IN 2005, THEN VIPCARE COLLEAGUE AND FRIEND JASON C. WHITEHEAD COMPILED A BOOKLET, A UNIQUE CALLING: PERSPECTIVES ON PASTORAL COUNSELING, WITH ESSAYS ON THE WORK OF PASTORAL COUNSELING.
VIPCARE COUNSELORS REVISITED THE BOOKLET RECENTLY AND THOUGHT IT WOULD BE GOOD TO SHARE THESE ESSAYS ANEW.
NOTE: Jason Whitehead’s piece was reposted in August 2021: below we share another essay from the book, Who We Are, by the Rev. Dr. A. Patrick L. Prest, Jr., a founding member of VIPCare and a long-time and beloved Board member, who passed away in March 2019 (see buttons below to read his obituary and his VIPCare Prayer).
Who We Are
Pat Prest
Pastoral Counselors are men and women from all walks of life, from vast and far-reaching cultures, from much religion to none at all, from very rich to very poor, from the suburbs to the slums, from families with severe pathology to inordinately healthy dynamics, from over function to dysfunction, from personal health to tragic illness, and from devout incarnational practice to free-spirited love.
The key to a successful pastoral counselor is the true acceptance of his or her personal pilgrimage to the point that he or she is free to hear another’s journey in life, and to not judge that individual. Persons who are not able to accept themselves completely and who continually project their own unfinished pathology need to seek work elsewhere. Along with this personal journey, the pastoral counselor must acquire basic skills of diagnosis, empathy, family systems, group dynamics, and a personal religious perspective.
The Practice of Pastoral Counseling
The individual pastoral counselor needs to have a faith perspective that is personally fulfilling and that tolerates a vast continuum of religious faiths in others. This personal faith sustains the counselor in his or her practice. Obviously, the practice of pastoral counseling assumes minimal standards of licensure by the state. At no time can the counselor claim religious superiority over incompetence. Each counselor is accountable not only professionally and denominationally, but also to the individuals who come to them from wisdom and friendship. The Pastoral Counselor can do not more than walk in the presence of God with another in the midst of an anguished world.
The Rev. Dr. A. Patrick L. Prest, Jr.
VIPCare Founding Member and Longtime and Beloved Board Member