarily, by informing care seekers, usually about the contract of care or assessing risk.

Taking the lead, often in the last stages of a conversation or at important turning point, about what’s next, especially if care seekers want/need/or ask for specific information.

“I need to stop you for a moment and let you know about the limits of confidentiality.”

 

Discussion Questions:

Pick one question and answer it.

  1. Where do you find yourself gravitating when you read about these various types of listening? What is it in your experience that draws your attention to those particular words or formulations?
  2. How would you describe your ethic of care? What inner voice/experiences/narratives guide you when you speak words of compassion to another person?
  3. When you think of the varieties of listening and typologies of responses, what seems like a most natural fit for you?
Looking Ahead:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments:

Lecture Posting - Due April 6th

Compassion Group Summary - Due April 6th

Compassion plan - Due April 6th

Readings: Doehring - Introduction, Chapters 1-4
Additional Resources:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3MCJZ7OGRk&feature=share&list=PL0Iq5_Y7Dui-KRC5Z4ordPG1j7syCsLhq

 

 

 

listening.jpg

 

Lecture/Discussion:

Introduction

This week we will be looking at what it means to be an active listener in a conversation. In the additional resources section you will find a video on Motivational Interviewing that I would also recommend you take a look at as we go through this course.

 

Listening

Listening in a care-giving relationship is more an art than a science. Certainly, we can practice particular techniques and hone our listening skills; however, in the end we are called upon to put together the pieces of someone's experiences we are given into a more complete picture. When we enter a care-giving relationship, it most often revolves around a problem, experience or situation that dominates a care-receiver's field of vision.

 

Our role is to not only hear the details of what is being said but also to take small interpretive risks. We do this in order to help others develop a clearer a snapshot of who they are in this moment. While some of this will seem natural to many of you, I would challenge you to remember that being an active embodied listener in a care-giving relationship is part of our lifelong learning. Carrie outlines the role listening plays in the care-giving relationship on page 31 in her book (the graph).

 

Listening has been talked about in many ways, two of which we will examine today. The first is found in the third Chapter of Carrie's book, embodied listening; the second, active listening, is a phrase often used in psychological circles to denote a particular practical style of listening. Finally, this lecture ends with some of the basic ideas of Motivational Interviewing.

Embodied Listening 

 

Carrie begins her third chapter with these words "Communication is more than words. Our bodies convey a lived theology that may not be fully integrated with what we say we believe and value—our espoused theology" (p. 100). Embodied listening, as I understand it, is a stance towards the self, others, and the world. It is a way of seeing the relational dynamics of a care-giving relationship that orients it towards greater compassion and respect.

 

Embodied listening begins with a reflective understanding of the self and the narratives that guide how we understand the world. In conversations with others we experience an embodied reaction to what we hear, see, smell, and so forth. All of these cues signal particular reactions in us and, as a result, we respond in particular ways to the people in front of us. Out of this processed reflexivity, we can develop a greater awareness of our own triggers, but also begin to incorporate a more compassionate stance toward the other. The compassion exercise we are doing this quarter is one way of beginning to reflect on the triggers in our lives and develop an awareness of how we respond to others in constructive and destructive ways.

 

Embodied listening can help us understand a bit better the "why" of how we react to certain situations and people. Moreover, because of its inherent emotional component, there is the possibility of hearing another through a wider lens of justice. One that points us in the direction of passionate action on behalf of justice and change as we broaden the narratives of another to include issues of oppression and culturally derived life-limiting narratives. (For those who are so inclined to know a bit more, narrative therapy and practice is based on the ideas of a socially constructed reality. Inherent in the practice of narrative therapists is a broader approach that seeks justice on a communal and cultural level for people who's lives are impacted by culturally-derived life, if you are interested in more resources, just ask me).

 

Embodied listening also sets us up to hear another person's stories through our "best" self. It allows us to experience compassion for what we bring with us, so that we might share that experience of compassion with another. Basically, it sets us up to listen actively and seek appropriate, empowered forms of change.

Active Listening

 

We all get distracted while conversing with others, our wheels are turning and anxiety kicks in as we look for answers; thus, there is no perfect pastoral presence. However, with practice we can shorten the duration of our distraction, putting it in the appropriate place so that we can get back to the relationship at hand. Then, rather than worrying about fixing or solving, we can be about the task of bearing gifts we are given in the form of the stories and struggles of another.

 

Active listening is a particular way of hearing, using our embodied selves. It uses a variety of techniques to co-create a thick description of a care-receiver's experiences. In the edition of her book, Carrie names the particulars of active-listening as: paraphrasing, clarifying, interpreting and appropriate self-disclosure (p. 37). Used appropriately, these four tools can help us clarify and make more complex the stories that people share with us. This, in turn, can help them place an event in the larger context of their lives. Below you will find a brief description of each of these listening tools:

 

  • Paraphrasing - Paraphrasing is similar to writing a book report on a story you just read. It involves carefully listening to the plot, characters and action of the story being told and then summarizing that story back to the person who gave to you.
  • Clarifying -Clarifying is most often an exercise in the careful questioning. It is not about a personal search for more facts or information, though you might learn a bit more from a persons answers to your questions. Clarifying questions help the care-receiver dive into the complexity of their stories and search for connections that will help them understand it differently.
  • Interpreting -Interpreting is where most of the risk in a pastoral care conversation is taken by you, the care-giver. Interpreting is not about doling out wisdom or wrapping things up in a neat package to give to the care-receiver. To interpret is to take a tentative step in putting together the pieces of a story and then seeking the care-receiver's input as to whether the interpretation was correct. Interpretive statements might give voice to an emotion the care-receiver exhibits but is not naming; or, it might make a judgment statement that seems obvious, but unnamed. We cannot be tied to our own interpretations, as they are meant to be a small gift to the care-receiver to unpack and see if it fits what they are describing.
  • Self-disclosure -We cannot go anywhere without taking our selves with us. No conversation is devoid of our perspective, experiences and memories. My understanding concerning self-disclosure in pastoral care settings boils down to asking ourselves the question: "how do we think a personal story will help the care-receiver?" If we think a personal experience will help a care-receiver see their own story differently and perhaps more clearly, then self-disclosure may provide a vital connection in a caring relationship. On the other hand, if a story we are about to tell speaks only of the great way we handled a situation, then it may distract from the pastoral tasks at. Remember, once you self-disclose, that story becomes a part of the conversation, we should make sure that it will contribute rather than distract from what is happening.

 

For those who are a bit more visually minded, check out the following chart from Imelda Bickham, an organizational consultant, about different levels of active listening:

 

Active-listening-chart week 2.png

 

Active listening coupled with a stance of embodied listening provides a powerful praxis (practice + theory) for grounding our care of one another. Listening with compassion; hearing through our own processed reality; grounding ourselves in the idea that most people already have the solutions they seek; all of these give us the tools and perspectives needed to care for another person; to interview them as they seek to rewrite the narratives that limit their lives.

 

Motivational Interviewing

Carrie grounds the care-giving process in the techniques of Motivational Interviewing (p. 105), which she lists as "partnership, acceptance, compassion and evocation (eliciting the care seeker’s perspectives, strengths, and motivation) (Miller & Rollnick, 2012, p. 15), all of which are conveyed in words, tone of voice, facial expression, and body language" (p. 105). Take at the chart below, copied from Carrie's book (p. 107). It takes you through the types of responses you might utilize in a care-giving relationship. I found this helpful in beginning to think about how I might categorize some of my own conversations and the intent of the words I used in conversation with others.

 

Typology

Phases of Intercultural Care

Descriptions

Verbal Examples

Power Dynamics

Following/ Asking

(F-A)

Establishing trust by inviting care seekers to take the lead; expressing compassion in body language

Asking open-ended questions typically used to start a conversation; using a soft tone of voice, softened facial muscles, and a calm demeanor

“How are things going?”

Care seeker uses agential power in telling his or her story.

Caregiver uses receptive power in stepping with compassion into the care seeker’s world.

Following/ Listening (F-L)

Establishing trust and conveying compassion by echoing back words and phrases care seekers use in a gentle nonjudgmental way.

Listening with responses that indicate caregivers are following closely.

“Hmm-hmm”

Nodding silently

Invitations to say more

Following/ informing (F-I)

Establishing trust by only asking for information that is closely related to what the care seeker has already shared

Following closely on a care seeker’s explicit or implicit need for information, caregivers would normally ask permission before shifting into informing

“I have had some experience with that [problem/issue]; would it be helpful to hear about that?”

Guiding/ Asking

 (G-A)

Once trust is established, asking questions that use paraphrases that begin to co-create meanings

Asking open ended questions that use paraphrases to guide the conversation, often towards co-creating meanings and finding spiritual practices that help

“What happens when you try to [change that behavior]?”

Care seeker predominately uses agential power;

Caregiver predominantly uses receptive power and uses agential power to the extent of guiding co-creation of meanings and exploring spiritual practices

Guiding/ Listening (G-L)

Once trust is established, listening closely to how care seekers respond to the process of co-creating meanings

Following the care seeker’s lead closely and beginning to offer paraphrasing responses to guide the conversation

“I’m interested in hearing more about how this [paraphrase by introducing closely related ways of describing the care seeker’s experience]”

Guiding/ Informing (G-I)

Once trust is established and compassion has been conveyed, beginning to co-create meanings by sharing information

Asking permission to guide the conversation by sharing information that comes out of the co-creating phase

“I’m familiar with what has helped other people with this problem. I’d like to share some of that information with you…”

Directing/ Listening (D-L)

Caregivers take the lead temporarily by noting something they want to follow up on, usually to do with the contract of care or assessing risk.

Listening to how people respond and noting if there is something you want to (1) talk about later, or (2) ask permission to

 talk about later

“I want to hear more about this, and I may need to follow up with some questions of my own.”

