CPE Integration Praxis

Instructor:  Carrie Doehring, PhD cdoehring@iliff.edu 303-765-3169 Office: I-302

Course Synopsis

This course helps students integrate their completed CPE experience into their professional formation, ongoing coursework at Iliff and their knowledge of professional chaplaincy ethics and the process of becoming board certified as a chaplain or ordained as a religious leader specializing in spiritual care. Students will form a cohort group to discern how their CPE experience is part of their vocational discernment process at Iliff. Verbatim case studies will be used alongside readings in spiritual care and chaplaincy, in order to explore how students embodied their faith and core values through practice and professional ethical decision-making involving respect for diverse spiritual/religious identities and traditions. Verbatim case studies will also be used to analyze their engagement with and systemic assessment of their CPE context, especially in terms of leadership opportunities for increased agency and efficacy working towards social justice and peace. They will also use case study experiences alongside readings about professional ethics in chaplaincy to explore ethical decision making.

Prerequisites

• Consultation & Formation
  IST 1000 V&O
  IST 1001 IPD
  IST 4004 CPE

 

Requirements:

• Each student will post a verbatim case study with a statement of their CPE learning goals. Make sure that all confidential identifiers are deleted or altered. (5%) Due April 6th. Verbatim and Learning Goals 
• In weekly forums, students will discuss verbatim case studies, bringing them into dialogue with assigned readings on chaplaincy. Students will post responses to these forum posts, demonstrating the ways that intercultural, evidence-based, socially just spiritual care is taught at Iliff. (95%)
• Grading for the course is P/F

PROFESSIONAL DEGREE LEARNING GOALS  

MDIV Degree: Demonstrate a complex interdisciplinary understanding of theological disciplines, as well as develop and embody a comprehensive range of ministerial responsibilities, skills, and capacities – intellectual and affective, individual and corporate, ecclesial and public – that inform and support a life of religious leadership.

MAPSC Degree: Demonstrate a complex interdisciplinary understanding of the human person in social context, develop and demonstrate an intercultural approach to pastoral and spiritual care[i], and demonstrate personal and professional competencies needed by effective caregivers.

Courses in Theology and Religious Practices (PR): Engage in analysis of contemporary religious traditions and institutions in order to assess, design, and perform meaningful leadership practices with sensitivity to contextual realities and relationships.

Preamble

Spiritual care that does no harm must be socially just, interreligious, and evidence-based in order to fulfill ethical mandates of spiritual care professionals described in the Common Code of Ethics for Chaplains, Pastoral Counselors, Pastoral Educators and Students (hereinafter referred to as spiritual care professionals):

When Spiritual Care Professionals behave in a manner congruent with the [following] values of this code of ethics, they bring greater justice, compassion, and healing to our world. 

• affirm the dignity and value of each individual
• respect the right of each faith group to hold to its values and traditions
• advocate for professional accountability that protects the public and advances the profession
• respect the cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, sexual-orientation, and religious diversity of other professionals and those served and strive to eliminate discrimination. (2004)

Spiritual care professionals help people explore spiritual and/or religious^[i] practices fostering trust and self-compassion so that people can collaboratively search for beliefs and values that nurture compassion, healing, and justice for persons, families, and organizations. The term spiritual, with all of its limitations, is a short-hand way of describing the deep relational trust in and connection with transcendence and imminence that enliven compassion, healing, and justice in distinctive ways.

Learning spiritual care is a lifelong integrative process that weaves together knowledge, attitudes, relational abilities, and interpersonal skills. Spiritual care education and training use standards of professional spiritual care to define learning outcomes. Students introduced to these core learning outcomes from the outset of their education and clinical training—in their first role plays in academic courses and their first spiritual care interactions in clinical training—will be engaged in a collaborative process of developing personalized learning goals.

