Dealing with Religious Issues in Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Symposium
197
10. Morris, C., Varieties of Human Values. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1956, 1 t. Frankl, V, E,, The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1965. 12. Of course, it is quite possible to take a much more limited view of the nature of the psychotherapeutic project, thus eliminating or at least reducing the central concerns of this paper. Empirically, however, we then need to account for and confront those psychotherapeutic systems that assume and claim a more ambitious intention. 13. I do need to note in this regard that personality propensities and the educational and training realities of these persons do tend to reinforce an intellectual bias; in this sense, it is often quite true that in terms of balancing or synthesizing the responses of thinking, feeling, and bodily expression, thinking often dominates. This does mean that it is quite often necessary to pay special attention to the intellectualizing mode as viewed in its original psychoanalytic sense. 14. Oden, T.. After Therapy What? Springfield, Ill., Charles C Thomas, 1974. 15. Johnson, P. E., ~The Clinical Approach to Religion," J. Pastoral Care, 1961, 15, 9-12. 16. Frank, J., Persuasion and Healing. New York, Schocken Books, 1963.
DISCUSSION: PSYCHOLOGY,
INSPIRATION,
AND FAITH
William Schofield* American psychology has been remarkably neglectful of certain important dimensions of h u m a n experience. Among these are the psychology of friendship, of inspiration, and of faith. Some of you are familiar with my thinking about the relation of friendship to the psychotherapeutic endeavor, and it would be inappropriate here to digress on that topic. However, the phenomena of inspiration--including the experience of being inspired and the action of seeking to inspire another--are related to the question of faith and the domain of religion, and I will begin with that topic. Regardless of what schools of psychotherapy or theoretical positions are subscribed to, all psychotherapists seek to have an impact, i.e., to make a difference, in the thinking, feeling, and behaving of the clients who seek their help. I choose the word ~'impact" deliberately--as a starter because it is sufficiently ambiguous not to arouse very much if any uneasiness. Suppose, however, that I say the therapist seeks to influence the client--then, very, very many therapists would experience a cognitive reflex (not unlike the familiar knee jerk) arising out of their apperceptive mass, which contains prohibitions, caveats, and taboos relating to the therapist doing anything that is directive, prescriptive, advisory, controlling--or influencing! However, there are many psychotherapists who are free of any '~hang-up" about the fac, t h a t their role entails influencing the thinking, feeling, and behaving of another. For these therapists there is an encyclopedia of techniques that have been established as having at least professional if not scientific validity for use in influencing clients. Among these the rational-emotive *William Schofield, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Minnesota.
198
Journal of Religion and Health
psychotherapists are notable in their explicit acknowledgment of the active, teaching, exhortative, even propangandistic role of the therapist. But what do you suppose would be the reaction of my friend Albert Ellis if I were to query h i m about the role of inspiration in rational-emotive psychotherapy? I can tell you this--you won't find the word in the index to Ellis's Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. 1 You won't even find it in Rogers, and one would expect him to be more open to the notion. ~ In fact, you simply won't find it in the massive literature of psychotherapy. And if you should, it is interesting to note t h a t it would occur somewhere between '~insight" and "integration." What are we to make of this? Is it t h a t psychotherapists---be they psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, or whoever--are scrupulously committed to a division of labor and see the process of inspiration, whatever it is, as belonging to the territory of the clergy? I doubt this explanation, because I don't see the several mental health professions as being generally conscientious about a division of labor so far as psychotherapy is concerned. Or is it t h a t psychotherapists see inspiration as more an accidental, experiential event and not one t h a t can be deliberately elicited? Perhaps there is perceived an inherent contradiction in the notion of the "technique of inspiration." Hence, there is nothing teachable and nothing to practice. Or is it t h a t given our commitment to be objective, scientific, and psychological we at once want to reduce such a vague and professionaly 'Toreign" concept as inspiration to more proper constructs such as '~level of aspiration" or "delayed gratification"? Or is it t h a t we cannot separate the notion of inspiration from the notion of appeal to some structured, orthodox, higher religious e n t i t y - - a n d that to take sides on a religious and moral dimension is to violate another of those shibboleths, i.e., t h a t the therapist must m a i n t a i n an unswerving, unmitigated amoral stance? Should not our psychological sophistication tell us of the impossibility of successfully pretending to be amoral, or without any values, even for an hour--unless, unfortunately, we are? 3 Or is it t h a t we are largely constrained by a stereotype, not without some validity, t h a t as a group psychotherapists