Caregiver takes the lead, after asking permission, usually to clarify the implicit or explicit contract of care or assess risk.

Directing/ Asking

(D-A)

Caregivers take the lead by asking about something they want to follow up on, usually to do with the contract of care or assessing risk.

Taking the lead by summing up and paraphrasing, and asking question based on co-created meanings

 

“Could I stop you for a moment and ask a question about how safe you feel right now?”

Directing/ Informing (D-I)

Caregivers take the lead, often temporarily, by informing care seekers, usually about the contract of care or assessing risk.

Taking the lead, often in the last stages of a conversation or at important turning point, about what’s next, especially if care seekers want/need/or ask for specific information.

“I need to stop you for a moment and let you know about the limits of confidentiality.”

 

Discussion Questions:

Pick one question and answer it.

  1. Where do you find yourself gravitating when you read about these various types of listening? What is it in your experience that draws your attention to those particular words or formulations?
  2. How would you describe your ethic of care? What inner voice/experiences/narratives guide you when you speak words of compassion to another person?
  3. When you think of the varieties of listening and typologies of responses, what seems like a most natural fit for you?
Looking Ahead:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments:

Lecture Posting - Due April 13th

Compassion Summary - Due April 13th

Readings: Doehring - Introduction, Chapters 1-4
Additional Resources:  Relationships, Not Boundaries - Combs & Freedman

 

 

relationships.jpg

 

Lecture/Discussion:

Introduction

Good fences make for good neighbors, or so the saying goes. The implication of this statement is that to interact with one another in helpful and meaningful ways, good rigid boundaries should be erected and rarely crossed. I struggle with this kind of metaphor for spiritual care relationships, only because it implies that real care happens from a distance and that healthy boundaries are what we should strive to attain in all of our relationships.

 

yunolike boundaries.jpg

 

From my perspective, I believe we should strive for the creation of healthy relationships rather than solely focus on boundaries. This imperative comes from my readings of postmodern literature on how therapy, and by extension the care-giving relationship, can be empowering and meaningful. The compelling reason to care for another person (for me at least) stems from the love ethic (love of God, neighbor and self (those in Unitarian traditions might see this evident in the imperative related to the inherent dignity and self-worth of all humanity). This requires us to relate to one another rather than hold them at a cold clinical distance. In order to establish healthy relationships, we must understand what we believe about people, power and problems.

People

I believe a healthy relationship begins with believing in the dignity and value of the person in front of us. Out of that belief, we can develop a sense of respect for them, and come to the conclusion that to value them is to create situations in which they are empowered in life-giving ways. What this does is create a set of intrinsic rules that we might follow in order to maintain a healthy relationship with someone. We would probably study ideas about emotional, mental and physical abuse, such that they would never cross our minds as being a part of a healthy relationship.

 

The other way that we see people through a healthy lens is by affirming their control over their stories and how they are interpreted. I interpret Carrie talking about this as people exercising authority over their experiences (stories). People in healthy relationships are more apt to affirm the experiences and interpretations that someone brings with them. This is an affirmation that grows out of an understanding of our essential createdness and the value as a creation.

 

As Process Philosopher Robert Mesle states “To be fully unilaterally powerful, I must not be affected by people, and that means I must not care about them. Healthy caring love is just the opposite: the more we love, the more we open ourselves up to being affected by the other.” (Process Relational Philosophy, 2008, pp. 70-71). Notice that a healthy caring love for another is not indicated by how much we affect them; instead it is a mutual sense of being affected by one another, with us as an open caregiver being the first to be affected.

Power

Healthy relationships value the role that power plays in the dynamics of our interactions with one another. Part of realizing the role that power plays in relationships is through self-awareness and how we continue the process of reflection during our conversations. The more we are able to see people as authoritative and as experts on their own life and stories, the more we are able to step back and empower them to respond to what they experience.

Take a look at the picture below that represents Carrie’s thoughts on the different ways power is utilized in caring relationships.

 

power_dynamics week 3.jpg

(Chart based on Carrie's Doehring's lecture notes)

We all use different forms of power in the relationships we have with others. Even in the midst of these relationships we can the gamut from disengaged to merged, over-powered to over-powering, to empathic, self-aware and empowering. Healthy relationships require us to maintain a constant level of self-reflectiveness related to how we use and even misuse power. We do this as we continually strive to occupy that middle space rather than only seeing people and relationships through one quadrant or another.

 

As you go back through your verbatim, how do you see yourself utilizing varying types of power throughout the conversation? Where do you see yourself empowering, fixing, distancing, merging, overwhelmed, etc.?

Problems

I alluded to this briefly in the first lecture when talking about person-first language. Simply put, people are not problems, nor are they the problems they bring with them. Jamie mentioned that people often have the answers they are seeking within themselves. Our task as caregivers is to help provide the safe place in which these can be discovered. Sometimes this happens because of things we say; sometimes it happens in spite of the things we say.

A healthy stance towards relationships helps us discard the role of “fixer” for one that better respects the solutions a person holds within themselves. It sees our task as bearing witness to the search that someone endeavors to find possibilities they have lost sight of in life.

So, what do you do with this? How does the language of boundaries help or harm the way we shape our relationships and attitudes towards others? What other fundamental pieces of a healthy relationship aren’t being addressed?

Discussion Questions

  1. I can imagine that thinking about relationships and boundaries in this manner is quite different for many of you. As you ponder these ideas what questions do you have?
  2. Of power, people, and problems, where do you find yourself drawn? What do you feel like you need to know more about?
  3. Think about a recent experience when you offered care to another person; looking at Carrie's graph where would you place yourself on the graph between over or under-powered, disengaged-merged? Reflecting on this, what does it tell you about what you need to learn about care-giving?
  4. How do you relate this idea of healthy boundaries and the use of power having been affected by the other to Carrie's idea of embodied listening?

Looking Ahead:

Next week's lecture - Effective Limits

Begin thinking about your Case Study Assignment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments:

Lecture Posting - Due April 13th

Compassion Summary - Due April 13th

Readings: Doehring - Introduction, Chapters 1-4
Additional Resources:  Relationships, Not Boundaries - Combs & Freedman

 

 

relationships.jpg

 

Lecture/Discussion:

Introduction

Good fences make for good neighbors, or so the saying goes. The implication of this statement is that to interact with one another in helpful and meaningful ways, good rigid boundaries should be erected and rarely crossed. I struggle with this kind of metaphor for spiritual care relationships, only because it implies that real care happens from a distance and that healthy boundaries are what we should strive to attain in all of our relationships.

 

yunolike boundaries.jpg

 

From my perspective, I believe we should strive for the creation of healthy relationships rather than solely focus on boundaries. This imperative comes from my readings of postmodern literature on how therapy, and by extension the care-giving relationship, can be empowering and meaningful. The compelling reason to care for another person (for me at least) stems from the love ethic (love of God, neighbor and self (those in Unitarian traditions might see this evident in the imperative related to the inherent dignity and self-worth of all humanity). This requires us to relate to one another rather than hold them at a cold clinical distance. In order to establish healthy relationships, we must understand what we believe about people, power and problems.

People

I believe a healthy relationship begins with believing in the dignity and value of the person in front of us. Out of that belief, we can develop a sense of respect for them, and come to the conclusion that to value them is to create situations in which they are empowered in life-giving ways. What this does is create a set of intrinsic rules that we might follow in order to maintain a healthy relationship with someone. We would probably study ideas about emotional, mental and physical abuse, such that they would never cross our minds as being a part of a healthy relationship.

 

The other way that we see people through a healthy lens is by affirming their control over their stories and how they are interpreted. I interpret Carrie talking about this as people exercising authority over their experiences (stories). People in healthy relationships are more apt to affirm the experiences and interpretations that someone brings with them. This is an affirmation that grows out of an understanding of our essential createdness and the value as a creation.

 

As Process Philosopher Robert Mesle states “To be fully unilaterally powerful, I must not be affected by people, and that means I must not care about them. Healthy caring love is just the opposite: the more we love, the more we open ourselves up to being affected by the other.” (Process Relational Philosophy, 2008, pp. 70-71). Notice that a healthy caring love for another is not indicated by how much we affect them; instead it is a mutual sense of being affected by one another, with us as an open caregiver being the first to be affected.

Power

Healthy relationships value the role that power plays in the dynamics of our interactions with one another. Part of realizing the role that power plays in relationships is through self-awareness and how we continue the process of reflection during our conversations. The more we are able to see people as authoritative and as experts on their own life and stories, the more we are able to step back and empower them to respond to what they experience.

Take a look at the picture below that represents Carrie’s thoughts on the different ways power is utilized in caring relationships.

 

power_dynamics week 3.jpg

(Chart based on Carrie's Doehring's lecture notes)

We all use different forms of power in the relationships we have with others. Even in the midst of these relationships we can the gamut from disengaged to merged, over-powered to over-powering, to empathic, self-aware and empowering. Healthy relationships require us to maintain a constant level of self-reflectiveness related to how we use and even misuse power. We do this as we continually strive to occupy that middle space rather than only seeing people and relationships through one quadrant or another.

 

As you go back through your verbatim, how do you see yourself utilizing varying types of power throughout the conversation? Where do you see yourself empowering, fixing, distancing, merging, overwhelmed, etc.?

Problems

I alluded to this briefly in the first lecture when talking about person-first language. Simply put, people are not problems, nor are they the problems they bring with them. Jamie mentioned that people often have the answers they are seeking within themselves. Our task as caregivers is to help provide the safe place in which these can be discovered. Sometimes this happens because of things we say; sometimes it happens in spite of the things we say.

A healthy stance towards relationships helps us discard the role of “fixer” for one that better respects the solutions a person holds within themselves. It sees our task as bearing witness to the search that someone endeavors to find possibilities they have lost sight of in life.

