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
IST 2012 Pastoral Theology & Care
IST 1000 V&O
IST 1001 IPD
IST 4004 CPE
Requirements:
2021 Learning Areas and Goals for Spiritual Care Courses
Carrie Doehring cdoehring@iliff.edu
6-29-2021
Lifelong learning
Learning spiritual care is a lifelong integrative process that weaves together knowledge, attitudes, relational capacities, and interpersonal skills. Spiritual care courses at Iliff require students to learn and practice spiritual self-care and integration, and spiritual care conversations with learning partners. Experiential and integrative learning helps students develop learning goals for their spiritual care coursework and contextual learning in internships or clinical pastoral education.
Learning socially just, interreligious, and research literate spiritual care[i]
Socially just spiritual care pays attention to interacting social advantages and disadvantages that contribute to unjust ideas and policies that produce and normalize inequities based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or other aspects of someone’s social identity.[ii] Antiracist and “post/decolonial leadership frameworks “resist and dismantle the systems that have allowed for injustices and violences (racial and otherwise) to flourish for centuries”(Lizardy-Hajbi, 2020, p. 99).
Community faith leaders and chaplains bring knowledge, leadership and interpersonal capacities, and communication skills for dismantling the ways that religious and spiritual practices, values, and beliefs have caused harm, especially when they are used to justify inequities based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or other aspects of someone’s social identity.
Spiritual care needs to be both intercultural and interreligious in order to
Community faith leaders and chaplains need to be research literate—able to find, understand, and use research on how aspects of religion and spirituality help and/or harm people (e.g., the toxicity of experiencing God and/or religious authorities as judging; the ways that chronic religious, spiritual and moral struggles intensify trauma and moral injury). Research literacy counteracts the ways that fears, especially from the Christian Right, generate conspiracy theories and paranoia justify an anti-science agenda and literal reading of selective scared texts that causes harm. For example, religiously-based denial of global warming perpetuate the destruction of creation through global warming denials (Alumkal, 2017). Religiously-based values and beliefs justifying personal ‘freedom’ to not wear masks or get covid vaccines endanger those who are vulnerable because of age and health-care status.
Learning Goal: 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 overarching values, and exploring beliefs and meanings about stress and suffering in ways that align personal/communal healing and justice with global and ecological justice. Life-giving spiritual practices help people (1) deepen awareness of their stress responses; (2) hold these stress responses with self-compassion; (3) experience the goodness of their relational webs that may include transcendent and immanent goodness (e.g., with creation, God, Buddha, Allah),and (4) share lament and interrogate suffering and injustice. This process of spiritual integration is what helps community faith leaders and chaplains spiritually trust the process of lifelong learning in ways that ground them in what is life-giving within own religious and/or spiritual heritage, identity, and communities.
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
In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are
Practicing spiritual self-differentiation
When community faith leaders and chaplains are attuned to how stress triggers bodily memories, they can use calming and settling spiritual practices to hold these memories in self-compassion. They may then be able to spiritually care for self by separating past memories from present circumstances in a process of spiritual self-differentiation. Self-differentiation helps community faith leaders and chaplains 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 ways that respect the mystery of the other.
The added dimension of spiritual self-differentiation is what helps chaplains and community faith leaders develop intercultural and interreligious capacities for learning from jarring encounters with cultural and religious differences, “which may disrupt meaning systems and catalyze defenses or offer the opportunity for religious transformation” (Morgan & Sandage, 2016, p. 130).[iii][iv] Learning how to practice intercultural spiritual care is a developmental process of paying attention to jarring encounters that evoke responses to cultural differences (e.g., related to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation) across “a spectrum extending from ethnocentric mindsets, which involve less differentiated perspectives on cultural differences, to ethnorelativism, which demands higher levels of awareness and sensitivity (Bennett, 1993, 2004)” (Morgan & Sandage, 2016, p. 133).[v] Interreligious spiritual care is a specialized kind of intercultural competency that integrates:
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 communities of faith and religiously diverse contexts. The term interreligious is used here to describe practices, values, and beliefs within spiritual, religious, and moral orienting systems, which may include humanist, agnostic, or atheist orientations, as well as those who may or may not use 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
In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are
Practicing spiritual and social empathy
Spiritual and social empathy builds upon spiritual self-differentiation by using spiritual and social perspective-taking, which 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 the other’s 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’ and using communication styles and skills appropriately in particular learning and spiritual care interactions:
In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are
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, learning circles, and communities of faith. 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) one’s beliefs and values about the care receiver’s experience, one’s role as their chaplain or community faith leader, and one’s social location, (2) the care receiver’s beliefs and values about their experience, roles, and 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
In weekly forum discussions and assignments, students report on how they are
Practicing research-literate spiritual care
Students in this course begin to develop research literacy by
References
Alumkal, A. (2017). Paranoid science: The Christian Right's war on reality. NYU Press.
