Association For Clinical Pastoral Education Research Articles

Significant Change in the North American Spiritual Care Education and Psychotherapy Movement.

ACPE: The Standard for Spiritual Care and Education (previously Association for Clinical Pastoral Education) has received the membership of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC) into an integrated organization. This integration may mark the beginning of an organizational trend.

Behavioral Outcomes of Supervisory Education in the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education: A Qualitative Research Study.

This study advances the work of developing a theory for educating Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Supervisors by describing the behaviors which result from the successful completion of CPE supervisory education. Twenty-eight Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) Certification Commissioners were interviewed to identify the behaviors demonstrated by Supervisory Education Students (Candidates) which influenced the decision to certify them at the level of Associate Supervisor. Specific behavioral descriptors are listed for each ACPE supervisory competency.

Critically Engaging "Mutually Engaged Supervisory Processes": A Proposed Theory for CPE Supervisory Education.

Revisions to the processes for training and certifying supervisors continue to be debated within the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE). In 2012 Ragsdale and colleagues published, "Mutually engaged supervisory processes," a qualitative research study utilizing grounded theory based on interviews with 19 recently certified Associate CPE Supervisors, of nine components that facilitate the development of CPE supervisory education students. In this article we critically engage this theory and the research upon which it is based. We also reflect on three issues highlighted by the theory: personal transformation in CPE supervisory education, how CPE supervisory education students develop theoretical foundations for their work, and engaging multicultural issues in supervisory education. We conclude that this theory offers ACPE the possibility of using research to guide future modifications to its practice of Supervisory education.

The Next Step for Quality Attestation

The Quality Attestation Presidential Task Force has made a thoughtful and thorough contribution to the establishment of clinical ethics consultation as a professional field. As Eric Kodish, Joseph J. Fins, and colleagues indicate, quality attestation is another step in bringing greater accountability and transparency to CEC. To complete this process, however, the work of the QAPTF must be situated within a larger project. As the field further develops, there will be a move toward restricting CEC to those who have demonstrated, by means of this version of the quality attestation or an eventual iteration of it, that they are capable of conducting an ethics consultation with the skill, knowledge, and rigor necessary. This raises the question of how potential consultants will gain the experience required to produce a portfolio of cases when only those who are qualified are permitted to perform CECs, either by their institution or by some external evaluator, such as The Joint Commission. Now may be the time to begin thinking about further developments in the field that will complement both current academic training programs and the quality attestation process. For this, we might look to the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education for its model for certifying educators of chaplains who wish to become professionals.

The ACPE Supervisory Education Process: An Historical Perspective

As the number of Clinical Pastoral Education students increases, supervisors in the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) are in short supply due to retirements. We explore factors associated with this supply problem, reporting here four results from our survey of active and retired supervisors. We identify the ages of the current supervisory pool, the ages at which supervisors were certified and the length of time spent in the supervisory education program across the decades. The survey results also identify what supervisors perceive as the most helpful components of their supervisory education. These four results identify trends across the decades that may be associated with the present and future shortages of supervisors.

Mutually Engaged Supervisory Processes: A Proposed Theory for ACPE Supervisory Education

Nineteen newly certified Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) Associate Supervisors were interviewed to determine how they learned to do Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) supervision. Grounded theory was the qualitative research method used in gathering and analyzing data for this IRB approved study. The emerging theory, Mutually Engaged Supervisory Processes, includes nine processes: Discerning Vocation, Feedback, Support, Supervisory Practices and Identity, Theory, Increased Awareness, Shift in Personhood, Offering Presence, and Owning Authority. Member checks confirmed the trustworthiness of the results.

Educating Chaplains for Research Literacy: Results of a National Survey of Clinical Pastoral Education Residency Programs

There is growing evidence that leaders in professional health care chaplaincy recognize the important role of research. The Standards of Practice recently approved by the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC), and especially the standard about research (Standard 12), provide strong evidence that the profession sees research, and research-literate chaplains, as important for its future. The aim of this study was to identify the extent to which Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc (ACPE) accredited clinical pastoral education (CPE) residency programs are preparing their graduates to be the kind of research-literate chaplains described in these Standards. We interviewed CPE supervisors from 26 randomly-selected CPE residency programs. We found 12% of the programs had intentional and substantive research-related curricula, 27% of the programs offered some limited exposure to research, and 62% of the programs provided no education about research. We found also that supervisors often defined "research education" in terms of actually conducting research projects. CPE residency programs potentially play a central role in educating research-literate chaplains. Future research should examine the incentives and barriers that influence the inclusion of research education in CPE residency programs.

A Vajrayana Buddhist Perspective on Ministry Training

This article about ministry training in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is written from the perspective of a Vajrayana Buddhist Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) Supervisor. It presents basic concepts of the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition that apply to the training process of students in CPE and beyond. The author posits that like the Vajrayana spiritual path, ministry training is something that continues on in a person's ministry, and that ministers should attend to this process as long as they are helping others. The author presents the concept of mandala and the Five Buddha Families to illustrate a Vajrayana perspective on ministry training.

Clinical Pastoral Education: reflections on the past and future of a movement.