So, what do you do with this? How does the language of boundaries help or harm the way we shape our relationships and attitudes towards others? What other fundamental pieces of a healthy relationship aren’t being addressed?

Discussion Questions

  1. I can imagine that thinking about relationships and boundaries in this manner is quite different for many of you. As you ponder these ideas what questions do you have?
  2. Of power, people, and problems, where do you find yourself drawn? What do you feel like you need to know more about?
  3. Think about a recent experience when you offered care to another person; looking at Carrie's graph where would you place yourself on the graph between over or under-powered, disengaged-merged? Reflecting on this, what does it tell you about what you need to learn about care-giving?
  4. How do you relate this idea of healthy boundaries and the use of power having been affected by the other to Carrie's idea of embodied listening?

Looking Ahead:

Next week's lecture - Effective Limits

Begin thinking about your Case Study Assignment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Assignments:

 Lecture Posting - Due April 20th

Compassion Group Summary - Due April 20th

 Readings:  Doehring - Introduction, Chapters 1-4
 Resources:  

 

 

boundaries week 3.jpg

 

Lecture/Discussion:

The following lecture, provided by Jamie Beachy, a colleague in ministry, is designed to be read as a guide or protocol for establishing safety and assessing situations that require outside referral in pastoral situations. Establishing safety for ourselves, the communities we are responsible to, and those who seek our care is a fundamental skill and responsibility for religious leaders.

 

There was supposed to be a video here that was not longer on YouTube, sorry.

 

The following dimensions of crisis response and referral will not always happen in the order presented and will need to be revisited as each encounter unfolds. Reflect on the following recommendations in light of the video and/or other pastoral crises you have experienced or heard about in the media.

I. Assessment:

First ask yourself:  Are you or the care seeker in immediate danger? Is anyone else in the care seeker’s world in imminent risk as a result of this crisis? If so, take initiative quickly and clarify an appropriate response.  It was unclear in the video whether physical violence was a part of the family's experience.  If Kani had reported physical abuse and you were her pastor, what might be some ways of intervening?  Note that if children who are minors are at risk, it would be legally necessary to report the abuse to the local authorities, even if child abuse is discovered during a ritual of confession or a counseling session (unless you are a Roman Catholic priest, then it would be important to know the policies of your Diocese or Order and have identified strategies for intervening in the abuse). 

 

Move to a more public setting if you do not feel safe in the situation and involve outside help if needed. Have a plan for dealing with high risk individuals who may show up unannounced, threatening your safety and the safety of others.

 

Examples:

 

“Let’s take a walk down to the coffee shop and talk more there. I have been here in the office all day and would like to buy us both a snack or something to drink.”

 

“It sounds like your wife is saying strange and alarming things that concern you. She is home alone with the kids and you are afraid she might harm them. We need to get your kids to a safe place as soon as possible while we sort this out.”

 

Consider having a code word for contacting the police/hospital security that is known among the congregational staff or chaplaincy team but would not be recognized by a dangerous or at-risk visitor.

 

Once safety has been established, explore ways to stabilize the crisis.  Find a peaceful space to meet. Focus on providing a calm pastoral presence to give the person in crisis a sense of space and time to adjust and think through his situation with your support. Engage the care seeker’s story through reflective listening and open ended questions to assess the nature of the crisis from the care seeker’s perspective.

 

Take time to clarify their concerns and reason for seeking your help. Identify any resources the care seeker may already be accessing (family, therapists, friends, colleagues, health care professionals, etc..) Assess their social and community resources for facing this crisis. Be aware of and validate the emotions the care seeker is expressing. Assess the care seeker’s resiliency as well as any emotional distress.

 

Assess any spiritual or religious dimensions of the crisis. What spiritual and religious resources does the care seeker turn to in times of crisis? What theological resources from the care seeker's faith community can help her/him navigate this crisis in an empowered way?

II. Pastoral Response

 

Validate the feelings that are present in the moment. You may encounter emotions such as shock, disbelief, anger, regret, sadness, and confusion in the care seeker’s sharing. Acknowledge and appreciate the care seeker’s response to the situation before moving to solutions. Embody a nonjudgmental presence.

 

Example:

 

“You must be in shock. It sounds like you had no idea this would ever happen” is better than “Sit down and pull yourself together. You need to think clearly now.”

 

Acknowledge the disorientation and chaos evident in the crisis. Do not try to bring order and solutions too quickly. Allow for the expression of emotions without judgment. Listen to the care seeker to help reflect back to them and name the ways their life has been shaken up by the crisis.

 

Examples:

 

“You feel like your world is falling apart and God has abandoned you.”

 

“If you need to sit here and cry awhile, know that I am here for you. Take the time you need.”

 

“Your father is at the end of his life and it is hard to imagine going on without him.”

 

“I hear you saying that you are at your wit’s end and cannot see any solution to the problem.”

 

“I am struck by how you feel a sense of peace in the midst of this storm… God is with you and you have a deep faith that somehow everything will be ok.

 

Express your care authentically. Let the person know you are impacted by their story without requiring the care seeker to take care of you.

 

Example:

 

“I don’t know what to say," “I am so sorry,” "or words do not feel adequate for this moment" are better choices than “Be assured by God’s promises that you will make it through this someday and we will rejoice again."  Even if you do indeed believe in God's promises and assurance, the care seeker will likely feel alienated by your words. 

III. Interventions

Based on your assessment of needs and resources, work with the care seeker to create a plan to respond to the crisis. Have a list of professionals and agencies that you can refer care seekers to as needed. Be sure to offer more than one option if you are making a referral (unless you are in a hospital, then refer to the hospital support system).

 

Identify situations that are beyond your comfort level, time/energy resource, and/or expertise. Do not agree to offering help that you are not professionally trained to provide. If you are in a congregational context: as a general rule, do not meet with a congregant more than three or four times before referring to a therapist for ongoing issues. Be direct about what you can and cannot offer. An immediate referral may be needed.

 

Examples:

 

“It is clear to me that your daughter should be seen by a therapist as soon as possible. The suicidal feelings she has shared with you are beyond my level of expertise. I have a few names I can give you unless there is someone you are already aware of that would work well for your family. Later on if she wants to meet with me, I would be happy to talk with her. You and I can also meet again if you like, so that I can support you and your wife as you help your daughter through this crisis.”

 

“I heard you say awhile ago that this feels like a crisis of faith. I can meet with you two or three more times to talk through the spiritual dimensions of your loss if that would be helpful to you. It seems like you have good support at home and with your therapist, but that our time together has been helpful to you in a different way."

 

“As a hospital chaplain I cannot give money to patients who need financial help. I will call the social worker who knows more about the available resources that I do.”

IV. Follow-up

In following up, be sure to report situations where someone is at immediate risk to themselves or others or situations that involve child abuse.  After the crisis has reached a degree of resolution and you have contacted the appropriate people (if needed), take time to be aware of how the event has impacted you emotionally and seek support to debrief with a colleague. If you are not sure how to handle a situation as it continues to unfold, draw from the expertise in your community for support. Finally, recognize that even with your best efforts, some people will choose not to follow through with the identified plan.

 

Remember that as a religious leader, you will likely be a first point of contact for care seekers searching for assistance in an immediate crisis.  Being good to yourself and wise in asking others for support will help cultivate a healthy and empowered religious community.

Looking Ahead:

Gathering Days - Please make sure you read all of chapter 5 for our lectures and discussions

Please bring a rough draft of your Case Study with you to Gathering Days as these will form the basis of our small group conversations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Assignments:

 Lecture Posting - Due April 20th

Compassion Group Summary - Due April 20th

 Readings:  Doehring - Introduction, Chapters 1-4
 Resources:  

 

 

boundaries week 3.jpg

 

Lecture/Discussion:

The following lecture, provided by Jamie Beachy, a colleague in ministry, is designed to be read as a guide or protocol for establishing safety and assessing situations that require outside referral in pastoral situations. Establishing safety for ourselves, the communities we are responsible to, and those who seek our care is a fundamental skill and responsibility for religious leaders.

 

There was supposed to be a video here that was not longer on YouTube, sorry.

 

The following dimensions of crisis response and referral will not always happen in the order presented and will need to be revisited as each encounter unfolds. Reflect on the following recommendations in light of the video and/or other pastoral crises you have experienced or heard about in the media.

I. Assessment:

First ask yourself:  Are you or the care seeker in immediate danger? Is anyone else in the care seeker’s world in imminent risk as a result of this crisis? If so, take initiative quickly and clarify an appropriate response.  It was unclear in the video whether physical violence was a part of the family's experience.  If Kani had reported physical abuse and you were her pastor, what might be some ways of intervening?  Note that if children who are minors are at risk, it would be legally necessary to report the abuse to the local authorities, even if child abuse is discovered during a ritual of confession or a counseling session (unless you are a Roman Catholic priest, then it would be important to know the policies of your Diocese or Order and have identified strategies for intervening in the abuse). 

 

Move to a more public setting if you do not feel safe in the situation and involve outside help if needed. Have a plan for dealing with high risk individuals who may show up unannounced, threatening your safety and the safety of others.

 

Examples:

 

“Let’s take a walk down to the coffee shop and talk more there. I have been here in the office all day and would like to buy us both a snack or something to drink.”

 

“It sounds like your wife is saying strange and alarming things that concern you. She is home alone with the kids and you are afraid she might harm them. We need to get your kids to a safe place as soon as possible while we sort this out.”

 

Consider having a code word for contacting the police/hospital security that is known among the congregational staff or chaplaincy team but would not be recognized by a dangerous or at-risk visitor.

 

Once safety has been established, explore ways to stabilize the crisis.  Find a peaceful space to meet. Focus on providing a calm pastoral presence to give the person in crisis a sense of space and time to adjust and think through his situation with your support. Engage the care seeker’s story through reflective listening and open ended questions to assess the nature of the crisis from the care seeker’s perspective.

