Pastoral Psychology最新文献

Physicians and healthcare professionals are tasked with prioritizing their own self-care while also caring for patients and their complex needs within a broken healthcare system. The identity formation they experience can be directly impacted by changes in professional and personal contexts. This article examines the power of a visual work of art to create opportunities for self-reflection, expression, and vulnerability through established constructs of the “third thing in medical education” and museum-based educational approaches such as the Personal Response Tour. I then apply Marcus Bussey’s framework of the ‘future senses’ and anticipatory aesthetics to surrealist painter René Magritte’s 1966 work Decalcomania. With the added lens of personal narrative juxtaposed with Magritte’s visual work, the article delves into the power of anticipatory aesthetics and the future senses as a way to envision new futures and a path forward in the midst of professional identity questioning.

This article investigates the experience of beauty and eco-sorrow with the aim of depicting some painful truths, as well as existential responses to eco-sorrow. The article begins by portraying the attributes of the experience of beauty, relying on an emended version of Christopher Bollas’s notion of transformational objects and Buber’s I–Thou experience. This lays the foundation for explicating the attendant experience of eco-sorrow, which entails the painful recognition of (1) the degradation of the Earth and a loss of beauty, (2) the extinction of other species, (3) human-caused climate disaster, and (4) existential insignificance and impermanence. The latter is further understood in terms of Giorgio Agamben’s notion of the ontological rift, which is produced and maintained by the Abrahamic religious traditions and Western political philosophies. Recognition of the ontological rift, which is a defense against existential insignificance and impermanence, is a key part of the experience of eco-sorrow. The last section explores responses to beauty and eco-sorrow, such as despair, nihilism, forced hope/optimism, flights of fantasy, and, ideally, a categorical demand for inoperative care.

This article claims that the Anthropocene Age reveals the tragic insanity that lies at the core of religious experiences informed by Hebrew and Christian scriptures. In brief, I claim that Western Christianity and its apparatuses produce beliefs, which are an integral part of persons’ religious experiences, that give rise to an ontological rift between human beings and other species. This rift and its attendant beliefs are evident in how religious individuals and communities have (1) overlooked or disavowed the singularities and sufferings of other species, (2) used attendant instrumental epistemologies to justify the exploitation of Othered species (and Othered human beings) and the Earth, and (3) sought to force nature to adapt to human needs and desires. The article addresses the psychological dynamics and consequences of the ontological rift, which further exposes the madness that attends religious experiences that rely on apparatuses of the ontological rift. The article ends with a brief discussion of an antidote, namely, inoperativity.

Dreaming plays a part in many of the world’s religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism Christianity, and Islam. However, research into what the actual dreams of religious persons look like is very rare. Within a series of 2,055 dreams recorded over more than 30 years by a Benedictine nun, the frequency and content of church dreams were analyzed. The church dream frequency (11%) was high compared to other samples. The findings indicate that the daily religious practices of the dreamer as a nun is reflected in her dreams, with the most frequent church being “her” church and the most frequent activity related to the church being religious (praying, singing, a church service). Interestingly, the nun’s dreams also included profound religious dreams of inner liberation, insights, and positive feelings. It would be interesting to study the beneficial effects of dreams in other persons who have dedicated their lives to religious practice, whether within Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, or any other faith.

This essay combines autoethnographic narratives along with the films of U.S. film director Wes Anderson to provoke and unlock a buried grief of serving as a pediatric hospital chaplain. Anderson is one of the most well-known U.S. film directors. Even if an individual has not seen one of his eleven feature-length films, his aesthetic, eccentricity, and production design are well known and have reached meme status on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Buried within the pastel pastiche are themes of grief and trauma. The author moves through these themes alongside Anderson’s cinematic universe and offer possibilities for communal care in an Andersonian manner.

A scholarly discourse exists among researchers regarding whether religiosity primarily represents credulity or the capacity for critical thinking. Numerous studies within the realm of psychology, for instance, delve into this inquiry within the framework of risk assessment among both religious adherents and nonbelievers. Nevertheless, there is a notable lack of comprehensive exploration encompassing theological, philosophical, and social safety science perspectives that encapsulate the entirety of religious phenomena. This paper seeks to address this gap by examining various forms of religious thought and activities that contribute to cognitive safety. The analysis scrutinizes the development of such cognitive attitudes and elucidates the manifestation of religiosity in the context of well-being, ultimately informing pastoral programs.

Clergy play an important role in the health of their congregations and communities. Unfortunately, high rates of chronic disease and burnout exist, and health promotion programs have been limited in their ability to change behaviors. This study psychometrically tested the Caring Factor Survey—Caring for Self (CFS-CS), developed to understand self-care among nurses, with clergy. Initially, five experts established face validity of the survey. Ordained Christian clergy actively ministering in the United States were then recruited for a two-phase study. In phase 1, six clergy assessed the content validity of the survey using the Content Validity Index (CVI). In phase 2, 70 clergy completed the CFS-CS, demographic questions, and two Likert scale questions assessing the importance of and their effort to care for themselves daily. Cronbach’s alpha, average inter-item correlations, and exploratory factor analysis were conducted, as were correlations between the survey and the Likert scale items. During phase 1, individual CVI ranged from 1.00 to 0.83 and scale-level CVI was 0.95, indicating that the content of the scale was adequate. During phase 2, one item, Teaching & Learning, did not perform well. When removed, Cronbach’s alpha and the average inter-item correlation were 0.81 and 0.33, respectively. Correlations between the nine-item survey (CFS-CS, Clergy) and the measures of importance and effort towards caring for self were r = 0.50 and 0.68, respectively, p < 0.001 for both. The CFS-CS, Clergy was found to be a valid and reliable measure for future studies to assess self-care beliefs and attitudes of clergy and their impact on clergy health.