Pastoral Counseling

The National Seminary of

Our Lady of Lanka
st
1 Semester, 2020/2021
By
Fr. Sunil Rupasinghe, SSS, Psy.D
• Syllabus
• 1. The Pastor
• a Counselor
• 2. Awareness
• 3. The People of God
• Their issues
• 4. Counseling Theories
– Counseling skills
– The Counseling Process
•
• Base is the Bible
• Counseling is about empowering - hope
• We are more than what we are – Strengths
• We are less than what we are – Limitations
•
• Pastoral Counseling is a unique form of psychotherapy which uses spiritual
resources as well as psychological understanding for healing and growth.
• It is provided by certified pastoral counselors, who are not only mental
health professionals but who have also had in-depth religious and/or
theological training.
•
• Counseling Theories:
•
• The Pastor
• Art of Clinical supervision
– Your Pastor is your supervisor. Because …
– Humility to acknowledge your limited experience

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 • Pastor, Burn-out?
• Tips:
– avoid the “belief in a just world”
– Remind yourself, you’re doing the best you can
– Avoid, “I just need to work harder”
– Recognize Ruminations
– Regulate your rhythms _ sleep, eat, socialize. Work etc. Rituals
– Use physiological self-soothing strategies, massage yourself, long
showers, Laughter, dance, painting.
– Vacations
– Pray
•
• Awareness
•
• Art of Passing-over
– Courage to recognize lack of best fit
– Emotionally, intellectually, experientially
– Are you a person for emergencies?
• Triage: (in medical usage) the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds
or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients
or casualties.
• e.g. Victims were triaged by paramedics before being transported to
hospitals
•
• Is counseling your forte?
• Your Spirituality, Your Maturity
• Can you survive?
• Some get emotionally involved (sympathy)
• Hence, unable to objectively assess (empathy) the situation.
• Clients like that personal touch (sympathy), but it will hinder treatment.
•
•

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 • Bibliography
• Archer, James, Jr., Counseling College Students, Continuum/ New York,
1991.
• Bawrence, M. Branimer, The helping relationship-process and skills, New
Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1988.
• Buckingham, Robert. W., Care of the dying child, Continuum/ New York,
1989.
• Corey, S. M. & Corey, O. C., Becoming a helper,
(3rd Ed.) Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1998.
• Corey, G., Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherpy, (5th Ed.),
Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1996.
• Downing, Christine, Women’s Mysteries, Crossroad/ New York, 1992.
• Hall, Calvin & Lindzey, Gardner., Theories of Personality, (3rd Ed), John
Wiley & Sons, NY. 1978.
• Lauver, P. & Harvey, D. R., The Practical Counselor, Pacific Grove, CA:
Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1997.
• Mendis, Valence, (editor), Fr. Panditharatne: Priest, Pedagogue and
Philosopher, National Seminary Publication , 1996.
• Quinnett, Paul G., On becoming health and human services manager,
Continuum/ New York, 1989.
• Tan, S.Y., 1991, Lay counseling, Equipping Christins for helping Ministry,
Grand Rapids, Zondervan.
•
• History
• In the early 1900s, Reverend Anton Brown, one of the founders of the
Pastoral Education Movement, pioneered a unique enrichment program in
which he connected theology students with hospital patients who were
also experiencing concerns of a psychiatric nature. 
• In the early 1930s, minister Norman Vincent Peale and psychiatrist Smiley
Blanton formed the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry,
known today as the Blanton-Peale Institute.
• In 1963, the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC) was
formed to provide certification, accreditation, and training in the field of
pastoral counseling.
• According to the AAPC website, “pastoral counseling evolved from religious
counseling to pastoral psychotherapy, which integrates theology and other