are agnostic, if not atheistic, and we should take on t h a t image, regardless of our more real and personal inclinations? Would it not make things easier then, when we put our diplomas and certificates on our office walls, to h a n g over our door a sign, ",kbandon all faith, ye who enter here?" Or is it simply t h a t we are all ~'spooked"--that we are all reluctant to acknowledge t h a t we are afraid of those questions about which we cannot be certain? Do we repress or suppress, and hence discourage away from r a t h e r t h a n encourage toward a consideration by our clients of those questions we are unprepared to face? I have led you from '~impact" to ~'influence" to ~'inspiration," and no doubt you perceive t h a t I have accomplished some ventilation in the process. T h a n k you for bearing with me. To come to the discussion of the papers in this symposium, now t h a t I have clued you to the concept of inspiration, how m a n y of you have been struck by the realization t h a t only one of my colleagues on the
Dealing with Religious Issues in Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Symposium
199
panel, Dr. Crumbaugh, has used the word; although Dr. Hooker comes very close? Dr. Hooker tells us that the Christian attitude encompasses "a willingness to hear and not try to change or improve upon what others have to say . . . . ""The Christian reveals a commitment to what others have to say as he or she conveys an attitude of acceptance and understanding toward other people." The word therapist could be substituted for "Christian." ~'With such commitment, the Christian does not hesitate to reveal real feelings . . . . " Dr. Hooker is not saying that the psychotherapist should be a Christian. He is saying that the committed Christian has a set of values and attitudes, as part of his philosophical stance, by which he is predisposed to create and maintain those elements of an interpersonal relationship that are considered generally to enhance any psychotherapeutic effort. Dr. Hooker cites Erich Fromm and Sidney Jourard on the healing power of hope. I agree, and I ask, how does the therapist communicate, arouse, or maintain hope? The answer, I believe, is in the psychology of inspiration--a topic that psychologists have largely ignored. And when and if we begin to teach our students about the process of inspiration, will we not have to change somewhat our general warning about the dangers of reassurance? Dr. Moss speaks of the pastoral psychology movement. I see the pastoral psychology movement as reflected in the more visible and theoretically more diverse pastoral counseling movement. Has that admirable movement gone astray? I think it has. Where? How? In the training programs for pastoral counseling, which have too much psychiatry, too much psychology, and too little that is pastoral counseling. Pastoral counseling should be a specialized field, employing specialized technique---or at least the special and unique powers of the clergyman--in dealing with particular problems arising out of the loss or failure of faith. Too much of pastoral counseling is simply orthodox psychotherapy of common neurotic problems offered under the auspices of a "churchy" figure. 4 My earlier unreserved enthusiasm for pastoral counseling has suffered some erosion. 5 I will relate two experiences: The case of Pastor Jones. I was approached some time ago by a Lutheran pastor who was in the process of completing the requirements for certification as a pastoral counselor by his synod. He had completed formal training at the Menninger Foundation and Union Theological Seminary. He required some additional hours of supervised clinical experience, and I agreed to provide supervision. He related a case of a chronically depressed young woman who had failed to respond to any of his quite appropriate psychotherapeutic endeavors, including bringing her to insight about her guilt. Finally, I asked Pastor Jones whether he had forgotten the ~power of the k e y s " ~ I asked whether he had ever considered absolution. And I witnessed in him all the signs of an ~'aha" phenomenon--together with some embarrassment, which I shared with him. The case of Patient Smith. Over several years I had counseled with a very successful businessman who was subject to recurrent periods of self-doubt and
200
Journal of Religion and Health
dissatisfaction with achievement. On one occasion it appeared that reactive and situational elements were minimal and that he was struggling with questions of faith. I knew him to be deeply religious and an active and devoted church member. He was readily responsive to my suggestion that he seek pastoral counseling. We terminated our contacts. In several weeks he returned to tell me that after a few sessions devoted to his problems with faith the pastoral counselor had begun to explore those areas of my client's "psychology" with which I was fully familiar. And, more recently, the pastoral counselor had administered some personality tests! I need hardly comment beyond remarking that my client was put off and I was frustrated by an unsuccessful referral. 