 

Core competencies in socially just, interreligious, and evidence-based spiritual care

Spiritual care courses at Iliff use a spiritually integrative pedagogy to form students seeking competency in the practice of socially just, interreligious, and evidence-based spiritual care. Socially just spiritual care pays attention to interacting social advantages and disadvantages that may harm others and reinforce prejudice, contributing to systemic social injustice.[ii] Spiritual care needs to be interreligious in order to (1) counteract colonialist ways religion has been imposed on others, and (2) establish spiritually trustworthy relationships that “demonstrate respect for the cultural and religious values of those they serve and refrain from imposing their our own values and beliefs on those served.”^[iii]  Spiritual care needs to be evidence-based by drawing upon research on aspects of religion and spirituality that help or harm persons, especially those experiencing religious, spiritual, and moral struggles.

Practicing a spiritually integrative learning process

Spiritual integration is a collaborative and relational process of using spiritual practices for coping with stress compassionately, finding purpose through values, and understanding stress and suffering in a variety of ways, unique to persons, families, and communities.  Life-giving practices become a tether to the inherent goodness of one’s body, trustworthy others, lament for social injustice, and transcendent interconnections. The process of integration is what grounds students in their own religious and/or spiritual heritage, identity, and communities, in ways that enhance spiritual differentiation, empathy and reflexivity—three core abilities for socially just and interreligious spiritual care.

 

Learning outcomes for developing and demonstrating spiritual integration

Spiritual care courses at Iliff prepare students to become community faith leaders and chaplains engaged in an ongoing collaborative process of spiritual integration who

1. Experiment with a calming practice of deep slow breathing, and intrinsically meaningful calming and settling practices
2. Identify when an aspect of their coursework triggers a stress response in them
3. Identify differences between their bodies’ stress response and the calming effects of their spiritual practices
4. Describe what self-compassion feels like during calming practices, for example, through the warmth of touch during slow deep breathing
5. Use self-compassion to identify their stress emotions (e.g., anger, helplessness, fear…),
6. Use a calming practice while listening to/reading responses from others in order to experience the mystery of the other

In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are

• Experimenting with using breathing and or body-centered calming practices that help them become more aware of their physiological, emotional, and spiritual responses to stress
• Exploring ways to make their breath or body-centered practices connect them relationally with a sense of transcendence and increase a ‘felt’ sense of trust (e.g., in the goodness of their bodies and/or relational webs which may include a transcendent quality of connection with nature, humanity, and God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha or other divine beings)
• Deepening their awareness of the particular ways that stress is experienced in their bodies, how spiritual practices help them be self-compassionately aware of their body’s stress responses
• Using course forums to experience relationships of compassionate accountability for sharing and reflecting upon spiritual practices in this course and with trusted others in their relational webs (e.g., communities of faith; contextual learning opportunities for practicing spiritual care)
• Using momentary spiritual practices in flexible ways during spiritual care and learning interactions to experience a felt sense of trust in the process of spiritual care.

 

Practicing spiritual self-differentiation

When community faith leaders and chaplains are attuned to how stress triggers bodily memories, they can use calming spiritual practices to hold these memories in self-compassion. They may then be able to care for self by separating past memories from present circumstances in a process of spiritual self-differentiation. Self-differentiation helps students manage relational boundaries in the emotional intensity of intimate, family, work and learning community relationships.

Self-differentiation in intimate/high investment relationships is both an interpersonal process of managing relational boundaries and a psychological process of managing emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Those in professional helping relationships learn how to psychologically self-differentiate in order to maintain healthy boundaries. Chaplains and community faith leaders draw upon their knowledge of faith traditions in order to be spiritually self-differentiated. They are able to separate their beliefs and values about suffering from another’s beliefs and values, in order practice spiritual empathy—an interpersonal capacity to imagine how another experiences stress and stress-related emotions that generate their orientations to suffering.

The added dimension of spiritual self-differentiation is what makes chaplains and community faith leaders competent in interreligious spiritual care. We use the term interreligious to describe a specialized kind of intercultural competency that integrates:

• Knowledge of the socially constructed nature of religious beliefs, values, and rituals^[iv]
• Attitudes of cultural humility toward cultural, religious, moral and spiritual differences, and the ineffable mystery of the other
• Competency in spiritual differentiation, enabling chaplains to differentiate among and particular religious, spiritual, and moral orientations of others.
• Skills in spiritual self-care for coping with the anxieties/losses of letting go of absolute meaning/value systems that avoid, polarize, or minimize religious and spiritual differences.