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.
Hammer, M. (2011). Additional cross-cultural validity testing of the intercultural development
inventory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 35, 474-487.
Hammer, M. R., Bennett, M. J., & Wiseman, R. (2003). Measuring intercultural sensitivity:
The intercultural development inventory. International Journal of Intercultural
Relations, 27(4), 421-443.
Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an anti-racist. One World.
Lizardy-Hajbi, K. (2020). Frameworks toward post/decolonial pastoral leaderships. Journal of Religious Leadership. 19(2), 98-128.
Morgan, J., & Sandage, S. J. (2016). A developmental model of interreligious competence. Archiv für Religionspsychologie / Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 38(2), 129-158. https://doi.org/10.1163/15736121-12341325
Pargament, K. (2007). Spiritually integrated psychotherapy: Understanding and addressing the sacred. Guilford Press.
Pargament, K., Desai, K. M., & McConnell, K. M. (2006). Spirituality: A pathway to posttraumatic growth or decline? In L. G. Calhoun & R. G. Tedeschi (Eds.), Handbook of posttraumatic growth: Research and practice (pp. 121-135). Erlbaum.
Trevino, K. M., Pargament, K., Krause, N., Ironson, G., & Hill, P. (2019). Stressful events and religious/spiritual struggle: Moderating effects of the general orienting system. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 11(3), 214-224. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000149
[i] The goals are elaborated with a case study in Doehring and Kestenbaum (in press).
[ii] Kendi (2019) defines “a racist policy [as] any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups” (p. 18) and “A racist idea is any idea that suggests one racial group is inferior or superior to another racial group in any way” (p. 20).
[iii] Pargament, Desai, and McConnell (2006, p. 130) defines spiritual integration as “the extent to which spiritual beliefs, practices, and experiences are organized into a coherent whole.”
[iv] “For religious individuals, pluralism often presents a particularly radical confrontation with the constructed nature of one’s own meaning system. Nietzsche (1907) predicted that
most people are not willing to accept the degree to which they construct cultural and religious meaning systems. Recognizing the cultural construction of belief often seems to imply the contingency and relativity of deeply held morals and values; therefore, people will often resist such self-awareness to limit existential anxiety. Since religious diversity can often force anxiety related to this recognition, it is perhaps not surprising that encounters with religious difference can lead to prejudice and even violence (Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005). Conversely, such encounters can also be powerfully transforming for individuals and even entire religious traditions (Wuthnow, 2007). Ricoeur (1967) described a “second naïveté” where individuals have faced the contingency of their morals and values, but nevertheless re-engage their religious traditions with full, post-critical awareness of the ambiguity of such participation. A similar description of mature faith is given by Tillich (1951), and re-emphasized by Neville (2013), who both urge the acceptance of broken symbols, which never fully capture the sacred that they point to, yet nevertheless offer a means for engaging that ineffable ultimate. From these perspectives, religious diversity is no longer a threat but an opportunity for deeper engagement and personal commitment” (Morgan & Sandage, 2016, p. 133).
[v] The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) uses The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI; Hammer, 2011; Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003) to assess development across this spectrum of responding to cultural differences.
[vi] 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).
[vii] One’s orienting system refers to stable values, beliefs, practices and relationships that guide the individual toward the realization of significant purposes in life (Pargament, 2007).
“The orienting system is an individual’s “general way of viewing and dealing with the world”
(Pargament, 2001, p. 99). It is multidimensional and includes core beliefs (e.g., life is fair), behavioral practices (e.g., diet), emotionality (e.g., anger), social connections (e.g., relationships with family/friends), and R/S factors (e.g., relationship with God). Resources within the orienting system such as strong social support and a secure relationship with God may be particularly helpful in the context of stressful life events by lending guidance and stability, thereby reducing the impact of those events on distress (Pargament, 2001). However, burdens within the orienting system such as negative emotions and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors are deficits that may increase distress after a disruptive life” (Trevino et al., 2019, p. 215).
[viii] 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 in Spiritual Care Courses
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. Current information on (1) "clergy as mandated reporters" and (2) links to state laws can be found at the Children's Bureau of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Faculty will abide by the bounds of professional and Title IX reporting laws rather than absolute confidentiality. Under Iliff’s Mandatory Reporting Policy, all employees, with the exception of the Dean of the Chapel and Spiritual Formation,[i] are mandatory reporters. The primary purpose for sharing this information with the Title IX Coordinator is to ensure the impacted party receives information about rights and resources, and that Iliff is able to respond appropriately to such incidents.
