Pastoral Care & Counselling

Gordon Lynch

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781446233825
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

`I would recommend this text as a basic reading resource for those with an interest in the field as well as those who practice pastoral care and counselling? - Youth & Policy

`This is a useful book that discusses the differences and similarities if pastoral care and counselling? - Quaker Retreat Group Newsletter

`I think Gordon Lynch has produced an admirable introduction to this subject. I believe it should become a ?must? for those undertaking theological training and would also highly commend it to those engaged in the supervisory process? - Gary Haire, Accord

`This book, focusing as it does on the ethics underpinning any pastoral care or counselling relationship, as a real joy to read being well-written, engaging and thought-provoking. Drawing on a rich variety of ethical dilemmas and presenting some complex ethical thinking in a disarmingly simple way, Gordon Lynch invites us to engage more deeply with our own ethical nature. We are encouraged to discover what the good life means to us and how this impacts on pastoral encounters. This book does not give us any easy ethical answers instead it invites us to reflect more deeply on our own ethical viewpoint and how this can inform our pastoral work with clients. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone involved in pastoral care and counselling? - William West, Senior Lecturer in Counselling, University of Manchester

`Beautifully clearly written. This is a text for those who are not experts in ethics or moral reflection. It provides a lucid introduction to the field? - Stephen Pattison, Cardiff University

`This is a very user-friendly book. The writing is lucid, the reader knows at every stage just where he is in understanding the development of the writer?s thought, and the material is frequently summarised. It is clear that Gordon Lynch is an expert in this field.… This is a good read? - Alan Mace, Dynamics Newsletter

`This book must be considered a considerable success. The writing is clear and informed and could be used in any course dealing with the training of counsellors or pastoral carers. The line taken is original and demonstrates how pastoral care and counselling should not simply be seen as a series of techniques professionally applied and contractually enforced? - William K Kay, Reviews in Religion and Theology

Pastoral Care & Counselling provides an accessible framework for understanding the role of the pastoral care worker and the ethical dimensions of practice.

Central to the book is the argument that all pastoral practice is inevitably shaped by the pastoral worker?s own vision of what it means to live a good life. A thoughtful approach to pastoral work therefore requires pastoral carers to reflect critically about the values that shape their practice and about how the good life can be encouraged or hindered by different aspects of their pastoral encounters.

The book tackles practical concerns such as: boundary issues and the place of friendship in caring relationships; the social and institutional factors which form the context of pastoral care; and what it means to act in an ethical and competent manner.

Accessibly written and illustrated with case examples, Pastoral Care & Counselling will be of interest to those already working in pastoral care and those training in theology and pastoral work.

1

The significance of values & moral reflection for pastoral care & counselling

Over the past twenty years or so, an increasing number of writers have been exploring the subject of ethics in relation to pastoral care and counselling. Some writers have approached this area by trying to give some guidance to pastoral practitioners about how they can work constructively with people who are facing moral dilemmas, such as whether they should seek a divorce from their spouse or terminate a pregnancy. Other writers have thought about the ‘professional’ ethics of pastoral work, and have sought to explore the pastoral significance of principles such as confidentiality and the avoidance of abuse of clients. A third emphasis – and one perhaps less commonly heard than the other two – argues that all pastoral practice is shaped by the pastoral carer’s values and that there is a need for moral reflection in relation to all forms of pastoral work.

It is important, at the outset of this book, to clarify what approach I will be taking to this subject. Helping people to work through moral dilemmas and thinking about what it means to act in an ethical and competent way are both important issues for pastoral workers and each of them will be explored in more detail later in the book. In my view, though, if we are to get a proper sense of the significance of ethics for pastoral care and counselling, it is important to recognise the fundamental role that values play in all forms of pastoral practice. In this opening chapter, then, I will be taking time to illustrate the notion that pastoral practice is essentially value-based and, more specifically, to suggest that the work of pastoral carers and counsellors is inspired by their vision of the good life.