9Incidentally, the pastoral counselor in turn had referred this m a n to a psychiatrist for possible medication. Perhaps one day we shall have an anti-existential vacuum pill. Dr. Moss makes a plea for priest-therapists to have an identity with psychology. I am very skeptical of such a move, which, I fear, would further confuse their identification and encourage them to perceive themselves as and to try to behave like psychologists--which they are not. Dr. Crumbaugh quotes Frankl, indirectly, to say that the need to find meaning and purpose in life is t h e primary h u m a n motivation. I object--it is one of the primary h u m a n motives for most persons. And for s o m e persons at c e r t a i n t i m e s it may be the primary motivation. He says, further, "Logotherapy is not psychotherapy." I disagree. Any procedure, approach, method, or technique that succeeds in alleviating a h u m a n condition of mental or emotional turmoil or suffering is psychotherapeutic. I believe logotherapy does this for certain types of suffering (i.e., those arising out of absence or loss of philosophical anchors) and hence is psychotherapeutic. In my own practice I have seen a fair number of persons whom I find to be suffering from a philosophical neurosis or, in Frankl's terms, a noSgenic neurosis. Without exception their spiritual or philosophical conflict or vacuum is accompanied by a significant depression. As their noSgenic crisis was c o n fronted and relieved, by me or by someone else, the depression lifted. Logotherapy is psychotherapy, and an "existential vacuum" can be a form of mental or emotional sickness. If Frankl believes that half of the population presently lives in an "existential vacuum," it does not follow that fifty percent of all of us are neurotic or mentally ill. Illness requires symptoms and self-diagnosis to lead the person to the point where a wise clinician can detect the philosophical deficiency underlying the symptom. There is an important difference between the person who is passively "lost" and without hope and the person who is actively searching. Crumbaugh says, "Some [people] are ~turned off by any approach that suggests dependency of any sort upon any source that cannot be concretized, objectively understood, and controlled." I suggest a minor rewording--some clients and some psychotherapists are "turned off." The key notion here is one of being "turned on" or "turned off," with the connotations of quick and easy switch-like behavior and the further connotation of an emotional attraction or repulsion. I submit that the person who is "turned on', by (or to) religion is not
Dealing with Religious Issues in Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Symposium
201
in the best of health, just as the person who is ~'turned off' by (or to) religion is similarly not in the best of health. Dr. Strunk sees "fear of intellectualization" as a roadblock. I agree. But I see it as involving more than an aversion to one of the psychodynamic defenses. I see it in part as an avoidance of the philosophical or world view factor because of the therapist's willingness to admit that he is intellectually unprepared for meaningful discourse, quite apart from any shibboleth related to a technical aversion. Again, and with reference to Dr. Moss's paper, the achievement of insight is in significant part a cognitive or intellectual process. It occurs at the point at which the therapist and client mutually agree upon certain interpretations, and there is mutual accord on a formulation that may in fact be valid, or m a y be simply a comfortable folie ~t deux. Pastoral counseling should be a legitimate field of specialized clinical practice. It should be the practice of individuals who have received specialized education and training for the management and relief of suffering arising from doubts or conflicts in the philosophical-religious-spiritual domain. All psychotherapists should be cognizant of this domain as a significant source of neurotic disturbance and informed about the specialty of pastoral counseling. And they should be able to be assured that when they refer a client to a pastoral counselor the client will receive something other than orthodox, secular psychotherapy. Strunk says, '~It may be that in the training of psychotherapists a truly liberal education ought to be basic--an education, in other words, that includes far more philosophy, theology, literature, and popular culture than is presently the case." I most heartily agree. Early in my clinical training I asked one of my mentors what I should read. He replied, "Everything." I didn't think that particularly helpful, and I did not understand it. But gradually I came to. And it means now that on occasion I am able to assign certain comic strips as bibliotherapy for patients who lack even a "community view," let alone a world view. "Much harm is presently being done by counselors through the neglect of this reality"--i.e., the role of a world view, or a life philosophy, to quote Dr. Strunk again. Again, I strongly agree. But equally great harm can be done by the referral to supposed "experts," as Dr. Strunk suggests, if their supposed competence as pastoral counselors means they have been indoctrinated via orthodox modes and orthodox experience with orthodox psychotherapies. As psychologists, let us get to our basic task: to study, to investigate, to learn, and to understand h u m a n processes. Let us study the psychology of inspiration and of faith.
References 1. Ellis, A., Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. New York, Lyle Stuart, 1962. 2. Rogers, C. R., Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications, and Theory. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1951.
202
Journal of Religion and Health
3. London, P., The Modes and Morals of Psychotherapy. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. 4. Clinebell, H., Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling. Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1966. 5. Schofield, W., Psychotherapy: The Purchase of Friendship. Englewood Cliffs, N. J., PrenticeHall, 1964.
