ABSTRACT
In this chapter we will examine the relationship between Christian pastoral care and psychological counselling. Pastoral care can be defined as ‘helping acts, done by representative Christian persons, directed towards the healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling of troubled persons whose troubles arise in the context of ultimate meanings and concerns’ (Clebsch and Jaekle, 1983). Such a definiton captures the breadth and variety of pastoral care. Counselling, in contrast, is a professional activity for which there are more definite trainings and structures, but which tries to minimise value-laden presuppositions (see Woolfe and Dryden, 1996). It is itself very varied in its methods and orientations but, in this chapter, we will consider three main approaches:
1 Psychoanalytic or (more broadly) psychodynamic counselling. 2 Person-centred or non-directive methods, which are one of the clearest exam-
ples of the humanistic approach. 3 A more prescriptive approach to counselling using cognitive-behavioural
methods.
