PSYCHOLOGY AND PASTORING
PSYCHOLOGY AND PASTORING

Summary/Abstract: Pastoring has been around for a long time, much longer than the discipline of modern psychology, at least as far as careers are concerned. While the work of a pastor is largely concerned with the responsibility of providing spiritual direction, psychology is largely concerned in understanding the abstract and concrete functionings of the mind and brain respectively. These two disciplines have generally been at odds with each other, often distrusting and suspicious of each other, they have at best created an uneasy alliance. Ideally, students being trained in the art of pastoring would be offered more classes in psychology and counseling. Likewise, it would benefit the psychology student to be exposed to more courses on spirituality, and ethics. This leads to the question of why it is necessary to study psychology. What can psychology contribute to pastoral work? Answering this question will be the focus of this chapter. However, answering this question will be difficult because the topic itself could be a book. Whole sections would have to deal with counseling, an area of psychology we won’t be able to discuss here.

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