The term interreligious competence highlights this integration of graduate studies, especially comparative studies of religion, with formation and clinical training enhancing spiritual self-differentiation in religiously diverse contexts. We recognize the limitations of the term interreligious for describing spiritual care to those with humanist, agnostic, or atheist orientations, as well as those who reject the term spiritual in describing their traditions and communities (for example, Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, or American Indian persons).

 

Learning outcomes for developing and demonstrating spiritual self-differentiation

Spiritual care courses at Iliff prepare students to become community faith leaders and chaplains who practice spiritual self-differentiation by

1. Developing a solid flexible spiritual self—sometimes called spiritual or pastoral authority—that truly respects religious differences by not enacting a caste system of religious/spiritual traditions and practices, with some more superior or truthful than others. Students are able to use their agential power grounded in their specialized knowledge of and training in spiritual care, and in their organizational role.
2. Using calming spiritual practices helps students recognize when stress makes them cope with jarring experiences of religious differences by wanting to fuse with/disengage from others in ways that minimize, polarize, or use inclusion as a way of ‘re-centering’ themselves in familiar or habitual orientations that blur differences, which are shaped by childhood and culture.
3. Making grounded responses in a listening/following style of using receptive power that echoes the language the other uses to describe their suffering and sources of hope and comfort
4. Venturing out of their cognitive/theological ‘comfort zone’, tolerating discomfort for spiritual growth.

In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are

• Experiencing confidence in or anxiety about their solid flexible spiritual self, especially in using agential power as spiritual rather than psychological care providers.
• Describing jarring moments in course conversations/discussions, when use of spiritual practices helps them be aware of embedded values and beliefs arising from stress that makes them fuse with/disengage from the other.
• Make interreligiously respectful responses using receptive power
• Use challenging/uncomfortable moments to finetune learning goals specific to their own learning process

 

Practicing spiritual and social empathy

Spiritual and social empathy is builds upon spiritual self-differentiation by spiritual and social perspective-taking involves standing in the other’s shoes to the extent that one can, and imagining the world from the other’s spiritual perspective, especially the macro systems of intersecting social privileges or disadvantages within their cultural and political contexts. Perspective-taking helps students differentiate spiritually and emotionally while considering differences in social advantages and disadvantages, especially racial differences. Blurring one’s own and another’s perspective will lower empathic attunement and could contribute to spiritual neglect, coercion, and microaggressions.

Learning outcomes for developing and demonstrating spiritual and social empathy

The following are examples of learning outcomes for how students integrate key concepts in spiritual and social empathy with an interpersonal capacity for ‘seeing the other’ using these key concepts, and then using communication styles and skills appropriately in particular learning and spiritual care interactions:

1. Using specialized knowledge from their theological and religious studies to consider the macro systems of intersecting social privileges or disadvantages within a care seeker’s current context contexts
2. Using an overarching orientation of post/decolonialism^[v] to name the ways that colonialism exercises power over all aspects of ecological, transnational, political, and economic life
3. Bringing post and decolonial orientations to understanding the impossibility of ‘doing no harm’ in a world organized by colonialism and the need for spiritual practices that hold lament

In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are

• Using key concepts from across Iliff courses to articulate intersectional and postcolonial descriptions of how social privileges and disadvantages ameliorate and/or exacerbate suffering for oneself and another.
• Demonstrating social empathy for how these intersecting advantages and disadvantages shape their own and the other’s stress-based values and beliefs about suffering and hope.
• Describing practices of lament in their own process of spiritual integration, while listening for the ways lament could be part of spiritual care conversations.

Practicing Spiritual Self-Reflexivity

Spiritual reflexivity goes beyond theological reflection to understand how a chaplain’s/community faith leader’s and care seeker’s social, religious/spiritual identities interact in the process of exploring contextual intentional values and beliefs about suffering cocreated within relationships of trust in spiritual care and learning circles. Reflexivity begins with identifying how one’s stress-oriented and intentional beliefs and values are shaped by one’s own intersecting social privileges and disadvantages. The next step is to use spiritual and social empathy to imagine the other’s stress-generated values and beliefs and how these are shaped by their social location. Calming practices help one identify core contextual values and beliefs about particular experiences of suffering and hope. Spiritual reflexivity includes understanding possible interactions among (1) your beliefs and values about the care receiver’s experience, your role as their chaplain or community faith leader, and your social location, (2) the care receiver’s beliefs and values about her experience, her role as a patient/ community faith member, and her social location. Students use agential and receptive power in fine-tuning their communication styles/skills in listening to and guiding a search for meanings.