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 discussions and assignments, students need to track their levels of stress before they share in class discussions, and in assignments/forum postings, and to not 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 kinds of 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 depend 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 assignments 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: Faculty in spiritual care courses will normally respond within 24 hours to emails (Contact Carrie Doehring by email). Messages 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.
Self-care: If this course makes you aware of sources of stress you'd like to work on with professional support, please see details about these professional services available for Iliff students: Self-care for students through Iliff's EAP
Academic Standards: All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statements on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook. Students should demonstrate academic and professional communication skills that include coherent expression of ideas, use of good grammar, and appropriate citation of sources referenced in responses and assignments. In this course, we use APA format for citations and references. Iliff's writing lab has a link to suggested sites for writing resources and style guides. Use this link to find the Purdue Online Writing Lab, and their guide to APA 7 formatting. All course participants should use inclusive language and language that respects the diversity of sexuality, gender, and sexual orientation.
Discussion posts and responses are also expected to meet these academic standards (vs. more casual standards that apply to other online conversations/emails). Please proofread assignments and discussion posts before you submit them. Seek support from the Iliff Writing Lab (Links to an external site.) as needed.
[i] College and university chaplains are included in the category of Confidential Resources, which usually includes those working in the Counseling Center, Health Center, and the University Chaplain. Faculty/staff members who happen to be similarly licensed in their field (e.g., who may be accredited as professional chaplains or licensed mental health professionals). are not exempt from reporting. Student chaplains are usually mandated reporters.
Spiritual self-care resources June 29, 2021.docx
Policies & Services: S ee the link on the left side menu for information about Iliff-wide course policies.
Learning Covenant in Spiritual Care Courses
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. Current information on (1) "clergy as mandated reporters" and (2) links to state laws can be found at the Children's Bureau of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Faculty will abide by the bounds of professional and Title IX reporting laws rather than absolute confidentiality. Under Iliff’s Mandatory Reporting Policy, all employees, with the exception of the Dean of the Chapel and Spiritual Formation,[i] are mandatory reporters. The primary purpose for sharing this information with the Title IX Coordinator is to ensure the impacted party receives information about rights and resources, and that Iliff is able to respond appropriately to such incidents.
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 discussions and assignments, students need to track their levels of stress before they share in class discussions, and in assignments/forum postings, and to not 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 kinds of 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 depend 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 assignments 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: Faculty in spiritual care courses will normally respond within 24 hours to emails (Contact Carrie Doehring by email). Messages 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.
Self-care: If this course makes you aware of sources of stress you'd like to work on with professional support, please see details about these professional services available for Iliff students: Self-care for students through Iliff's EAP
Academic Standards: All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statements on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook. Students should demonstrate academic and professional communication skills that include coherent expression of ideas, use of good grammar, and appropriate citation of sources referenced in responses and assignments. In this course, we use APA format for citations and references. Iliff's writing lab has a link to suggested sites for writing resources and style guides. Use this link to find the Purdue Online Writing Lab, and their guide to APA 7 formatting. All course participants should use inclusive language and language that respects the diversity of sexuality, gender, and sexual orientation.
Discussion posts and responses are also expected to meet these academic standards (vs. more casual standards that apply to other online conversations/emails). Please proofread assignments and discussion posts before you submit them. Seek support from the Iliff Writing Lab (Links to an external site.) as needed.
[i] College and university chaplains are included in the category of Confidential Resources, which usually includes those working in the Counseling Center, Health Center, and the University Chaplain. Faculty/staff members who happen to be similarly licensed in their field (e.g., who may be accredited as professional chaplains or licensed mental health professionals). are not exempt from reporting. Student chaplains are usually mandated reporters.
| Date | Day | Details | |
| Sep 15, 2021 | Wed | Week 1 Prepation for Zoom meeting Sept. 15 at 9.30 MT | due by 03:30PM |
| Sep 22, 2021 | Wed | Week 2 Zoom Conversation Wed. Sept 22 9.30 MT | due by 03:30PM |
| Sep 30, 2021 | Thu | Week 3 Zoom Conversation Thurs. Sept 30 9.30 MT | due by 03:30PM |
| Oct 06, 2021 | Wed | Week 4 Zoom Conversation Wed. Oct 6 9.30 MT | due by 03:30PM |
| Oct 20, 2021 | Wed | Week 6: Zoom Conversation Oct 20 9.30 MT | due by 03:30PM |
| Nov 03, 2021 | Wed | Week 8 Zoom Conversation Wed. Nov 3 9.30 MT | due by 03:30PM |
| Nov 10, 2021 | Wed | Week 9 Final Zoom conversation | due by 04:30PM |