Spiritual and religious diversity: Implications for counselor education programs

Therapist metamorphosis : beginner and experienced psychotherapists' journeys of professional therapeutic development

This essay in applied psychoanalysis is written for the field of pastoral psychology, and it also has obvious affinities with the medical humanities. The author uses Freud’s (The uncanny. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 17, pp. 217–256). Vintage, London, 1919/2001) “The Uncanny” to question the concept of homelike hospital rooms. Instead of making patients feel more comfortable, the authors believes that these rooms could, in some cases, actually increase the anxiety of patients. The author uses Helena Michie’s personal story of her experience of touring a birthing suite to support this argument, as well as some poetry by Billy Collins. The author, however, does not stop with identifying a problem, as he also suggests that pastors and chaplains, when they provide care for their patients, should help them identify and use their own transitional and transformational objects. These objects, of course, will be highly idiosyncratic, and it is precisely this kind of attention—attention to the idiosyncrasies of individuals—that pastors and chaplains should be giving to those in their care. While there is a growing literature on D. W. Winnicott, who coined the term “transitional object,” and Christopher Bollas, who gave us the term “transformational object,” in medical and pastoral circles, the author suggests that attention to and the endorsement of the use of transitional and transformational objects should become a part of hospital policy, if only in chaplaincy handbooks, so as to recognize what many individuals are already doing.

The Hospital Room as Uncanny: Psychoanalytic Observations and Recommendations for Pastors and Chaplains

There are some who criticize mainstream mental health approaches and point out that individuals in distress appear to be getting worse, as opposed to better, while in treatment. Ex-patients often a...

Transactional Experiences of Existential Anxiety as a Barrier to Effective Humanistic Intervention

This volume has brought together a set of papers that examine the process of counselling as practiced by counsellors and therapists in India. Challenges faced by therapists due to poor mental health literacy have been illustrated. Inadequacies arising from training and supervision, due to variations in academic curricula and expectations have been identified. The scope of counselling as a profession, along with ethical dilemmas arising out of practice has been examined. The impact of the profession on the personal and professional self of the therapist, and the motivational factors and values of the counsellor are propositions that need consideration. Implications for research, training and outreach have emerged from the studies.

The Road Ahead: Conclusion and Directions for Future Research

This paper argues that one receives the calling to become a therapist to experience feeling real Stated differently, therapists become therapists to heal themselves Drawing on object relations theory, the author identifies five “wounds” therapists may consciously and unconsciously address by entering a therapeutic profession The wounds are located in the capacity to believe, the capacity to imagine, the capacity for concern, the capacity to be alone, and the capacity of object usage Achieving these capacities provides the therapist with a sense of wholeness, health, and holiness

Jaco J. Hamman

Papers

The Search to Be Real: Why Psychotherapists Become Therapists