197
10. Morris, C., Varieties of Human Values. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1956, 1 t. Frankl, V, E,, The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1965. 12. Of course, it is quite possible to take a much more limited view of the nature of the psychotherapeutic project, thus eliminating or at least reducing the central concerns of this paper. Empirically, however, we then need to account for and confront those psychotherapeutic systems that assume and claim a more ambitious intention. 13. I do need to note in this regard that personality propensities and the educational and training realities of these persons do tend to reinforce an intellectual bias; in this sense, it is often quite true that in terms of balancing or synthesizing the responses of thinking, feeling, and bodily expression, thinking often dominates. This does mean that it is quite often necessary to pay special attention to the intellectualizing mode as viewed in its original psychoanalytic sense. 14. Oden, T.. After Therapy What? Springfield, Ill., Charles C Thomas, 1974. 15. Johnson, P. E., ~The Clinical Approach to Religion," J. Pastoral Care, 1961, 15, 9-12. 16. Frank, J., Persuasion and Healing. New York, Schocken Books, 1963.
DISCUSSION: PSYCHOLOGY,
INSPIRATION,
AND FAITH
William Schofield* American psychology has been remarkably neglectful of certain important dimensions of h u m a n experience. Among these are the psychology of friendship, of inspiration, and of faith. Some of you are familiar with my thinking about the relation of friendship to the psychotherapeutic endeavor, and it would be inappropriate here to digress on that topic. However, the phenomena of inspiration--including the experience of being inspired and the action of seeking to inspire another--are related to the question of faith and the domain of religion, and I will begin with that topic. Regardless of what schools of psychotherapy or theoretical positions are subscribed to, all psychotherapists seek to have an impact, i.e., to make a difference, in the thinking, feeling, and behaving of the clients who seek their help. I choose the word ~'impact" deliberately--as a starter because it is sufficiently ambiguous not to arouse very much if any uneasiness. Suppose, however, that I say the therapist seeks to influence the client--then, very, very many therapists would experience a cognitive reflex (not unlike the familiar knee jerk) arising out of their apperceptive mass, which contains prohibitions, caveats, and taboos relating to the therapist doing anything that is directive, prescriptive, advisory, controlling--or influencing! However, there are many psychotherapists who are free of any '~hang-up" about the fac, t h a t their role entails influencing the thinking, feeling, and behaving of another. For these therapists there is an encyclopedia of techniques that have been established as having at least professional if not scientific validity for use in influencing clients. Among these the rational-emotive *William Schofield, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Minnesota.
198
Journal of Religion and Health
psychotherapists are notable in their explicit acknowledgment of the active, teaching, exhortative, even propangandistic role of the therapist. But what do you suppose would be the reaction of my friend Albert Ellis if I were to query h i m about the role of inspiration in rational-emotive psychotherapy? I can tell you this--you won't find the word in the index to Ellis's Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. 1 You won't even find it in Rogers, and one would expect him to be more open to the notion. ~ In fact, you simply won't find it in the massive literature of psychotherapy. And if you should, it is interesting to note t h a t it would occur somewhere between '~insight" and "integration." What are we to make of this? Is it t h a t psychotherapists---be they psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, or whoever--are scrupulously committed to a division of labor and see the process of inspiration, whatever it is, as belonging to the territory of the clergy? I doubt this explanation, because I don't see the several mental health professions as being generally conscientious about a division of labor so far as psychotherapy is concerned. Or is it t h a t psychotherapists see inspiration as more an accidental, experiential event and not one t h a t can be deliberately elicited? Perhaps there is perceived an inherent contradiction in the notion of the "technique of inspiration." Hence, there is nothing teachable and nothing to practice. Or is it t h a t given our commitment to be objective, scientific, and psychological we at once want to reduce such a vague and professionaly 'Toreign" concept as inspiration to more proper constructs such as '~level of aspiration" or "delayed gratification"? Or is it t h a t we cannot separate the notion of inspiration from the notion of appeal to some structured, orthodox, higher religious e n t i t y - - a n d that to take sides on a religious and moral dimension is to violate another of those shibboleths, i.e., t h a t the therapist must m a i n t a i n an unswerving, unmitigated amoral stance? Should not our psychological sophistication tell us of the impossibility of successfully pretending to be amoral, or without any values, even for an hour--unless, unfortunately, we are? 3 Or is it t h a t we are largely constrained by a stereotype, not without some validity, t h a t as a group psychotherapists are agnostic, if not atheistic, and we should take on t h a t