 

Take time to clarify their concerns and reason for seeking your help. Identify any resources the care seeker may already be accessing (family, therapists, friends, colleagues, health care professionals, etc..) Assess their social and community resources for facing this crisis. Be aware of and validate the emotions the care seeker is expressing. Assess the care seeker’s resiliency as well as any emotional distress.

 

Assess any spiritual or religious dimensions of the crisis. What spiritual and religious resources does the care seeker turn to in times of crisis? What theological resources from the care seeker's faith community can help her/him navigate this crisis in an empowered way?

II. Pastoral Response

 

Validate the feelings that are present in the moment. You may encounter emotions such as shock, disbelief, anger, regret, sadness, and confusion in the care seeker’s sharing. Acknowledge and appreciate the care seeker’s response to the situation before moving to solutions. Embody a nonjudgmental presence.

 

Example:

 

“You must be in shock. It sounds like you had no idea this would ever happen” is better than “Sit down and pull yourself together. You need to think clearly now.”

 

Acknowledge the disorientation and chaos evident in the crisis. Do not try to bring order and solutions too quickly. Allow for the expression of emotions without judgment. Listen to the care seeker to help reflect back to them and name the ways their life has been shaken up by the crisis.

 

Examples:

 

“You feel like your world is falling apart and God has abandoned you.”

 

“If you need to sit here and cry awhile, know that I am here for you. Take the time you need.”

 

“Your father is at the end of his life and it is hard to imagine going on without him.”

 

“I hear you saying that you are at your wit’s end and cannot see any solution to the problem.”

 

“I am struck by how you feel a sense of peace in the midst of this storm… God is with you and you have a deep faith that somehow everything will be ok.

 

Express your care authentically. Let the person know you are impacted by their story without requiring the care seeker to take care of you.

 

Example:

 

“I don’t know what to say," “I am so sorry,” "or words do not feel adequate for this moment" are better choices than “Be assured by God’s promises that you will make it through this someday and we will rejoice again."  Even if you do indeed believe in God's promises and assurance, the care seeker will likely feel alienated by your words. 

III. Interventions

Based on your assessment of needs and resources, work with the care seeker to create a plan to respond to the crisis. Have a list of professionals and agencies that you can refer care seekers to as needed. Be sure to offer more than one option if you are making a referral (unless you are in a hospital, then refer to the hospital support system).

 

Identify situations that are beyond your comfort level, time/energy resource, and/or expertise. Do not agree to offering help that you are not professionally trained to provide. If you are in a congregational context: as a general rule, do not meet with a congregant more than three or four times before referring to a therapist for ongoing issues. Be direct about what you can and cannot offer. An immediate referral may be needed.

 

Examples:

 

“It is clear to me that your daughter should be seen by a therapist as soon as possible. The suicidal feelings she has shared with you are beyond my level of expertise. I have a few names I can give you unless there is someone you are already aware of that would work well for your family. Later on if she wants to meet with me, I would be happy to talk with her. You and I can also meet again if you like, so that I can support you and your wife as you help your daughter through this crisis.”

 

“I heard you say awhile ago that this feels like a crisis of faith. I can meet with you two or three more times to talk through the spiritual dimensions of your loss if that would be helpful to you. It seems like you have good support at home and with your therapist, but that our time together has been helpful to you in a different way."

 

“As a hospital chaplain I cannot give money to patients who need financial help. I will call the social worker who knows more about the available resources that I do.”

IV. Follow-up

In following up, be sure to report situations where someone is at immediate risk to themselves or others or situations that involve child abuse.  After the crisis has reached a degree of resolution and you have contacted the appropriate people (if needed), take time to be aware of how the event has impacted you emotionally and seek support to debrief with a colleague. If you are not sure how to handle a situation as it continues to unfold, draw from the expertise in your community for support. Finally, recognize that even with your best efforts, some people will choose not to follow through with the identified plan.

 

Remember that as a religious leader, you will likely be a first point of contact for care seekers searching for assistance in an immediate crisis.  Being good to yourself and wise in asking others for support will help cultivate a healthy and empowered religious community.

Looking Ahead:

Gathering Days - Please make sure you read all of chapter 5 for our lectures and discussions

Please bring a rough draft of your Case Study with you to Gathering Days as these will form the basis of our small group conversations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments:

Case Study - Draft Due April 25th (bring a copy to Gathering Days)
Lecture Posting - Due April 27th

Compassion Group Summary - Due April 27th

Readings: Doehring - Chapter 5 (please read before Gathering Days), Chapters 6-8
Additional Resources:  

 

color brain week 5-6.jpg 

Lecture/Discussion:

 

This lecture is mostly about two things, habits and memories. However, there is some didactic business to attend to as well.

 

What I found in re-working the course this year was that one of my previous lectures did not fit into the new framework we are using this year. This lecture did two things: (1) it pulled together some of the ideas in the first four weeks, and (2) it introduced the next lecture on assessment and planning care. I have included a link to this information here.

 

While you will not be required to comment or discuss this lecture in the replies this week, I do hope that you will take the time to read the notes from the page and incorporate it into the vast knowledge of care you are developing.

 

As for this week's discussion and lecture, see below...

 

First, I simply want you to have the opportunity to maintain the good habit of posting so that when we pick things up next week it won't feel the least bit foreign to you.

 

Second, we all need time to reflect and consolidate the memories we are making. The quarter system makes it a bit hard to do that with all of the rush to read, share and converse about the information in a course. This is a simple way and time to do this.

 

Discussion:

All I want you to do is respond in the comments to the following:

 

  1. One thing I have learned in this class is...
  2. One thing I have learned about myself is...
  3. One thing I hope to continue exploring is...

That's it; easy, I hope...

Looking Ahead:

Final version of your Case Study - due May 2nd

Next's Weeks Lecture - Assessment and Planning Care

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments:

Case Study - Draft Due April 25th (bring a copy to Gathering Days)
Lecture Posting - Due April 27th

Compassion Group Summary - Due April 27th

Readings: Doehring - Chapter 5 (please read before Gathering Days), Chapters 6-8
Additional Resources:  

 

color brain week 5-6.jpg 

Lecture/Discussion:

 

This lecture is mostly about two things, habits and memories. However, there is some didactic business to attend to as well.

 

What I found in re-working the course this year was that one of my previous lectures did not fit into the new framework we are using this year. This lecture did two things: (1) it pulled together some of the ideas in the first four weeks, and (2) it introduced the next lecture on assessment and planning care. I have included a link to this information here.

 

While you will not be required to comment or discuss this lecture in the replies this week, I do hope that you will take the time to read the notes from the page and incorporate it into the vast knowledge of care you are developing.

 

As for this week's discussion and lecture, see below...

 

First, I simply want you to have the opportunity to maintain the good habit of posting so that when we pick things up next week it won't feel the least bit foreign to you.

 

Second, we all need time to reflect and consolidate the memories we are making. The quarter system makes it a bit hard to do that with all of the rush to read, share and converse about the information in a course. This is a simple way and time to do this.

 

Discussion:

All I want you to do is respond in the comments to the following:

 

  1. One thing I have learned in this class is...
  2. One thing I have learned about myself is...
  3. One thing I hope to continue exploring is...

That's it; easy, I hope...

Looking Ahead:

Final version of your Case Study - due May 2nd

Next's Weeks Lecture - Assessment and Planning Care

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments: Final Version of Case Study - Due May 2nd
Lecture Posting - Due May 4th
Readings: Doehring - Chapters 6-8
Resources:  

 

puzzle world week 7.jpg

Discussion:

Carrie’s three step plan provides a wonderful example of how a neat and clean spiritual care conversation happens. What I think is that we have been building this into our coursework thus far. Looking back at our lectures and the wisdom shared in our discussions, we can see this pattern of safety, accountability, and reconnection emerge in the things we are working on and practicing.

 

The lectures on Healthy Relationships and Effective Limits caution us about the importance of safe places and an effective meaning system that views people through lenses that seek constructive relationships. Whether we utilize the word boundary or relationship in our dealings with others, how we put together the milieu of the space we share with another person always comes back to our ability to create spaces where people can engage one another with mental, emotional, and physical safety at the forefront.

 

As we look at Carrie’s chapter on assessing violence, loss, and coping, I want to remind you to use questions sparingly. There are always times when questions will elicit the kind of information that helps us clarify and create more complex understandings of a person’s life and story. At the same time, too many questions may make someone feel as though they are being grilled.

 

Again, I think the most effective questions are the ones that express our curiosity about the person, rather than seek the comfort of details. For example, consider these two open ended questions:

 

We might ask:

 

How are you coping with this abuse?

 

Rather than:

 

How many times does he hit you?

 

My reflections on these two questions are that the first gets at resources that the person depends upon to reestablish their sense of humanity in the face of a threat. It can help them remember the resources they use in adaptive and maladaptive ways to cope with violence. This might lead to ideas about strengths related to resilience and resistance of the abuse, or it can help bring out bad coping skills that reinforce a web of violence.

 

The second question might put the person on the defensive, thinking that they haven’t been hit enough to have a problem yet; they might think you are going to defend the abuser because it was “only one time;” worse yet is that it feels like a kind of curiosity with little to no purpose. In the end it really doesn’t help you care for the person, it only quantifies the pain.

 

The secondary goal of Carrie’s plan revolves around accountability and the ability to mourn the losses we experience through crisis and trauma. If we go back to our lectures on active and embodied listening I think we see the patterns emerge in those places around helping people name and lament the experiences that beckoned them to seek care.

 

This is also the place where we can get ourselves in trouble as pastoral caregivers. Often it takes time to mourn, to grieve, to even realize that is a need someone has. As caregivers, I always advocate for a “3 and out” rule. That is, when we function as pastors and chaplains, we really should meet with people in these crisis moments no more than 3 times before we refer them for professional help. Any longer, then we begin to function as therapists, which is not what we are trained to do and be.