Values, Moral Reflection and Pastoral Practice

What grounds are there for suggesting that all pastoral practice is inspired, in some way, by the pastoral worker’s values? Let me try to illustrate this notion through the following case example:

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Susan has worked as a voluntary chaplaincy assistant for a number of years at a large city hospital. She goes into the hospital twice a week, once to help with the Sunday morning service and the other day to visit patients on one of the medical wards in the hospital. During one of her visits to the ward, Susan spent time talking with Mr Davis, an elderly man who had been admitted to hospital with a severe chest infection. As she talked with Mr Davis, he became tearful and told her that he had lived on his own for six years since the death of his wife. Although he could generally cope on his own with practical tasks, he found the loneliness of being by himself much harder to cope with. His daughter would visit him two or three times a month, but lived some distance away, and apart from going out to the shops he would not see much of other people.

Susan listened empathically as Mr Davis talked about his loneliness. After talking together for a while, she mentioned to him that she knew that there was a church lunch club that met in his area and she could pass his name on to the organiser of that group. When Susan mentioned the club, Mr Davis became a bit more reticent and said that he would think about it. Susan tried to encourage him to go along by telling him that the club was friendly and not particularly religious, if that was something that he found off-putting. Mr Davis still seemed unsure, though, and said that Susan could give him the details of the lunch club if she liked, and he would think about it. Susan wrote the details down for him, and shortly afterwards she and Mr Davis said their goodbyes, with him expressing his gratitude to her for listening to him.

On leaving the ward Susan thought to herself that Mr Davis still seemed anxious about the idea of the lunch club and that, if not followed up, he might not pursue it. This seemed a great shame to her as, knowing the club, she thought Mr Davis would probably fit in there very well. As Susan walked back to the chaplaincy office she wondered to herself whether she might still pass Mr Davis’ details on to the lunch club organiser. The organiser could visit Mr Davis herself and tell him more about the club, and hopefully that would put any fears he had about going there to rest. Susan would go back to Mr Davis and tell him that she had passed his name on, that she hoped he wouldn’t mind this and that there was no pressure for him to go to the club if he didn’t want to. By the time Susan got to the office she decided that that was what she would do.

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This case example is not a particularly dramatic story. If anything it is a fairly low-key interaction of a kind that a pastoral carer might even experience several times in any given day. The ordinary nature of this encounter raises the question of what values and moral reflection have to do with real, day-to-day, pastoral practice.

We may begin to recognise the significance of values for pastoral practice if we acknowledge that the way that we ourselves react to Susan’s behaviour in this case reflects our own values. Some readers looking at this case will think that Susan acted in a wholly appropriate way. They might argue Mr Davis was clearly lonely and socially isolated, and regretted his lack of regular contact with other people. By deciding to refer him on, Susan may have taken an important first step in helping Mr Davis become more socially connected to other people. Other readers, however, may feel quite uncomfortable with Susan’s actions. They might point out that Mr Davis made his wishes quite clear to her about how he wished to proceed with the idea of the lunch club, and her decision to go against his wishes could be seen as patronising and disempowering. At the heart of these differing interpretations of the case lie different values about what it means to live well. If one places a high value on friendship and the experience of belonging with other people, then Susan’s pro-active approach could be seen as good in terms of trying to overcome Mr Davis’ social isolation. If, on the other hand, one believes that the ability to act as an autonomous individual is an essential part of what it means to live well, then Susan’s action could be seen as bad because it undermined Mr Davis’ ability to make decisions in his own right.

If the way that we respond to this case study reflects our own values, then it may be reasonable to go on to suggest that the way Susan acted in this case reflected her particular beliefs about what is valuable in life. All forms of therapeutic practice, whether psychiatry, social work, counselling or pastoral care, seek to alleviate human suffering and deprivation and seek to promote human well-being. Underlying such therapeutic practices are ideas about what constitutes human suffering and well-being, and these ideas are essentially value-statements about what is important about life. Thus (as we shall see in the next chapter) a pastoral practitioner working in the context of traditional African culture will be likely to see involvement in the extended family and the wider community as an important part of human well-being. In their practice they will therefore tend to seek to reconcile individuals to their communities. By contrast, many pastoral carers working in Western society will be more influenced by Western ideas about the significance of the individual, and may be more likely to seek to promote individual development and self-expression through their work. Even within ostensibly scientific theories of therapeutic practice (such as theories of counselling and psychotherapy) lie value-statements about what it means to live well. Psychodynamic theories (certainly more traditional Freudian approaches) have tended, like the Greek Stoics, to emphasise the importance of the recognition and acceptance of the realities of human existence rather than the struggle against it (Gellner, 1985). Humanistic approaches, such as person-centred counselling, have tended on the other hand to value self-expression, authenticity and creativity as important aspects of what it means to be human. All therapeutic practice can therefore be seen to be influenced by underlying ideas or values about what it means to live well. In choosing the course of action that she did, Susan demonstrated that she saw connection with others to be more important than personal autonomy, and our degree of sympathy with Susan’s practice will probably reflect how closely her notion of what is valuable in life resembles our own.