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 faith traditions with knowledge, spirituality, the resources of faith
communities, the behavioral sciences, and in recent years, systemic
theory.”
• In the USA hospital chaplains to be qualified need to take 4 units of Pastoral
Counseling, priests are not exempted!
•
• What are the Characteristics & qualities of a Pastor?
1. Above Reproach (Titus 1:6, 7; 1 Tim 3:2)
Summarizing characteristic.
Living a life above reproach is the first requirement.
2. A pastor is a faithful steward (Titus 1:7).
– He is a steward, a manager of God’s resources and Jesus’ flock.
– He takes responsibility, but not ownership.
3. A pastor must be humble — not arrogant (Titus 1:7).
– A pastor must constantly demonstrate the gospel by admitting when
he is wrong and assuming responsibility and restoring relationships.
4. A pastor must be gentle — not quick-tempered (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3).
– No man will be of any use in the kingdom that is quick-tempered.
5. A pastor must be sober — not a drunkard (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3).
6. A pastor must be peaceful — not violent (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3).
– A pastor is prone to inflict violence through his words.
– He is to be a peacemaker.
7. A pastor must have financial integrity — not greedy for gain (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim
3:3; 1 Peter 5:3).
8. A pastor must be hospitable (Titus 1:8; 1 Tim 3:2).
9. A pastor must be a lover of good (Titus 1:8).
10. A pastor must be self-controlled (Titus 1:8; 1 Tim 3:2).
– Self-control is a characterization of every area of a pastor’s life: diet,
time, mouth, exercise, relationships, sex, and money.
11. A pastor must be upright (Titus 1:8).
– He has integrity in his relationships and in how he treats others.
12. A pastor must be holy (Titus 1:8).
– His life is devoted wholeheartedly to Jesus externally and internally.
13. A pastor must be able to teach (Titus 1:9; 1 Tim 3:2).
– This is the only ability-based requirement.
– He is to be able to teach sound doctrine, not just be able to
communicate in an excellent manner.

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 – The elders were to defend the faith once delivered to the saints
against the numerous false teachers that arose.
14. A pastor must be spiritually mature (1 Tim 3:6).
Positions of authority without spiritual maturity lead to the trap of
pride.
When pride grows in a man, sin abounds.
15. A pastor must be respectable (1 Tim 3:7).
– It means that there is no credible witness to an ongoing sinful
behavior.
16. A pastor must be an example to the flock (1 Peter 5:3).
– Elders are examples of biblical expressions sexually, time
management, marriage, parenting, worship, relationships and any
other way.
•
What are the Characteristics qualities of a Counselor?
• The most educationally trained professional in any field does not make that
person qualified to be in that field.
• Passing exams, receiving a diploma, or being declared certified are the easy
parts.
• Being a qualified, gifted counselor requires harder things than getting an
education.
• When Paul laid out what it takes to be a pastor, out of the fifteen things
listed, the ability to teach was just one thing while there were fourteen
character/gift qualities that surrounded that singular ability.
• If counseling training is all you have, then you do not have enough to do
high-end, formalized counseling.
•
• Counselor needs to be:
•  You’re looking for the presence of these attributes not the perfection of
them!
1 – Courageous – 
– You cannot be timid or insecure.
2 – Wise – 
– Wisdom is the objective practice of applying God’s Word to your life.
3 – Creative – 
– You discern each unique person according to the season of life they
are in and the shaping influences that are molding them, and then

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 formulate a plan in your mind of how to bring God’s truth to them in
a customized way.
4 – Pneumatic – 
– You have to walk in the Spirit.
– If you cannot discern what is not being said, then your inability to see
the invisible things needed to help a person will not be accessible to
you and the person will not be helped.
5– Mature – 
– You must have a measurable, proven track record of solving your
own problems.
– Your life is “Exhibit A” of what a God-centered person is.
– You present yourself as an example of a transformed life.
6 – Compassionate – 
– There is no place for harshness in counseling. Patience, long-
suffering, empathy, kindness, and a gentle spirit are some of the
necessary elements when restoring others. Without compassion, it’s
not Christian counseling.
7 – Convinced – 
– You must know what you believe, why you believe it, and you’re able
to deliver your biblio-centric beliefs in such a way that the other
person finds convincing, appealing, and applicable. Your passion
should be exportable to others.
8 – Humble – 
– Without humility, there will be no favor from the LORD.
– One of the ways you can do this is by practically living out a life that
is “below” those you’re caring for.
– This has restorative power in people’s lives.
9 – Safe – 
– Stewarding not just what a person tells you but stewarding their life
as well.
10 – Charismatic – 
Being winsome, joyful, and fun is part of what it means to lead others.
God has never been boring and neither should you.