 

Do not fret, however, as 3 or so hours with someone is a long time and much can be accomplished. If nothing more, you can help someone clarify what it is that they are grieving so that when they get the professional help they seek, they have a good set of ideas about what to explore. We might give them words, emotional and spiritual, to help them name what ails. Often accountability is little more than helping someone realize that there is something in their lives they cannot afford to ignore any longer.

 

In the final phase of Carrie’s three steps, we begin to find ways of connecting people to the goodness of life again. Look at the link to the “Connecting Across the Landscape” lecture (hidden in the Memory Consolidation lecture from last week) to begin to see how strengths complicate stories of grief and loss. They reveal moments of resistance to violence or resilience in the face of threats or loss.

 

In this final step, Carrie makes the larger leap beyond just personal strengths to how this impacts the community at large. At this point in the plan, the pastor, chaplain, counselor must find ways to think about a greater sense of restoration/redemption for the community at large.

 

In narrative therapy, one of the techniques often utilized is helping a person connect with tangible ways of telling their story so that the story doesn’t happen to others. It might mean (after time has passed and the healing process begun), that an abuse victim speaks to a group of other women about how she resisted and reclaimed her life; it might mean that the parents of a child who completed suicide gets involved in a suicide hotline to help others find resilience in their time of need; it might mean that a church who has experienced clergy sexual abuse becomes an advocate for other victims of sexual abuse. A hypothesis I carry with me is that anytime someone who experiences violence or grief or loss can become the expert for others going through similar things, that teaching and mentoring moment provides another avenue of healing for the person experiencing the loss.

 

In the end though, the best laid plans in spiritual care come from our sitting with and honoring the grief and loss of others; in this milieu we are forced to think about the larger themes at play through this unique experience. Furthermore, when we sit with someone in these dark moments, I think the clearer their strengths (hopefully) become to us. In these complex stories I think we find that people are both broken by their experiences and strong as they stand to face them.

 

Looking Ahead:

Next week: Self-Care

Book Review due May 9th

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments: Final Version of Case Study - Due May 2nd
Lecture Posting - Due May 4th
Readings: Doehring - Chapters 6-8
Resources:  

 

puzzle world week 7.jpg

Discussion:

Carrie’s three step plan provides a wonderful example of how a neat and clean spiritual care conversation happens. What I think is that we have been building this into our coursework thus far. Looking back at our lectures and the wisdom shared in our discussions, we can see this pattern of safety, accountability, and reconnection emerge in the things we are working on and practicing.

 

The lectures on Healthy Relationships and Effective Limits caution us about the importance of safe places and an effective meaning system that views people through lenses that seek constructive relationships. Whether we utilize the word boundary or relationship in our dealings with others, how we put together the milieu of the space we share with another person always comes back to our ability to create spaces where people can engage one another with mental, emotional, and physical safety at the forefront.

 

As we look at Carrie’s chapter on assessing violence, loss, and coping, I want to remind you to use questions sparingly. There are always times when questions will elicit the kind of information that helps us clarify and create more complex understandings of a person’s life and story. At the same time, too many questions may make someone feel as though they are being grilled.

 

Again, I think the most effective questions are the ones that express our curiosity about the person, rather than seek the comfort of details. For example, consider these two open ended questions:

 

We might ask:

 

How are you coping with this abuse?

 

Rather than:

 

How many times does he hit you?

 

My reflections on these two questions are that the first gets at resources that the person depends upon to reestablish their sense of humanity in the face of a threat. It can help them remember the resources they use in adaptive and maladaptive ways to cope with violence. This might lead to ideas about strengths related to resilience and resistance of the abuse, or it can help bring out bad coping skills that reinforce a web of violence.

 

The second question might put the person on the defensive, thinking that they haven’t been hit enough to have a problem yet; they might think you are going to defend the abuser because it was “only one time;” worse yet is that it feels like a kind of curiosity with little to no purpose. In the end it really doesn’t help you care for the person, it only quantifies the pain.

 

The secondary goal of Carrie’s plan revolves around accountability and the ability to mourn the losses we experience through crisis and trauma. If we go back to our lectures on active and embodied listening I think we see the patterns emerge in those places around helping people name and lament the experiences that beckoned them to seek care.

 

This is also the place where we can get ourselves in trouble as pastoral caregivers. Often it takes time to mourn, to grieve, to even realize that is a need someone has. As caregivers, I always advocate for a “3 and out” rule. That is, when we function as pastors and chaplains, we really should meet with people in these crisis moments no more than 3 times before we refer them for professional help. Any longer, then we begin to function as therapists, which is not what we are trained to do and be.

 

Do not fret, however, as 3 or so hours with someone is a long time and much can be accomplished. If nothing more, you can help someone clarify what it is that they are grieving so that when they get the professional help they seek, they have a good set of ideas about what to explore. We might give them words, emotional and spiritual, to help them name what ails. Often accountability is little more than helping someone realize that there is something in their lives they cannot afford to ignore any longer.

 

In the final phase of Carrie’s three steps, we begin to find ways of connecting people to the goodness of life again. Look at the link to the “Connecting Across the Landscape” lecture (hidden in the Memory Consolidation lecture from last week) to begin to see how strengths complicate stories of grief and loss. They reveal moments of resistance to violence or resilience in the face of threats or loss.

 

In this final step, Carrie makes the larger leap beyond just personal strengths to how this impacts the community at large. At this point in the plan, the pastor, chaplain, counselor must find ways to think about a greater sense of restoration/redemption for the community at large.

 

In narrative therapy, one of the techniques often utilized is helping a person connect with tangible ways of telling their story so that the story doesn’t happen to others. It might mean (after time has passed and the healing process begun), that an abuse victim speaks to a group of other women about how she resisted and reclaimed her life; it might mean that the parents of a child who completed suicide gets involved in a suicide hotline to help others find resilience in their time of need; it might mean that a church who has experienced clergy sexual abuse becomes an advocate for other victims of sexual abuse. A hypothesis I carry with me is that anytime someone who experiences violence or grief or loss can become the expert for others going through similar things, that teaching and mentoring moment provides another avenue of healing for the person experiencing the loss.

 

In the end though, the best laid plans in spiritual care come from our sitting with and honoring the grief and loss of others; in this milieu we are forced to think about the larger themes at play through this unique experience. Furthermore, when we sit with someone in these dark moments, I think the clearer their strengths (hopefully) become to us. In these complex stories I think we find that people are both broken by their experiences and strong as they stand to face them.

 

Looking Ahead:

Next week: Self-Care

Book Review due May 9th

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments: Book Review - Due May 9th
Lecture Posting - Due May 11th
Readings:

Finish Doehring - Chapters 6-8

The Sturdy, Reliant, Self-Destructing Pastor

Additional Resources:  Self-Care Assessment

 

keep calm.jpg

Lecture/Discussion:

Introduction

The following lecture was written by Jamie Beachy, who is an Adjunct Professor at Iliff. She has spent many years as a chaplain and self-care is of personal interest to her. This lecture was written during the first iteration of this course almost 4 years ago, I still find the information she presents to be helpful and meaningful for students. With her permission I continue to use this lecture in its entirety. You will find a link above to the self-care inventory she mentions.

Self-Care in Care-giving

Self care is a central consideration to the practice of spiritual care for at least three reasons:

 

  • In order to embody spiritual care rather than merely approaching the practice of care as a set of skills, we must necessarily include ourselves as a primary focus.
  • Self care lays a foundation for healthy relationships and protects care seekers from breeches of power and trust that can happen when we look to care seekers to meet our needs rather than attending to needs for intimacy, friendship and support outside of the pastoral relationship and ministry context.
  • Through attention to self care, spiritual caregivers cultivate presence, emotional availability, reliability, and the capacity to model self care for others.

Responsibility vs. Blame

Before continuing with this lecture be sure to complete the self care inventory included in this week’s assignments. The inventory is to be used as a tool for assessing areas of strength and also areas of your own self care that may need further attention.

 

In reflecting on the inventory, attend to any feelings of self blame that may arise. Acknowledge that no one is perfect and that each day is an opportunity to begin anew. Note that taking responsibility involves continuing to seek ways to address your need for self care, while self blame only takes energy away from this effort and focuses valuable energy away from taking action to address obstacles to change.

 

Self blame only reinforces the avoidance of responsibility and puts the pastor/chaplain and those who are in her care at risk of being harmed.

Theological and Religious Messages about Self-Care

 

Watch this video expressing one pastor’s views on self care in the parish setting...

Where's the Joy?

In my own childhood in the Mennonite church, work was emphasized as a high moral and theological value. The following verse from John 9:4 is hand written on the front page of a family Bible passed down to me from my father: “We must work the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (NRSV). My family culture highly valued work as a sign of faithfulness while paying less attention to healthy eating, exercise, spiritual practice and play as resources for the religious life. Take a moment to note any theological and religious messages (both positive and negative) you received from your own family and culture of origin about self care.

 

As you reflect on early childhood messages, note the difference between self care (responsibility for self and others, living joyfully and with integrity) and selfishness (being overly concerned with one’s own self satisfaction at the expense of others, lacking in integrity).

 

Asking for Help: Exploring Motivations and Resources for Change

 

Sometimes self care becomes possible when we remind ourselves of our core values and seek to live them out with intention. When I find myself overworking, I affirm my gratitude for the work ethic I learned from my family and remind myself that I now hold a different set of values that support a balance of work, family, play and time alone. This differentiation from my family of origin has taken time to cultivate through support from mentors, colleagues and religious teachers.

 

If you find yourself struggling to address self care needs, consider seeking support to explore motivations, family messages and other obstacles that you may not be able to access on your own in order to move away from self blame and toward self care and joyful, responsible living. Resources such as recovery groups (Alcoholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Al Anon, etc.), therapists and peer support groups can provide guidance and help with addressing obstacles and reinforcing motivations for change.