image, regardless of our more real and personal inclinations? Would it not make things easier then, when we put our diplomas and certificates on our office walls, to h a n g over our door a sign, ",kbandon all faith, ye who enter here?" Or is it simply t h a t we are all ~'spooked"--that we are all reluctant to acknowledge t h a t we are afraid of those questions about which we cannot be certain? Do we repress or suppress, and hence discourage away from r a t h e r t h a n encourage toward a consideration by our clients of those questions we are unprepared to face? I have led you from '~impact" to ~'influence" to ~'inspiration," and no doubt you perceive t h a t I have accomplished some ventilation in the process. T h a n k you for bearing with me. To come to the discussion of the papers in this symposium, now t h a t I have clued you to the concept of inspiration, how m a n y of you have been struck by the realization t h a t only one of my colleagues on the
Dealing with Religious Issues in Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Symposium
199
panel, Dr. Crumbaugh, has used the word; although Dr. Hooker comes very close? Dr. Hooker tells us that the Christian attitude encompasses "a willingness to hear and not try to change or improve upon what others have to say . . . . ""The Christian reveals a commitment to what others have to say as he or she conveys an attitude of acceptance and understanding toward other people." The word therapist could be substituted for "Christian." ~'With such commitment, the Christian does not hesitate to reveal real feelings . . . . " Dr. Hooker is not saying that the psychotherapist should be a Christian. He is saying that the committed Christian has a set of values and attitudes, as part of his philosophical stance, by which he is predisposed to create and maintain those elements of an interpersonal relationship that are considered generally to enhance any psychotherapeutic effort. Dr. Hooker cites Erich Fromm and Sidney Jourard on the healing power of hope. I agree, and I ask, how does the therapist communicate, arouse, or maintain hope? The answer, I believe, is in the psychology of inspiration--a topic that psychologists have largely ignored. And when and if we begin to teach our students about the process of inspiration, will we not have to change somewhat our general warning about the dangers of reassurance? Dr. Moss speaks of the pastoral psychology movement. I see the pastoral psychology movement as reflected in the more visible and theoretically more diverse pastoral counseling movement. Has that admirable movement gone astray? I think it has. Where? How? In the training programs for pastoral counseling, which have too much psychiatry, too much psychology, and too little that is pastoral counseling. Pastoral counseling should be a specialized field, employing specialized technique---or at least the special and unique powers of the clergyman--in dealing with particular problems arising out of the loss or failure of faith. Too much of pastoral counseling is simply orthodox psychotherapy of common neurotic problems offered under the auspices of a "churchy" figure. 4 My earlier unreserved enthusiasm for pastoral counseling has suffered some erosion. 5 I will relate two experiences: The case of Pastor Jones. I was approached some time ago by a Lutheran pastor who was in the process of completing the requirements for certification as a pastoral counselor by his synod. He had completed formal training at the Menninger Foundation and Union Theological Seminary. He required some additional hours of supervised clinical experience, and I agreed to provide supervision. He related a case of a chronically depressed young woman who had failed to respond to any of his quite appropriate psychotherapeutic endeavors, including bringing her to insight about her guilt. Finally, I asked Pastor Jones whether he had forgotten the ~power of the k e y s " ~ I asked whether he had ever considered absolution. And I witnessed in him all the signs of an ~'aha" phenomenon--together with some embarrassment, which I shared with him. The case of Patient Smith. Over several years I had counseled with a very successful businessman who was subject to recurrent periods of self-doubt and
200
Journal of Religion and Health
dissatisfaction with achievement. On one occasion it appeared that reactive and situational elements were minimal and that he was struggling with questions of faith. I knew him to be deeply religious and an active and devoted church member. He was readily responsive to my suggestion that he seek pastoral counseling. We terminated our contacts. In several weeks he returned to tell me that after a few sessions devoted to his problems with faith the pastoral counselor had begun to explore those areas of my client's "psychology" with which I was fully familiar. And, more recently, the pastoral counselor had administered some personality tests! I need hardly comment beyond remarking that my client was put off and I was frustrated by an unsuccessful referral. 