Values therefore provide the compass bearings by which we make sense of and judge pastoral practice. Consciously or unconsciously, they provide a framework by which pastoral workers decide what is the most appropriate, helpful and therapeutic way in which they can work with the people that they encounter.

If values are so significant in shaping the way that pastoral carers and counsellors think about their work, then it seems reasonable to claim that ‘ethics’ or ‘moral reflection’ (the practice of thinking critically about one’s values and current context) is also of fundamental importance for pastoral work. Stephen Pattison makes the case for moral reflection in relation to pastoral work in the following way:

It is so much easier to get on with the job of caring for people than to try and unravel the knots which ethical considerations bring to the fore. Easy, but dangerous. For the fact is that where pastoral care ignores ethics it is in peril of promoting values or dealing in practices which, on reflection, it might find rather undesirable, dubious or harmful. All human activities have ethical aspects and consequences. These may be implicit and unconscious or conscious and explicit. In the latter case they can be examined and changed; in the former, there is always the possibility that the wrong aims, methods and tools may be unwittingly promoted to the detriment of those who care, as well as those who are cared for. (Pattison, 1988: 35).

Moral reflection can therefore enable pastoral practitioners to be more aware of the values that shape their practice. In the case discussed above, if Susan reflected on the values guiding her practice she might decide to modify her practice in a way that gave greater respect to Mr Davis’ autonomy. Equally, though, Susan might decide on the basis of such reflection that it was indeed appropriate to act in a way that valued social connectedness over individual autonomy. The usefulness of such reflection, however, is that it would make Susan a more self-aware practitioner and that, as such, she would be more able to make conscious and thoughtful decisions about her practice. Clearly being thoughtful about one’s practice does not guarantee that one will work in a way that does actually promote human well-being. It is a reasonable (albeit modest) claim, though, that reflective, thoughtful practice is more likely to be open to on-going critical scrutiny than practice which is based on unconscious or assumed values.¹

Reflection on one’s values can therefore be seen as an important task for anyone involved in therapeutic work. Since the late 1970s, however, a number of writers have argued that there is a particularly urgent need for such reflection amongst pastoral carers in Western society. Various explanations have been advanced for why Western pastoral practitioners may have found it difficult to recognise and reflect upon the values that are implicit in their work. Don Browning (1983), for example, has argued that pastoral practitioners whose work is heavily influenced by secular models of counselling and psychotherapy may tend to interpret their work as having a scientific, psychological basis rather than a moral one. Tom Oden (1984) similarly sees the influence of secular (ostensibly scientific) psychotherapies on pastoral practice as diminishing pastoral practitioners’ ability to think about the moral and theological dimensions of their work. This factor is likely to be more true of pastoral practitioners in the United States, however, than in Britain where the influence of secular models of counselling and psychotherapy on pastoral practice has generally been less strong.

Another reason why pastoral workers may find it difficult to think about their work in terms of values, is the desire of many pastoral workers to avoid ‘moralism’ in their practice. Moralism could be defined as the imposition of a set of values upon a group or individual in a way that does not take any account of their particular experiences or circumstances. Moralism can therefore be seen as a morally judgmental approach to human interaction, in which a person makes critical and insensitive judgments of others’ lives in a way that alienates or shames them, rather than promoting a constructive conversation with them. It seems reasonable to claim that some individuals and groups have experienced, and continue to experience, moralistic statements and actions from religious workers and organisations. It also seems reasonable to say that moralism is something to be avoided if we are genuinely interested in promoting constructive, mature and healthy human relationships. The desire to avoid moralism in pastoral practice can therefore be welcomed as part of the increasing awareness that pastoral care and counselling has the potential to be an abusive and damaging experience for those who receive it (Layzell, 1999).

