ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how Systems-centered training (SCT) can be useful in strengthening and clarifying the process group component in the Clinical pastoral education (CPE) educational process. The CPE educational methodology is based on an action-reflection-action model of learning. The chapter focuses on six specific questions regarding CPE process group work — questions that have been a longstanding focus for conversation among CPE supervisors. It demonstrates how SCT group theory and methods can shift the concerns that have elicited these questions from being sources of confusion and misunderstanding to being opportunities for new learning and satisfaction for both CPE students and supervisors. The six specific questions include what is the purpose of the small process group in CPE? Is there an alternative to getting stuck in the “hot seat” dynamic? Do we always have to be nice? Is there life beyond personal story telling? Does the authority issue ever go away? How much difference is too much difference?