 

In your posting for this week include your understanding of the importance of self care in light of insights gained from: the self care inventory; these lecture notes; and the readings for the course.

Looking Ahead:

Week 8: Death, Dying, Grief and Loss

Creative Project 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments: Book Review - Due May 9th
Lecture Posting - Due May 11th
Readings:

Finish Doehring - Chapters 6-8

The Sturdy, Reliant, Self-Destructing Pastor

Additional Resources:  Self-Care Assessment

 

keep calm.jpg

Lecture/Discussion:

Introduction

The following lecture was written by Jamie Beachy, who is an Adjunct Professor at Iliff. She has spent many years as a chaplain and self-care is of personal interest to her. This lecture was written during the first iteration of this course almost 4 years ago, I still find the information she presents to be helpful and meaningful for students. With her permission I continue to use this lecture in its entirety. You will find a link above to the self-care inventory she mentions.

Self-Care in Care-giving

Self care is a central consideration to the practice of spiritual care for at least three reasons:

 

  • In order to embody spiritual care rather than merely approaching the practice of care as a set of skills, we must necessarily include ourselves as a primary focus.
  • Self care lays a foundation for healthy relationships and protects care seekers from breeches of power and trust that can happen when we look to care seekers to meet our needs rather than attending to needs for intimacy, friendship and support outside of the pastoral relationship and ministry context.
  • Through attention to self care, spiritual caregivers cultivate presence, emotional availability, reliability, and the capacity to model self care for others.

Responsibility vs. Blame

Before continuing with this lecture be sure to complete the self care inventory included in this week’s assignments. The inventory is to be used as a tool for assessing areas of strength and also areas of your own self care that may need further attention.

 

In reflecting on the inventory, attend to any feelings of self blame that may arise. Acknowledge that no one is perfect and that each day is an opportunity to begin anew. Note that taking responsibility involves continuing to seek ways to address your need for self care, while self blame only takes energy away from this effort and focuses valuable energy away from taking action to address obstacles to change.

 

Self blame only reinforces the avoidance of responsibility and puts the pastor/chaplain and those who are in her care at risk of being harmed.

Theological and Religious Messages about Self-Care

 

Watch this video expressing one pastor’s views on self care in the parish setting...

Where's the Joy?

In my own childhood in the Mennonite church, work was emphasized as a high moral and theological value. The following verse from John 9:4 is hand written on the front page of a family Bible passed down to me from my father: “We must work the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (NRSV). My family culture highly valued work as a sign of faithfulness while paying less attention to healthy eating, exercise, spiritual practice and play as resources for the religious life. Take a moment to note any theological and religious messages (both positive and negative) you received from your own family and culture of origin about self care.

 

As you reflect on early childhood messages, note the difference between self care (responsibility for self and others, living joyfully and with integrity) and selfishness (being overly concerned with one’s own self satisfaction at the expense of others, lacking in integrity).

 

Asking for Help: Exploring Motivations and Resources for Change

 

Sometimes self care becomes possible when we remind ourselves of our core values and seek to live them out with intention. When I find myself overworking, I affirm my gratitude for the work ethic I learned from my family and remind myself that I now hold a different set of values that support a balance of work, family, play and time alone. This differentiation from my family of origin has taken time to cultivate through support from mentors, colleagues and religious teachers.

 

If you find yourself struggling to address self care needs, consider seeking support to explore motivations, family messages and other obstacles that you may not be able to access on your own in order to move away from self blame and toward self care and joyful, responsible living. Resources such as recovery groups (Alcoholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Al Anon, etc.), therapists and peer support groups can provide guidance and help with addressing obstacles and reinforcing motivations for change.

 

In your posting for this week include your understanding of the importance of self care in light of insights gained from: the self care inventory; these lecture notes; and the readings for the course.

Looking Ahead:

Week 8: Death, Dying, Grief and Loss

Creative Project 

 

 

 

 

 

construction.jpg

Assignments:

Creative Project - Due May 23rd

Lecture Posting - Due May 18th

Compassion Group Summary - Due May 18th

Readings:  
  • Will We Ever Arrive at the Good Death?
  • When Does Death Start?
  • Before a Funeral, Rending Choices on How Best to Tell the Stories of 3 Short Lives
  • Good Grief
Additional Resources:  

 

tears week 8.jpg

Lecture/Discussion:

Introduction

What you will read this week is based on a presentation I give in churches on the subject of death, dying, grief and loss. The presentation focuses on how we might begin to talk to loved ones about this difficult subject.

Death, Dying, Grief, and Loss

We often say that death and taxes are only two inescapable facts of life. And if you think about it, things like death and money are the two hardest things to discuss between family members. Such is our fear of talking about death, that we have developed a variety of names to avoid saying dead, dying, or death.

 

A quick search reveals a number of names we use to avoid or make light of death and the dying process. I will caution you to think of these in playfully, as you are bound to hear some of them in your work as pastors, chaplains and so forth; and as you read these, what are some of the euphemisms you have heard or used yourself?

 

Dirt nap • Pushing up daisies • Passed on • In a better place • Bite the dust • Bought the farm • Cashed in their chips • Give up the ghost • Croak • Kick the bucket • Sleeping the big sleep • Meet one’s maker • Gone to feed the fishes • Six feet under • To breathe one’s last • Ceased to be • Expired • Resting in peace • Shuffled off this mortal coil • Joined the invisible choir • Crossed over • Belly up • Checked out • Departed • Danced the last dance • Snuffed • No longer with us • Returned to the ground • With the ancestors • Going to the big house in the sky • Buy a pine condo • Worm food • Go into the fertilizer business • Answer the last call • Living-challenged • Checking out the grass from underneath • End one’s earthly career • A goner • Passed your sell-by date

 

Undoubtedly, these euphemisms serve a purpose at times; however, it’s easy to see why we get so distracted when we talk about death. We tend to try and minimalize it, make fun of it, ignore it, focus on the positive, etc.

 

I want to share a synopsis of brief story quoted in Dorothy Becvar’s In The Presence of Grief, (pp.3-6) in which Richard Kalish shares a vision about the power death has over us. In this story, the subject of death takes on the figure of a horse sitting in the middle of the dining room table.

 

Every time people gather together to eat, it is sitting there crowding the room while the people grow increasingly uncomfortable as they are unable to eat or talk around it. Eventually, in the story, one group both sees the horse on the table and begins to talk about it. And as they do, the horse becomes smaller and smaller until it occupies such little space that the hosts and guests need no longer worry about it. The quote from the story that I find most valuable is this:

 

My son, it is the horse on the dining-room table. It is a horse that visits every house and sits on every dining room table---the tables of the rich and of the poor, of the simple and of the wise. The horse just sits there, buts its presence makes you wish to leave without speaking of it. If you leave, you will always fear the presence of the horse. When it sits on your table, you will wish to speak of it, but you may not be able to.

 

However, if you speak about the horse, then you will find that others can also speak about the horse—most others, at least, if you are gentle and kind as you speak. The horse will remain on the dining room table, but you will not be so distraught. You will enjoy your repast, and you will enjoy the company of the host and hostess. Or, if it is your table, you will enjoy the presence of your guests. You cannot make magic to have the horse disappear, but you can speak of the horse and thereby render it less powerful. (pp.5-6)

 

If you have heard nothing else in this course, please remember that words have power. They have the power to shape our perspectives, and the meanings we give to certain things or ideas. Think about it this way…

 

Today, we live in a culture that spends billions of dollars each year trying to stave off the effects of age. There are cryonics firms that freeze your body right after death so that you might be revived when a cure is found for what killed you. We look to psychics to assure us that our dead loved ones are living on in peace.

 

We try to look younger and act younger by injecting poison into our skin or having surgery or even believing the claims of a wide variety of make up or lotions. We spend so little time talking about the inevitability of death that it is no wonder it is such a difficult topic.

 

Today, even though the demographics are shifting, people still die in hospitals and hospices away from the hustle and bustle of life, away from family and friends and homes. This adds to the mystery of death as well as its loneliness, anxiety and stress; Giving people permission to talk about death by introducing the subject with our loved ones can take some of its power over us away.

 

I like what the quote from the earlier story says: “If we can speak about it gently and kindly, then it over time it loses its power for most people."(p. 5) I can’t say that every conversation will come up roses, but it is better than not having the conversation at all. It is difficult, sometimes painful, sometimes awkward, but the more we avoid it, the more power it holds over us.

Levels of discussion

I think there are a number of levels on which we can talk about the subject of death. Think about it in terms of your own family. Who has talked with a loved one about their wishes related to cremation or body burial? Who has talked with a loved one about where they wish their final resting place to be? Who has talked with their children about their death and about the care for a remaining spouse? Who has discussed their memorial service or hymns and scriptures that are important to them? All of these reside on the nuts and bolts side of death and while meaningful, they tend to focus on the activities surrounding a death rather than its meaning.

 

The meaning of one’s death is another conversation. It is a conversation that has existential implications. Another way to put it is that it deals with what it means to die or to be dying; what it means to no longer be able to relate to loved ones in the ways we are accustomed to; and, what it means to miss someone and have them miss you.

 

This is a deeper level of conversation that is generally more difficult to talk about than the nuts and bolts of estate and memorial planning. While the other parts of the process of dying are important, it is this existential conversation that grasps at the richness of life and the relationships we share with one another. It is the kind of conversation that makes that horse grow smaller and smaller as it happens over and over again.

Who, What, Where, When, How

The main question here is how do we have this conversation with the people we care about and not send them screaming into another room, or covering their ears and giving you the “lalalalala” treatment.