11 – Disciplined –

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 –  Procrastination, laziness, and a lack of self-control will affect every
area of your life.
12 – Strong – 
This kind of counselor cannot be squeamish.
You will hear everything that could possibly be said, plus the kitchen sink.
•
Neophyte (new candidate)
• Under the parish priest
• Open to supervision, evaluation, even criticism!
• Open Communication with the Parish priest
• No secret agreements with parishioners
• Seek permission for ministry and activities
• Keep the Pastor updated
• Counseling is problem-initiated.
• Pastoral Counseling is not problem-focused, but Christ-focused.
• Counseling is for everybody.
• Counseling is not for everybody!
• Even the worst situations have hope.
•
Benefits of Pastoral Counseling
• As pastoral counseling can provide specialized treatment to those seeking
such but also meet more general counseling needs, it can be considered a
versatile mode of therapy.
• Pastoral counseling can offer support to those seeking family, relationship,
premarital, or individual counseling. More specifically, it may be helpful to
individuals working through or challenged by any of the following
situations: 
• Spiritual assessment
• Grief and loss
• Issues related to chronic or terminal illness
• Conflicts around spiritual beliefs
• Mental health issues directly linked to religious beliefs or doctrine 
• Crises of faith
• Reintegration into community life after institutionalization or incarceration
• Adjusting to mental health support when wary of the system
•

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 • Pastoral counselors are uniquely positioned to offer a professional level of
mental health treatment, thanks to graduate training and education, while
also providing spiritual guidance from a faith-based perspective.
•
Religion & Mind
We want to know why?
• We need to know why?
• That is why we go to somebody, of our own at times we cannot fathom
what happened or what happens.
• Counseling (Pastoral) is to help a person to understand what has happened
or what is happening.
•
• Our didactic courses prepare people to expect what happens in the future.
•
• Distress (pain, mental, physical, lover’s pain)
• We learn from the beginning how to deal with pain.
• Somehow for believers ‘pain’ is connected with God.
• Go beyond what Wicks & Parson calls “spiritual chatter”. (p.9)
•
Confessions
• Psychiatrist Maurice Drury (Drury, “The Danger of Words”, 1973, pp.31-32)
describes St. Augustin’s Confessions, as perhaps the most profound
psychological analysis ecer carried out.
• “you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you”
• “Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in Te”
•
• Excerpt from Confessions
p.18/199
• “Woe is me! and dare I say that Thou heldest Thy peace, O my God, while I
wandered further from Thee?
• Didst Thou then indeed hold Thy peace to me?
• And whose but Thine were these words which by my mother, Thy faithful
one, Thou sangest in my ears?
• Nothing whereof sunk into my heart, so as to do it.
• For she wished, and I remember in private with great anxiety warned me,
"not to commit fornication; but especially never to defile another man's
wife."

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 • These seemed to me womanish advices, which I should blush to obey.
• But they were Thine, and I knew it not: and I thought Thou wert silent and
that it was she who spake; by whom Thou wert not silent unto me; and in
her wast despised by me, her son, the son of Thy handmaid, Thy servant.
• But I knew it not; and ran headlong with such blindness, that amongst my
equals I was ashamed of a less shamelessness, when I heard them boast of
their flagitiousness, yea, and the more boasting, the more they were
degraded: and I took pleasure, not only in the pleasure of the deed, but in
the praise.
• What is worthy of dispraise but vice?
• But I made myself worse than I was, that I might not be dispraised; and
when in any thing I had not sinned as the abandoned ones, I would say that
I had done what I had not done, that I might not seem contemptible in
proportion as I was innocent; or of less account, the more chaste”.
•
• Confessions is the name of an autobiographical work,
• consisting of 13 books, by Saint Augustine of Hippo,
• written in Latin between AD 397 and 400.
• The work outlines Saint Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to
Christianity.
•
Manichaeism
A dualistic religious system with Christian, Gnostic, and pagan elements,
founded in Persia in the 3rd century by Manes (c.216–c.276) and based on
a supposed primeval conflict between light and darkness.
• It was widespread in the Roman Empire and in Asia, and survived in eastern
Turkestan (Xinjiang) until the 13th century.
• Like all forms of Gnosticism, Manichaeism taught that life in this world is
unbearably painful and radically evil.
• Inner illumination or gnosis reveals that the soul which shares in the nature
of God has fallen into the evil world of matter and must be saved by means
of the spirit or intelligence (nous).
• To know one’s self is to recover one’s true self, which was previously
clouded by ignorance and lack of self-consciousness because of its mingling
with the body and with matter.
• In Manichaeism, to know one’s self is to see one’s soul as sharing in the
very nature of God and as coming from a transcendent world.