 

Learning outcomes for practicing spiritual self-reflexivity

The following are examples of learning outcomes for how students integrate key concepts in spiritual self-reflexivity using communication styles and skills appropriately in particular learning and spiritual care interaction

1. Focus on key concepts from readings to understand develop contextual intentional values and beliefs about suffering/hope intrinsically and contextually meaningful given interacting social locations
2. Focus on key concepts in readings to listen for how another’s social location and narratives might generate their stress-related embedded beliefs and values about particular kinds of suffering/hope
3. Describe the process of co-creating contextual meanings and values through the process of spiritual care conversations. enhance self-differentiation in specific spiritual care and learning interactions

 

In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are

• Using momentary spiritual practices to regulate emotions in order to draw upon key concepts from readings to develop contextual intentional values and beliefs about suffering/hope in this week’s topic
• Use key concepts in readings to listen for how their group members’ social location and narratives might generate their stress-related embedded beliefs and values about particular kinds of suffering/hope
• In forum responses and assignments demonstrate the process of co-creating contextual meanings and values through the process of spiritual care conversations. enhance self-differentiation in specific spiritual care and learning interactions

Practicing evidence-based spiritual care

Students in this course begin to develop research literacy by

• paying attention to when and how readings use research, in order to understand the relevance of research on when/how aspects of spirituality and religion help or harm others.
• using access to databases to search for relevant research on suffering and common religious, spiritual, and moral struggles arising from common experiences of suffering
• citing research to support their approach to spiritual care in course discussions and practice.

References

Doehring, C., & Kestenbaum, A. (In press). Introduction to interpersonal competencies. In S. Rambo & W. Cadge (Eds.), Introduction to chaplaincy and spiritual care. University of North Carolina Press.

Doehring, C., & Kestenbaum, A. (In press). Practicing socially just, interreligious, and evidence-based spiritual care In S. Rambo & W. Cadge (Eds.), Introduction to chaplaincy and spiritual care. University of North Carolina Press.

Lizardy-Hajbi, K. (2020). Frameworks toward post/decolonial pastoral leaderships. Journal of Religious Leadership. 19(2), 98-128.

 

 

[i] Humanist, pagan, and first nations communities are examples of traditions/cultures that do not use terms like spiritual or religious to describe themselves. Use of these terms may be less relevant for them.

[ii] Spiritual care professionals are ethically mandated to “promote justice in relationships with others, in their institutions and in society” Common Code of Ethics for Chaplains, Pastoral Counselors,  Pastoral Educators and Students (Council on Collaboration, 2004), 4.1.

[iii] Collaboration. Short Common Code of Ethics for Chaplains, Pastoral Counselors,  Pastoral Educators and Students 1.3.

[iv] When academic degree programs do not include courses in comparative studies of religion supporting interreligious practices, students and religious leaders may perpetuate spiritual harm through interreligious naivete. For an introduction to how comparative studies shape interreligious dialogue, see Paul Hedges, Controversies in Interreligious Dialogue and the Theology of Religions (London: SCM Press, 2010).

[v] Lizardy-Hajbi uses the term “’post/decolonial’ in order to acknowledge both the separate contextual and theoretical streams from which challenges to coloniality have arisen in the literature, as well as to highlight their common foundational aims as critiques to colonial being-thinking-acting” Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi, "Frameworks toward Post/Decolonial Pastoral Leaderships," Journal of Religious Leadership 19 no. 2 (2020): 98-128.

Learning Covenant

Students develop critical thinking skills that they use in developing competencies for spiritual care, by integrating theory and practice through experiential learning. The competencies that shape these learning goals are also part of covenants necessary for intentional learning communities.  