 

The first helpful hint is the easiest, don’t wait until your final moments to talk about death, and certainly don’t wait until you are about to die to tell the people around you that you will love and miss them. Usually, by this time people are stressed out, worried, anxious and distracted. While these kinds of confessions are sometimes well received, they can also be lost.

 

Instead, when you are healthy, when you are rested and cheerful and content; remind people that you appreciate your relationship with them; remind them how much you care for them and love them. This is the setting that you want to begin talking about your feelings and sense of what it means to die. And we don’t just want to drop the “you know, I’m gonna die bomb on people.”

 

Think for a moment about what it will mean to you to not see certain things or experience first-hand the events of a significant others lives; what feelings arise when you think about missing these things? Don’t just assume that death is a sad time for people. You might begin a talk with something like: “You know that I won’t be around forever; I don’t know when death will come for me, but I do know that it saddens me to know that I will miss out on so many of the things you will experience in life.”

 

The basics of communication in these difficult times revolve around the ability to express what we are personally feeling and communicating those things to others.

 

The basic formula is this: “I feel (sad, mad, glad, afraid) when X event happens or will happen.”

 

A simple statement like this lays the groundwork for a rich conversation about more than just the nuts and bolts of a memorial service or where the wills are. And from the responses you receive, you will be able to gauge the other person’s ability to discuss the inevitability of death and its impact on the lives of the people you care about.

 

However, the more comfortable we are with our own feelings about death, the more comfortable we can help others feel in talking about it with us. So, any real conversation begins with looking inside ourselves and understanding how we feel about dying, some simple emotions might be mad, sad, glad, afraid. And these can change over time depending on our circumstances and relationships with others.

 

We must permit ourselves to wonder and be curious about our own sense of mortality before we can give the kind of permission needed to talk with others about it.

Resistance

So, what do we do when we meet with resistance? Remember, North American culture tends to quarantine the dying, separating them from the living population. Furthermore, this has not only occurred physically but also mentally as well. Thus, the topic of death and dying is pushed from our minds and when we bring it up it is uncomfortable for a lot of people. Therefore, we might meet a little resistance along the ways towards having these conversations.

 

First and foremost, we can’t force people to have a conversation they aren’t ready to have. If we meet with resistance, then we probably need to back off a little bit, but at the same time let the person know that we will be bringing the topic up again at another date. We might also start with educating a family member about our wishes for a memorial service or other nuts and bolts kinds of details that can help make a person’s death less stressful for the remaining family.Usually talking about a third object, a memorial service, will, burial, cremation, etc. is a little less threatening than the actual feelings around someone’s death.

 

However, this conversation is not a substitute for actually talking about our feelings concerning death or the state of our relationships. Remember, be gentle and kind and the horse will continue to shrink until the subject loses its power to focus our energies.

 

Discussion questions:

  1. How do you understand death and dying? How have you talked about it with others?
  2. What are some of the theological ideas or points you would want to make relative to death and dying with someone? How would you phrase your conversation?
  3. What resources have you found helpful in talking about death, dying, grief and loss? How are they helpful?
  4. What message or themes do you derive from the readings this week? What is something new you are pondering having read them?
Looking Ahead:

 

 

 

 

 

 

construction.jpg

Assignments:

Creative Project - Due May 23rd

Lecture Posting - Due May 18th

Compassion Group Summary - Due May 18th

Readings:  
  • Will We Ever Arrive at the Good Death?
  • When Does Death Start?
  • Before a Funeral, Rending Choices on How Best to Tell the Stories of 3 Short Lives
  • Good Grief
Additional Resources:  

 

tears week 8.jpg

Lecture/Discussion:

Introduction

What you will read this week is based on a presentation I give in churches on the subject of death, dying, grief and loss. The presentation focuses on how we might begin to talk to loved ones about this difficult subject.

Death, Dying, Grief, and Loss

We often say that death and taxes are only two inescapable facts of life. And if you think about it, things like death and money are the two hardest things to discuss between family members. Such is our fear of talking about death, that we have developed a variety of names to avoid saying dead, dying, or death.

 

A quick search reveals a number of names we use to avoid or make light of death and the dying process. I will caution you to think of these in playfully, as you are bound to hear some of them in your work as pastors, chaplains and so forth; and as you read these, what are some of the euphemisms you have heard or used yourself?

 

Dirt nap • Pushing up daisies • Passed on • In a better place • Bite the dust • Bought the farm • Cashed in their chips • Give up the ghost • Croak • Kick the bucket • Sleeping the big sleep • Meet one’s maker • Gone to feed the fishes • Six feet under • To breathe one’s last • Ceased to be • Expired • Resting in peace • Shuffled off this mortal coil • Joined the invisible choir • Crossed over • Belly up • Checked out • Departed • Danced the last dance • Snuffed • No longer with us • Returned to the ground • With the ancestors • Going to the big house in the sky • Buy a pine condo • Worm food • Go into the fertilizer business • Answer the last call • Living-challenged • Checking out the grass from underneath • End one’s earthly career • A goner • Passed your sell-by date

 

Undoubtedly, these euphemisms serve a purpose at times; however, it’s easy to see why we get so distracted when we talk about death. We tend to try and minimalize it, make fun of it, ignore it, focus on the positive, etc.

 

I want to share a synopsis of brief story quoted in Dorothy Becvar’s In The Presence of Grief, (pp.3-6) in which Richard Kalish shares a vision about the power death has over us. In this story, the subject of death takes on the figure of a horse sitting in the middle of the dining room table.

 

Every time people gather together to eat, it is sitting there crowding the room while the people grow increasingly uncomfortable as they are unable to eat or talk around it. Eventually, in the story, one group both sees the horse on the table and begins to talk about it. And as they do, the horse becomes smaller and smaller until it occupies such little space that the hosts and guests need no longer worry about it. The quote from the story that I find most valuable is this:

 

My son, it is the horse on the dining-room table. It is a horse that visits every house and sits on every dining room table---the tables of the rich and of the poor, of the simple and of the wise. The horse just sits there, buts its presence makes you wish to leave without speaking of it. If you leave, you will always fear the presence of the horse. When it sits on your table, you will wish to speak of it, but you may not be able to.

 

However, if you speak about the horse, then you will find that others can also speak about the horse—most others, at least, if you are gentle and kind as you speak. The horse will remain on the dining room table, but you will not be so distraught. You will enjoy your repast, and you will enjoy the company of the host and hostess. Or, if it is your table, you will enjoy the presence of your guests. You cannot make magic to have the horse disappear, but you can speak of the horse and thereby render it less powerful. (pp.5-6)

 

If you have heard nothing else in this course, please remember that words have power. They have the power to shape our perspectives, and the meanings we give to certain things or ideas. Think about it this way…

 

Today, we live in a culture that spends billions of dollars each year trying to stave off the effects of age. There are cryonics firms that freeze your body right after death so that you might be revived when a cure is found for what killed you. We look to psychics to assure us that our dead loved ones are living on in peace.

 

We try to look younger and act younger by injecting poison into our skin or having surgery or even believing the claims of a wide variety of make up or lotions. We spend so little time talking about the inevitability of death that it is no wonder it is such a difficult topic.

 

Today, even though the demographics are shifting, people still die in hospitals and hospices away from the hustle and bustle of life, away from family and friends and homes. This adds to the mystery of death as well as its loneliness, anxiety and stress; Giving people permission to talk about death by introducing the subject with our loved ones can take some of its power over us away.

 

I like what the quote from the earlier story says: “If we can speak about it gently and kindly, then it over time it loses its power for most people."(p. 5) I can’t say that every conversation will come up roses, but it is better than not having the conversation at all. It is difficult, sometimes painful, sometimes awkward, but the more we avoid it, the more power it holds over us.

Levels of discussion

I think there are a number of levels on which we can talk about the subject of death. Think about it in terms of your own family. Who has talked with a loved one about their wishes related to cremation or body burial? Who has talked with a loved one about where they wish their final resting place to be? Who has talked with their children about their death and about the care for a remaining spouse? Who has discussed their memorial service or hymns and scriptures that are important to them? All of these reside on the nuts and bolts side of death and while meaningful, they tend to focus on the activities surrounding a death rather than its meaning.

 

The meaning of one’s death is another conversation. It is a conversation that has existential implications. Another way to put it is that it deals with what it means to die or to be dying; what it means to no longer be able to relate to loved ones in the ways we are accustomed to; and, what it means to miss someone and have them miss you.

 

This is a deeper level of conversation that is generally more difficult to talk about than the nuts and bolts of estate and memorial planning. While the other parts of the process of dying are important, it is this existential conversation that grasps at the richness of life and the relationships we share with one another. It is the kind of conversation that makes that horse grow smaller and smaller as it happens over and over again.

Who, What, Where, When, How

The main question here is how do we have this conversation with the people we care about and not send them screaming into another room, or covering their ears and giving you the “lalalalala” treatment.

 

The first helpful hint is the easiest, don’t wait until your final moments to talk about death, and certainly don’t wait until you are about to die to tell the people around you that you will love and miss them. Usually, by this time people are stressed out, worried, anxious and distracted. While these kinds of confessions are sometimes well received, they can also be lost.

 

Instead, when you are healthy, when you are rested and cheerful and content; remind people that you appreciate your relationship with them; remind them how much you care for them and love them. This is the setting that you want to begin talking about your feelings and sense of what it means to die. And we don’t just want to drop the “you know, I’m gonna die bomb on people.”

 

Think for a moment about what it will mean to you to not see certain things or experience first-hand the events of a significant others lives; what feelings arise when you think about missing these things? Don’t just assume that death is a sad time for people. You might begin a talk with something like: “You know that I won’t be around forever; I don’t know when death will come for me, but I do know that it saddens me to know that I will miss out on so many of the things you will experience in life.”

 

The basics of communication in these difficult times revolve around the ability to express what we are personally feeling and communicating those things to others.