In the year 2000, the celebration of seventy-five years of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in the United States included attention to the history of the movement. A history of the past twenty-five years of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) was published, plus several regional histories. This article grows out of the author's study of the history of the Northeast Region of ACPE in the context of the history of the Clinical Pastoral Education movement. The focus of this article is "the vision question"; that is, "What has happened to the visions of clinical training that were important in the beginning of the movement?" The history of the relations of clinical training to theological education is traced from the beginnings of CPE to the present time, with special emphasis on developments in the Northeast. Two implications of this historical review for the future of the movement are suggested.

Attention to the Scientific Benefits of Pastoral Care Is a Blessing and a Curse

SUMMARY The art of pastoral care may be difficult to describe but we know that the ability to measure and describe the process of becoming a clinically trained, professional pastoral care provider is possible. Within the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education we have developed standards that spell out the competencies needed to complete the desired skill outcomes. Instead of diluting the meaning of pastoral care, this movement has strengthened the training, at least for many supervisors, students and seminaries. I argue that being able to understand with more precision what we do and how we do it could only enhance the practice of our art and the understanding by others of what that art might look like.

Book Review and Note: A ‘Snap Shot’ History (1975–2000) of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc.: A Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of CPE

Book Review and Note: A ‘Snap Shot’ History (1975–2000) of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc.: A Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of CPE

From Clinic to Classroom: Power of Experiential Learning

In 1993, after working twenty years as a clinical pastoral counselor and edu cator, I became a full-time teacher in Department of Religious Studies of a small liberal arts college. My academic responsibilities involved teaching both traditional and nontraditional students, in graduate and undergraduate courses. As I prepared to teach, my intuitive sense was that strongest asset I brought to this work was my experience in clinical setting, as student, educator, and practi tioner. The challenge that emerged in my new role was how best to use that experi ence?without turning teaching into ther apy or classroom into clinic. As a third-year seminary student at University of Chicago in 1971,1 took my first unit of clinical pastoral education (CPE), a program that began in 1920s, under direction of Anton Boisen. Boisen, a Presbyterian minister then serv ing as chaplain at Worcester State Hospi tal in Massachusetts, together with Richard Cabot, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School, founded Council for Clinical Training of Theological Stu dents, organization that ultimately became American Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (Stokes 1985; Thornton 1970). Drawing heavily on the methods of

The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education.

ACPE has developed over a sixty year period. If has undergone several major changes through the years. The changes have challenged members to move into new organizational structures, face issues of inclusiveness with openness, and develop new centers in a variety of settings. COMISS is viewed as another new challenge and opportunity.

The marketing of pastoral care and counseling, chaplaincy, and clinical pastoral education.

Offers ten approaches pastoral care persons might use to confront the growing health care crises facing the United States. As a response, the Executive Director of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education outlines alternatives to traditional CPE settings which could be utilized to address creatively the many changes in health care delivery systems.

A statistical profile of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education

AAPC and ACPE possess only empirical descriptions of their ministry. Statistical data in this study provide a clearer picture. These data describe and contrast professional time usage and perceived importance of pastoral tasks in one region (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky) of AAPC and ACPE. AAPC spends 43 percent of its time providing pastoral counseling services; ACPE spends 19 percent (p ⩽.001). AAPC spends 19 percent of its time in teaching/supervision; ACPE spends 35 percent (p ⩽.001). AAPC spends 10 percent of its time in pastoral care; ACPE spends 14 percent (p ⩽.01). The task perceived as most important by both organizations is providing pastoral counseling services. ACPE prizes it only 17 percent less than AAPC although that difference is significant (p ⩽.001). Teaching/supervision is perceived as equally important in both organizations although it carries less than 75 percent of the importance given to pastoral counseling services. Pastoral care services are as important as teaching/supervision for ACPE and are significantly less important in AAPC (p ⩽.001). These as well as other data in this study create a clearer picture of ministry within these two organizations.

Logotherapy as a bridge between religion and psychotherapy

13. Professor Jack Van Hooser of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary's Department of Old Testament Literature and Languages is currently preparing a critique of Freud's Moses and Monotheism for an article we are writing together. 14. Zimet, C. N., "The Masters Degree in Applied Psychology: An Issue That Will Not Go Away," The Psychotherapy Bulletin, 1976, 9 (4), 3. 15. There are presently over 250 Clinical Pastoral Education centers that provide pastoral train ing for ministers, seminary students, and other religious workers. They are located in psychiatric and general hospitals, penal and correctional institutions, juvenile treatment centers, parishes and intercity missions, community mental health centers, counseling and rehabilitation centers, children's homes, and centers for the aging. Further information may be secured from the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc., c/o Interchurch Center, Suite 450, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, New York 10027. 16. By "intermodal" I mean individual, shortand long-term psychotherapy, conjoint marital and/or divorce counseling, as well as group psychotherapy, and crisis intervention. 17. Kohut, H., The Restoration of the Self. New York, International Universities Press, 1977, p. 271. 18. In an unpublished paper Kohut makes a similar comment about another award-winning film. His focus is false sexuality, a characteristic so evident in Saturday Night Fever:

New Thrusts for the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education

New Thrusts for the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education

The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. Founding Members

The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. Founding Members