About Clinical Training
Clinical Pastoral Training provides formative experience through learning pastoral practice in a clinical setting under supervision. This concept (following Anton T. Boisen) uses the case study method in theological inquiry – a study of “living human documents.”
For over ninety years, CPT has developed in concert with the disciplines of medicine, the behavioral and social sciences, and theology.
Accredited programs in clinical pastoral education/training implement admission to training, program content and structure, and objectives for training in accordance with The Standards.
Pastoral Psychotherapy Training
The term “psychotherapy” is utilized by persons who function at a most advanced level in one of the mental health fields: psychiatry, psychology, social work, pastoral counseling, professional counseling, marriage and family counseling, or nursing. The term literally means “the cure of souls,” and has been the purview of religious work since antiquity. Psychotherapy has experienced great advances since the emergence of psychoanalytic thinking originally promoted by Freud.
All forms of psychotherapy have been significantly impacted by the psychoanalytic revolution of psychology.
The minister who practices pastoral psychotherapy must demonstrate mastery of the insights and principles of both theology and the behavioral disciplines, and more specifically, the contributions of psychology. The pastoral psychotherapist serves as a treatment resource for persons who are troubled or disabled and as a guide and counselor to persons seeking greater wholeness and self-awareness. The training and certification of a pastoral psychotherapist prepares and authorizes the minister to function at this most advanced proficiency level of ministry.
Accredited training programs in pastoral psychotherapy implement admission to training, program content and structure, and objectives for the various levels of training in accordance with The Standards.
Why Clinical Pastoral Education / Training?
"Clinical Pastoral Training provides formative experience through learning pastoral practice in a clinical setting under supervision.” (Standards, §200).
The first benefit of Clinical Pastoral Training (CPT) is to the person in training by growth in self-awareness, emerging from psychodynamically informed reflection on one’s encounters in the clinical setting, in the training group among one's peers, and in one-on-one supervision.
The process by which CPT is conducted within CPSP builds on a fundamental insights about the individual – particularly one who has had some experience of disappointment or failure in life – and their relationship with a group.
Anton Boisen noted that a person finds that “the relationship to the group becomes all important, and that [one] judges [one]self by ethical standards which are determined by the group with which [one] seeks identification and whose approval [one] needs" (Boisen, 1936, The Exploration of the Inner World: A Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience, p.172).”
At some level – although Boisen lacked the language to describe this more precisely – the CPT process offers the opportunity for the healing of object relations. Further, the strength of the resulting attachment to the group reflects the scarcity of opportunities in adulthood for the social construction of loyalties that support one’s efforts to maintain or regain self-respect.
While not intended as therapy, the CPT experience frequently has a therapeutic effect on the person in training and their relationships, particularly in the early stages of training.
A second benefit is an enhanced understanding of the unconscious defenses that a group uses to deal with anxiety and conflict that distract the group from its conscious tasks. These are referred to as the “basic assumptions” (dependency, fight or flight, pairing, and the phantasy of unity). Becoming conscious of the inner life of groups enhances a person’s ability to contribute to the success of the group in training, in the work environment, and also in personal life.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the patients or clients and institutions served by the pastoral clinician in training benefit from their acquired ability to engage with people -- by listening deeply and making connections -- in a spirit of cooperative inquiry that is person-centered, intersubjective, and inductive.
Clinicians trained and fully formed in this tradition are adept in engaging with each patient or client as a whole person -- a bio-psycho-social and spiritual unity -- and in discerning how the person finds meaning and purpose -- their "working theology" -- as it is shaped and expressed in the experience of life.
FAQs
What is Clinical Pastoral Training?
A better question might be, “How can we know that what we see is Clinical Pastoral Training?"
“Clinical Pastoral Training provides formative experience through learning pastoral practice in a clinical setting under supervision (Standards, §200).”
“What is…?” invites a statement or list of elements or activities that constitute the training experience—measuring inputs.
As an alternative, a description of the results (or impact) of training – measures of outputs – better captures what CPSP training is about.
Until recently, CPSP has referred to its principal activity as Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), then (for a time) Clinical Pastoral Education/Training (CPE/T). Why the change?
Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) reflected the ordinary usage within the clinical pastoral movement, including significant elements of the groups that constituted the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) in 1967. This nomenclature reflects the organization’s self-understanding as an innovation within theological education.
The usage of both terms in apposition was intended to increase familiarity with the term Clinical Pastoral Training (CPT) and to encourage exploration of the distinction that it implies by re-introducing the use of "training" (lost in the 1967 merger with the extinction of the Council for the Clinical Training of Theological Students). Training was the language Anton Boisen preferred.
Training highlights the traditioning in the practice of basic research, exploring the intersection between theology, dynamic psychology, and the social sciences – an orientation to the process of discovery, rather than transmission of content – that occurs between a clinical supervisor and a trainee.
What is the central element in this research process?
The case study method is central to the clinical method of learning.
Adapted by Anton Boisen from Dr. Richard Cabot’s innovative use of the case study at Harvard Medical School, the case study developed into a way of exhaustively exploring and documenting the client’s life experience, with the goal of identifying general principles of religious and psychological life. Boisen developed and taught from cases he had encountered to illustrate such principles.
Newer understanding of the psychodynamic process at work in the case study (in the training environment) has shown that the case study reveals more about the chaplain/trainee than about the client. Accordingly, the case study captures the trainee’s countertransference and other evidence for personal and pastoral functioning.
How does Clinical Pastoral Training (in CPSP) differ from Clinical Pastoral Education offered by cognate organizations?
There is – understandably – great diversity in the approaches and emphases in the programs offered by other organizations. Some publish their training standards and indicate clearly the educational theory that underlies their work, while others reveal their perspective only obliquely through their application process.
Some organizations identify expressly with a faith tradition or institutions of a particular tradition, or advocate for religiosity in general.
Some focus on their students’ formation in a ministerial role, or on their functioning in a healthcare environment, others on skill development and proficiency with specific interventions.
Methodologically, the recurrence of the term didactics (from the Greek, διδαχὴ, “teaching”) evidences a teacher-centered learning environment.
While the elements of the education process are mostly universal, the theories underlying their use (and anticipated applications in ministry) are not generally agreed upon.
What should I consider when exploring my options for Clinical Pastoral Training?
Consider the first impressions you receive from the clinical supervisor as you inquire into the training program’s organization and policies. Are responses timely? Professional?
Review the Directory of Training Programs to determine the program’s current accreditation status and any indication of concerns. Check the program’s publicity to see whether the supervisors listed appear in the directory listing and supervisors-in-training (SITs) in the SIT Registry.
Evaluate whether the program’s expectations for trainees are agreeable to your life situation; the time commitment required for a program to fulfill CPSP standards for training is set in the Standards.