Confidentiality: Personal disclosures are not to be discussed outside of class without agreement and permission. Students can talk about their stress/emotional reactions with trusted others, as long as the focus is on them and not the content of what other students share. In case study assignments that are not fictional, students need to disguise the identity of care seekers. Students must be aware of and abide by the mandatory reporting laws of the state in which they provide professional caregiving. If they are designated spiritual caregivers within their religious tradition, they need to also be aware of what their religious organization requires. If students have reason to suspect or have first-hand knowledge of recent, current, or ongoing child abuse or neglect perpetrated on a child currently under the age of 18 years, elder abuse, sexual and domestic violence, or threats of homicide or suicide in any of the pastoral situations they use for fulfilling the requirements of this course they need to seek immediate consultation with supervisors, denominational leaders, and the professor of this course so that proper reporting procedures can be ascertained. State laws on mandatory reporting are available at State Laws on Mandatory Clergy Reporting  Colorado mandatory reporting requirements may be found at Colorado Revised Statutes 19-3-304, 1a, 2(aa, II, III); 13-90-107c.  Faculty will abide by the bounds of professional and Title IX reporting laws rather than absolute confidentiality.

Self-Differentiation: In preparing forum posts and responses, assignments, and spiritual care conversations, students are responsible for (1) tracking how they experience stress in their bodies and stress-related emotions, and (2) using practices that foster self-compassion and empathy, such that their emotional/stress reactions are resources for learning, not liabilities.

Levels of self-disclosure: The purpose of self-disclosure is to develop competencies in spiritual care, especially a commitment to one’s own process of spiritual integration that enhances self-differentiation and a capacity for empathy. The purpose of self-disclosure in this learning context is not for personal healing. In deciding how to use/disclose personal experiences in assignments, students need track their levels of stress as they work on assignments, and to not use/disclose experiences that overwhelm their capacities for self-differentiation, spiritual integration, and critical thinking skills. Students need to use their support systems when they become overwhelmed and in making decisions about what personal experiences to share in weekly posts and journal/case study assignments.

Respect for differences: Students are responsible for using social and theological empathy to imaginatively step into and respect the worlds of those who are different from them in terms of beliefs, values, practices, and social location.

Group and team learning depends upon timely posts and assignments: Every effort must be made to post on time. If posts will be late, faculty, students must notify faculty, forum discussion groups, and/or learning partners. If assignments are consistently late and if late assignment will jeopardize their learning partner’s deadlines, students may be required to withdraw from the course. Normally incompletes are not granted because all learning in the course is collaborative.

Availability of faculty: Carrie Doehring will normally respond within 24 hours to emails sent to cdoehring@iliff.edu (note that emails sent within Canvas are sometimes hard to track amidst other Canvas notifications). Spiritual care faculty offer support but not spiritual care or counseling, and are available to help students with referrals for spiritual care, spiritual direction, and counseling.

Academic standards: In all forum posts and assignments, students need to use academic and professional standards of good grammar, writing skills, and appropriate in-text citation using APA formatting (used through course material; see also writing center resources on APA formatting). Iliff School of Theology uses inclusive language, and language that respects all forms of religious traditions, theological, and political perspectives, and gender and sexual orientation diversity.

 

Please sign up for a time to discuss your verbatim and learning goals, Hit EDIT, add your name beside a date, and then hit SAVE

Remember to delete/alter all identifying details of the care seeker. Please include at the end of your verbatim a statement of your learning goals for the CPE unit.

Remember that our course learning covenant Learning Covenant stipulates confidentiality when we read and discuss these verbatim assignments (within the limits of mandatory reporting and Title IX reporting, stipulated in our course covenant).

All Verbatim and goals due by April 6 Verbatim and Learning Goals 

Week 4 Forum discussion 4/13: Two verbatim presentations

1. Ashley Nolan

Week 5 Mandatory zoom (two verbatim presentations)

1. Katie Larsen

2. Isaac Dunn

Week 6 Forum discussion 4/27: Two verbatim presentations

1. Robin Darrow

2. Stephanie Seth

Week 7 Forum discussion 5/4: Two verbatim presentations

1. Meredith Parfet

2. Robert Patterson

Please sign up for a time to discuss your verbatim and learning goals, Hit EDIT, add your name beside a date, and then hit SAVE

Remember to delete/alter all identifying details of the care seeker. Please include at the end of your verbatim a statement of your learning goals for the CPE unit.