Some writers would claim, however, that in seeking to avoid moralism, many pastoral practitioners have been tempted to neglect thinking about the moral dimension of their work altogether (see, for example, Pattison; 1988: 33f.). As Rebekah Miles (1999: 3) puts it, ‘many pastors today hesitate to make moral judgments at all for fear of giving offense, hurting someone’s feelings, or becoming “judgmental”’. This can leave pastoral workers in what Miles refers to as the ‘muddled middle’, caught between a sense that values and ethics are important for pastoral practice and a concern that to embody an active moral stance in their work will be damaging to those for whom they care. Some practitioners may seek to deal with this bind by thinking about their practice as being in some sense ‘value-free’. Writers such as Don Browning and Tom Oden have argued, however, that there can never be a moral vacuum at the heart of one’s pastoral practice. If pastoral carers aspire to be value free in their work, Browning and Oden suggest that in practice their work tends to be informed by the dominant cultural values of the day, which in the case of contemporary Western society means hedonism, personal autonomy and self-fulfilment.

A key assumption that I bring to this book is that it is possible for pastoral practitioners to reflect on, and make conscious decisions about, the values that inform their practice in a way that does not degenerate into moralism. Within the book as a whole I will argue that pastoral carers’ and counsellors’ work is fundamentally informed by their vision of the good life. Furthermore I will argue that pastoral practitioners will be better placed to promote human well-being through their work if they reflect on the adequacy of their vision of the good life and on the significance of it for different facets of the pastoral encounter. These ideas need to be explained and justified in more detail, and will be expanded upon throughout the whole of the book. In the remainder of this chapter, I will examine the significance of the concept of the good life for pastoral practitioners and introduce some broad questions that can encourage pastoral workers to think critically about the values that inform their practice.

The Good Life

In everyday speech, the term ‘the good life’ does not have particularly rich connotations. Indeed, in contemporary culture, ‘the good life’ is probably most commonly seen as something that someone is able to enjoy once they have won the National Lottery. However, reflecting about the nature of the good life has been an important part of Western culture for at least the past two and a half millennia. Key thinkers in classical Greek philosophy such as Aristotle and the Stoic philosophers were preoccupied with what kind of life we should seek to live (Arrington, 1999). In subsequent centuries, a range of philosophical and theological thinkers such as Cicero (1971), Aquinas (Porter, 1994) and Rousseau (Cooper, 1999) were similarly concerned with the question of what it means to live well.

Definitions of the good life have often consisted of two different, though often connected, elements (Smith, 1980). First, a vision of the good life will often involve an understanding of what it means to live happily or to live well. This is the sense of the good life as a life, for example, of being ‘healthy, wealthy, and wise.’ This element of the good life thus involves an understanding of what ‘non-moral’ or ‘pre-moral’ goods (to use formal terms from moral philosophy) we should pursue in life, whether that be material success, esteem from our peers or romantic love. The second common element of a definition of the good life is a notion of what it means to live in a way that is morally commendable. This element of the good life is thus concerned with the virtues and behaviours of a life that we can consider good, such as being honest, giving generously of our money and time, or being loyal in our relationships. Given these two different elements within a definition of the good life, the question inevitably arises about the relationship between the two. An argument commonly advanced within moral philosophy is that if one leads a life that is morally commendable, then one will experience the most happy life that one can, in one’s circumstances. As Cicero (1971: 52) put it, ‘in order to live a happy life the only thing we need is moral goodness.’ Whilst others would wish to contest that idea, it seems clear that a full definition of the good life will need not only to set out what it means to live happily and what it means to live morally, but also what the relationship is between happiness and morality.

The quest for understanding the nature of the good life may indeed have been an important part of Western culture, but what is the significance of the notion of the good life for how we think about pastoral practice? To explore this issue further, we will think about another case scenario:

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You are working as a pastoral carer in a local church congregation, and one of the members of the congregation, Laura, has arranged to see you to talk about some difficulty in her life. As Laura talks to you, it becomes clear that her main concern relates to her marriage to her husband, Rob. Both are in their mid-thirties and have been married for eight years. Laura and Rob have chosen not to have any children because they wanted to be able to concentrate on their ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 The significance of values and moral reflection for pastoral care and counselling
• 2 Identifying our vision of the good life
• 3 Pursuing a vision of the good life
• 4 The social context of the pastoral encounter
• 5 The boundaries of the pastoral relationship
• 6 Friendship and the qualities of the pastoral relationship
• 7 Exploring ethical dilemmas in the pastoral conversation
• Further reading
• Bibliography
• Index