9Incidentally, the pastoral counselor in turn had referred this m a n to a psychiatrist for possible medication. Perhaps one day we shall have an anti-existential vacuum pill. Dr. Moss makes a plea for priest-therapists to have an identity with psychology. I am very skeptical of such a move, which, I fear, would further confuse their identification and encourage them to perceive themselves as and to try to behave like psychologists--which they are not. Dr. Crumbaugh quotes Frankl, indirectly, to say that the need to find meaning and purpose in life is t h e primary h u m a n motivation. I object--it is one of the primary h u m a n motives for most persons. And for s o m e persons at c e r t a i n t i m e s it may be the primary motivation. He says, further, "Logotherapy is not psychotherapy." I disagree. Any procedure, approach, method, or technique that succeeds in alleviating a h u m a n condition of mental or emotional turmoil or suffering is psychotherapeutic. I believe logotherapy does this for certain types of suffering (i.e., those arising out of absence or loss of philosophical anchors) and hence is psychotherapeutic. In my own practice I have seen a fair number of persons whom I find to be suffering from a philosophical neurosis or, in Frankl's terms, a noSgenic neurosis. Without exception their spiritual or philosophical conflict or vacuum is accompanied by a significant depression. As their noSgenic crisis was c o n fronted and relieved, by me or by someone else, the depression lifted. Logotherapy is psychotherapy, and an "existential vacuum" can be a form of mental or emotional sickness. If Frankl believes that half of the population presently lives in an "existential vacuum," it does not follow that fifty percent of all of us are neurotic or mentally ill. Illness requires symptoms and self-diagnosis to lead the person to the point where a wise clinician can detect the philosophical deficiency underlying the symptom. There is an important difference between the person who is passively "lost" and without hope and the person who is actively searching. Crumbaugh says, "Some [people] are ~turned off by any approach that suggests dependency of any sort upon any source that cannot be concretized, objectively understood, and controlled." I suggest a minor rewording--some clients and some psychotherapists are "turned off." The key notion here is one of being "turned on" or "turned off," with the connotations of quick and easy switch-like behavior and the further connotation of an emotional attraction or repulsion. I submit that the person who is "turned on', by (or to) religion is not
Dealing with Religious Issues in Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Symposium
201
in the best of health, just as the person who is ~'turned off' by (or to) religion is similarly not in the best of health. Dr. Strunk sees "fear of intellectualization" as a roadblock. I agree. But I see it as involving more than an aversion to one of the psychodynamic defenses. I see it in part as an avoidance of the philosophical or world view factor because of the therapist's willingness to admit that he is intellectually unprepared for meaningful discourse, quite apart from any shibboleth related to a technical aversion. Again, and with reference to Dr. Moss's paper, the achievement of insight is in significant part a cognitive or intellectual process. It occurs at the point at which the therapist and client mutually agree upon certain interpretations, and there is mutual accord on a formulation that may in fact be valid, or m a y be simply a comfortable folie ~t deux. Pastoral counseling should be a legitimate field of specialized clinical practice. It should be the practice of individuals who have received specialized education and training for the management and relief of suffering arising from doubts or conflicts in the philosophical-religious-spiritual domain. All psychotherapists should be cognizant of this domain as a significant source of neurotic disturbance and informed about the specialty of pastoral counseling. And they should be able to be assured that when they refer a client to a pastoral counselor the client will receive something other than orthodox, secular psychotherapy. Strunk says, '~It may be that in the training of psychotherapists a truly liberal education ought to be basic--an education, in other words, that includes far more philosophy, theology, literature, and popular culture than is presently the case." I most heartily agree. Early in my clinical training I asked one of my mentors what I should read. He replied, "Everything." I didn't think that particularly helpful, and I did not understand it. But gradually I came to. And it means now that on occasion I am able to assign certain comic strips as bibliotherapy for patients who lack even a "community view," let alone a world view. "Much harm is presently being done by counselors through the neglect of this reality"--i.e., the role of a world view, or a life philosophy, to quote Dr. Strunk again. Again, I strongly agree. But equally great harm can be done by the referral to supposed "experts," as Dr. Strunk suggests, if their supposed competence as pastoral counselors means they have been indoctrinated via orthodox modes and orthodox experience with orthodox psychotherapies. As psychologists, let us get to our basic task: to study, to investigate, to learn, and to understand h u m a n processes. Let us study the psychology of inspiration and of faith.
References 1. Ellis, A., Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. New York, Lyle Stuart, 1962. 2. Rogers, C. R., Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications, and Theory. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1951.
202
Journal of Religion and Health
3. London, P., The Modes and Morals of Psychotherapy. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. 4. Clinebell, H., Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling. Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1966. 5. Schofield, W., Psychotherapy: The Purchase of Friendship. Englewood Cliffs, N. J., PrenticeHall, 1964.