Remember that our course learning covenant Learning Covenant stipulates confidentiality when we read and discuss these verbatim assignments (within the limits of mandatory reporting and Title IX reporting, stipulated in our course covenant).

All Verbatim and goals due by April 6 Verbatim and Learning Goals 

Week 4 Forum discussion 4/13: Two verbatim presentations

1. Ashley Nolan

Week 5 Mandatory zoom (two verbatim presentations)

1. Katie Larsen

2. Isaac Dunn

Week 6 Forum discussion 4/27: Two verbatim presentations

1. Robin Darrow

2. Stephanie Seth

Week 7 Forum discussion 5/4: Two verbatim presentations

1. Meredith Parfet

2. Robert Patterson

Learning Covenant

Students develop critical thinking skills that they use in developing competencies for spiritual care, by integrating theory and practice through experiential learning. The competencies that shape these learning goals are also part of covenants necessary for intentional learning communities.  

Confidentiality: Personal disclosures are not to be discussed outside of class without agreement and permission. Students can talk about their stress/emotional reactions with trusted others, as long as the focus is on them and not the content of what other students share. In case study assignments that are not fictional, students need to disguise the identity of care seekers. Students must be aware of and abide by the mandatory reporting laws of the state in which they provide professional caregiving. If they are designated spiritual caregivers within their religious tradition, they need to also be aware of what their religious organization requires. If students have reason to suspect or have first-hand knowledge of recent, current, or ongoing child abuse or neglect perpetrated on a child currently under the age of 18 years, elder abuse, sexual and domestic violence, or threats of homicide or suicide in any of the pastoral situations they use for fulfilling the requirements of this course they need to seek immediate consultation with supervisors, denominational leaders, and the professor of this course so that proper reporting procedures can be ascertained. State laws on mandatory reporting are available at State Laws on Mandatory Clergy Reporting  Colorado mandatory reporting requirements may be found at Colorado Revised Statutes 19-3-304, 1a, 2(aa, II, III); 13-90-107c.  Faculty will abide by the bounds of professional and Title IX reporting laws rather than absolute confidentiality.

Self-Differentiation: In preparing forum posts and responses, assignments, and spiritual care conversations, students are responsible for (1) tracking how they experience stress in their bodies and stress-related emotions, and (2) using practices that foster self-compassion and empathy, such that their emotional/stress reactions are resources for learning, not liabilities.

Levels of self-disclosure: The purpose of self-disclosure is to develop competencies in spiritual care, especially a commitment to one’s own process of spiritual integration that enhances self-differentiation and a capacity for empathy. The purpose of self-disclosure in this learning context is not for personal healing. In deciding how to use/disclose personal experiences in assignments, students need track their levels of stress as they work on assignments, and to not use/disclose experiences that overwhelm their capacities for self-differentiation, spiritual integration, and critical thinking skills. Students need to use their support systems when they become overwhelmed and in making decisions about what personal experiences to share in weekly posts and journal/case study assignments.

Respect for differences: Students are responsible for using social and theological empathy to imaginatively step into and respect the worlds of those who are different from them in terms of beliefs, values, practices, and social location.

Group and team learning depends upon timely posts and assignments: Every effort must be made to post on time. If posts will be late, faculty, students must notify faculty, forum discussion groups, and/or learning partners. If assignments are consistently late and if late assignment will jeopardize their learning partner’s deadlines, students may be required to withdraw from the course. Normally incompletes are not granted because all learning in the course is collaborative.

Availability of faculty: Carrie Doehring will normally respond within 24 hours to emails sent to cdoehring@iliff.edu (note that emails sent within Canvas are sometimes hard to track amidst other Canvas notifications). Spiritual care faculty offer support but not spiritual care or counseling, and are available to help students with referrals for spiritual care, spiritual direction, and counseling.

Academic standards: In all forum posts and assignments, students need to use academic and professional standards of good grammar, writing skills, and appropriate in-text citation using APA formatting (used through course material; see also writing center resources on APA formatting). Iliff School of Theology uses inclusive language, and language that respects all forms of religious traditions, theological, and political perspectives, and gender and sexual orientation diversity.