 

The basic formula is this: “I feel (sad, mad, glad, afraid) when X event happens or will happen.”

 

A simple statement like this lays the groundwork for a rich conversation about more than just the nuts and bolts of a memorial service or where the wills are. And from the responses you receive, you will be able to gauge the other person’s ability to discuss the inevitability of death and its impact on the lives of the people you care about.

 

However, the more comfortable we are with our own feelings about death, the more comfortable we can help others feel in talking about it with us. So, any real conversation begins with looking inside ourselves and understanding how we feel about dying, some simple emotions might be mad, sad, glad, afraid. And these can change over time depending on our circumstances and relationships with others.

 

We must permit ourselves to wonder and be curious about our own sense of mortality before we can give the kind of permission needed to talk with others about it.

Resistance

So, what do we do when we meet with resistance? Remember, North American culture tends to quarantine the dying, separating them from the living population. Furthermore, this has not only occurred physically but also mentally as well. Thus, the topic of death and dying is pushed from our minds and when we bring it up it is uncomfortable for a lot of people. Therefore, we might meet a little resistance along the ways towards having these conversations.

 

First and foremost, we can’t force people to have a conversation they aren’t ready to have. If we meet with resistance, then we probably need to back off a little bit, but at the same time let the person know that we will be bringing the topic up again at another date. We might also start with educating a family member about our wishes for a memorial service or other nuts and bolts kinds of details that can help make a person’s death less stressful for the remaining family.Usually talking about a third object, a memorial service, will, burial, cremation, etc. is a little less threatening than the actual feelings around someone’s death.

 

However, this conversation is not a substitute for actually talking about our feelings concerning death or the state of our relationships. Remember, be gentle and kind and the horse will continue to shrink until the subject loses its power to focus our energies.

 

Discussion questions:

  1. How do you understand death and dying? How have you talked about it with others?
  2. What are some of the theological ideas or points you would want to make relative to death and dying with someone? How would you phrase your conversation?
  3. What resources have you found helpful in talking about death, dying, grief and loss? How are they helpful?
  4. What message or themes do you derive from the readings this week? What is something new you are pondering having read them?
Looking Ahead:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments: Creative Project - Due May 23rd
Lecture Posting - Due May 25th
Readings:

 Please choose one of the following articles to read and provide your insights in the discussion board

 

  • Homer Ashby - Being Forgiven
  • Don Capps - The Psychological Benefits of Humor
  • Bobby Cunningham - The Will to Forgive
  • Riedel-Pfaefflin and Smith Jr. - Notes on Diversity and Working Together Across Cultures on Traumatization and Forgiveness
  • Stone and Lester - Hope and Possibility
Resources:  

 

 laughter.jpg

Discussion:


No lecture this week, just readings. Please pick one of the articles above, read it and provide a synopsis of the main points for your colleagues who have chosen other articles to read.

 

You might provide:

 

  1. A 3-sentence abstract about the main point of the article you read.
  2. 1 or 2-points that struck you about the article.
  3. A 3-sentence rationale as to why others in the class should read the article on their own.

 

We are getting toward the end of the quarter and I want to thank you for all of your hard work and attention to detail. You have helped make the transition to a new way of doing things much easier by being helpful colleagues to one another and to myself, Paula, and Patrick. There is a brief lecture for week 10, but it is more about remembering and consolidating knowledge.

Looking Ahead:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignments: Creative Project - Due May 23rd
Lecture Posting - Due May 25th
Readings:

 Please choose one of the following articles to read and provide your insights in the discussion board

 

  • Homer Ashby - Being Forgiven
  • Don Capps - The Psychological Benefits of Humor
  • Bobby Cunningham - The Will to Forgive
  • Riedel-Pfaefflin and Smith Jr. - Notes on Diversity and Working Together Across Cultures on Traumatization and Forgiveness
  • Stone and Lester - Hope and Possibility
Resources:  

 

 laughter.jpg

Discussion:


No lecture this week, just readings. Please pick one of the articles above, read it and provide a synopsis of the main points for your colleagues who have chosen other articles to read.

 

You might provide:

 

  1. A 3-sentence abstract about the main point of the article you read.
  2. 1 or 2-points that struck you about the article.
  3. A 3-sentence rationale as to why others in the class should read the article on their own.

 

We are getting toward the end of the quarter and I want to thank you for all of your hard work and attention to detail. You have helped make the transition to a new way of doing things much easier by being helpful colleagues to one another and to myself, Paula, and Patrick. There is a brief lecture for week 10, but it is more about remembering and consolidating knowledge.

Looking Ahead:

 

 

 

 

 

construction.jpg

Assignments:

 Enjoy your summer!

If you have any final thoughts feel free to add them here

Readings: No assigned readings, if you want some let me know
Resources:  

 

womens-day-celebration-in-south-africa-marietjie-hennin.jpg.scaled1000.jpg

Lecture/Discussion:

It has been a great experience getting to know all of you, and we wish you the best where ever the road ahead takes you. Paula, Patrick, and I will be hard at work grading the creative project with the hopes of completing them sooner, rather than later.

 

As you reflect on this quarter, I hope you found some meaningful things to take with you as meet people where they are. Even looking back over your own work I trust that you can see the ways in which you have been challenged and changed throughout the quarter.

 

If you have any final questions, thoughts, or need further resources please feel free to email me. I will look forward to seeing some of you again in other classes or through the Consultation and Guidance office. Enjoy your summer, take care of yourself.

 

Peace,

Jason, Paula, and Patrick

Looking Ahead:

 

 

 

 

 

construction.jpg

Assignments:

 Enjoy your summer!

If you have any final thoughts feel free to add them here

Readings: No assigned readings, if you want some let me know
Resources:  

 

womens-day-celebration-in-south-africa-marietjie-hennin.jpg.scaled1000.jpg

Lecture/Discussion:

It has been a great experience getting to know all of you, and we wish you the best where ever the road ahead takes you. Paula, Patrick, and I will be hard at work grading the creative project with the hopes of completing them sooner, rather than later.

 

As you reflect on this quarter, I hope you found some meaningful things to take with you as meet people where they are. Even looking back over your own work I trust that you can see the ways in which you have been challenged and changed throughout the quarter.

 

If you have any final questions, thoughts, or need further resources please feel free to email me. I will look forward to seeing some of you again in other classes or through the Consultation and Guidance office. Enjoy your summer, take care of yourself.

 

Peace,

Jason, Paula, and Patrick

Looking Ahead:

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review List (Please choose one to read for this quarter)

Care of Persons, Care of Worlds: A Psychosystems Approach to Pastoral Care and Counseling by Larry Graham. ISBN-10: 0687046750 (This book is reserved for students who have already taken a course in theology).

Basic Types of Pastoral Care and Counseling, 3rd Edition by Howard Clinebell. ISBN-10: 0687663806 This book was used as a textbook from the 70’s through the 90’s in more liberal seminaries.

Cultivating Wholeness: A Guide to Care and Counseling in Faith Communities ISBN-10: 0826412327 by Margaret Kornfeld. Also previously used as a textbook, Kornfeld takes a practical approach to teaching readers what to listen for and how to respond in care situations. Kornfeld was influenced by some of the more postmodern approaches to pastoral care and counseling.

Pastoral Care in Context ISBN-10: 0664220347 by John Patton. This text takes a broader view of spiritual/pastoral care, both theologically and historically. Patton highlights the limitations of clinical approaches to care, choosing instead to focus on the communal contextual nature of pastoral care.

Creamer, Debbie. Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities. New York : Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN-10: 0195369157

Leslie, Kristen Jane. When violence is no stranger: pastoral counseling with survivors of acquaintance rape . Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002. ASIN: B002SG7N72

Marshall, Joretta L. Counseling Lesbian Partners . Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997. ISBN-10: 0664255329

Montilla, R Esteban. Pastoral Care and Counseling with Latino/as . Augsburg: Fortress Press, May, 2006. ISBN-10: 0800638204

Nelson, James. Thirst: God and the Alcoholic Experience . Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. ISBN-10: 0664226884

Neuger, Christie. Counseling Women: A Narrative, Pastoral Approach . Augsburg: Fortress, 2001. ASIN: B002SG6HVU

Thornton, Sharon G. Broken Yet Beloved: A Pastoral Theology of the Cross . St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2002. ( Choose this book if you have had at least one course in theology) . ISBN-10: 0827202326

Watkins Ali, Carroll. Survival and Liberation: Pastoral Theology in African American Context. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999. ISBN-10: 0827234430

Whitehead, Jason. Redeeming Fear: A Constructive Theology for Living into Hope. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013. ISBN-10: 0800699149

Wimberley, Edward. Counseling African American Marriages and Families . Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997. ISBN-10: 0664256562

See Taylor Library's list of online book sellers for purchasing options.

DateDayDetails
Mar 31, 2014MonWeek 1 - Lecture Discussion - The Elements of Caredue by 05:59AM
Apr 07, 2014MonWeek 2 - Lecture Discussion - The Art of Listeningdue by 05:59AM
Apr 14, 2014MonWeek 3 - Lecture Discussion - Healthy Relationshipsdue by 05:59AM
Apr 21, 2014MonWeek 4 - Lecture Discussion - Effective Limitsdue by 05:59AM
Apr 28, 2014MonWeek 5 - Lecture Discussion - Memory Consolidationdue by 05:59AM
May 05, 2014MonWeek 6 - Lecture Discussion - Assessment and Planning Caredue by 05:59AM
May 12, 2014MonWeek 7 - Lecture Discussion - Self-Care in Care-Givingdue by 05:59AM
May 19, 2014MonWeek 8 - Lecture Discussion - Death, Dying, Grief and Lossdue by 05:59AM
May 26, 2014MonWeek 9 - Lecture Discussion - Forgiveness, Laughter, and Possibilitiesdue by 05:59AM
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