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 •
Faustus
Faustus of Mileve was a Manichaean bishop of the fourth century. He is
now remembered for his encounter with Augustine of Hippo,
in Carthage around 383.
• He was from Milevis, Numidia (modern Algeria).
• From a poor, pagan background, he had become a highly reputed teacher,
preacher and debater.
• Augustine, a Manichaean at that time, questioned Manichaean teachers in
Carthage to find answers, but repeatedly was told that Faustus would have
them.
• Once Faustus made himself available, Augustine was extremely impressed
with his rhetorical abilities and discipline, but soon learned he did not have
the answers to his questions and realized that he was wise enough to not
entertain questions for which he had no sound answer or which might force
him to argue an undefendable or foolish position.
• Augustine determined the Manichaean stories unsubstantiated and his
questions unanswerable by the Manichaeans, specially Faustus, its most
celebrated proponent
• Later, after his conversion to Christianity, Augustine wrote a polemical
work Contra Faustum

Possible Limitations of Pastoral Counseling

• Dual relationship
• Confidentiality
• Standard of care may differ according qualification & experience
• Possibility of misuse, abuse etc.
• Need for reference to be kept in mind
•
Wicks & Parsons
Clinical Handbook of Pastoral Counseling
• Pastoral Diagnosis
• Short Term Counseling
• Special Population
– Cross cultural : Sinhala & Tamil
– Families at risk
– Women – feminist

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 – Religious
– Lesbians & Gay
•
People of God
• Life Development
– Children
– Teenagers. Adolescents in turmoil
– Adults
– Married
– Parents – under stress
– Single parents
– Elderly
•
Issues
– Self esteem
– Guilt
– Depression
– Sexually abused
– Physically Abused
– Emotionally bused
– Abusers
– Unemployed
– Poverty
– bereavement and coping with terminal illness
–
Lay-Christian Counseling. Tan, S.Y., 1991.
• Basic view of Humanity
• 1. Basic Psychological & Spiritual needs for Security, Love, significance,
(meaning/impact) & hope (forgiveness)
• 2. the basic problem of human beings is sin – but not all emotional
suffering is due to personal sin
• 3. Ultimate Goal of human beings is to know & enjoy God & spiritual
health
• 4. Problem feelings are usually due to problem behavior & more
fundmentally problem thinking –however, biologicl & demonic factors
should also be considered

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 • 5. Holistic view of person includes physical, mental/emotional, social
and spiritual dimensions.
•
Basic Principles for effective counseling
• 1. Holy Spirit
• 2. Bibles
• 3. Prayer
• 4. Goal: Maturity in Christ & fulfilling the Great Commission
• 5. Personal & Spiritual qulities of the counselor
• 6. Client’s attitudes, motivation, & desire for help
• 7. The relationship bt. Counselor & client
• 8. Counseling process:exploration, understnding, & action, Focus on
• changing thinking.
• 9. Flexible approach
• 10. Techniques consistent with SS
• 11. Cultural & cross Cultural sensitivity
• 12. Caring Community
• 13. Awareness of limitations & referral skills
•
Addictions
– Substances
– Alcohol & Children of Alcoholics
– Pathalogical Gambling
–
Disorders
– PTSD
– Suicide – Attempted suicide, pre & post interventions
– A more detailed presentation will be made in the 2nd Semester
Course.
•
Counseling Theories:
• a. Psychoanalytic theory. g. Reality therapy
• b. Adlerian Theory. h. Behavior therapy
• c. Jungian Theory. i. Cognitive therapy
• d. Existential Theory. j. Family Systems theories
• e. Person-centered Theory.
• f. Gestalt therapy

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