Understanding one's personal issues and emotional reactions- one's "countertransference"- has long been recognized as a core competency in ministry. Now new understandings of intersubjectivity, mutual influence, shared wisdom (both conscious and unconscious), and multicultural dynamics in the caring relationship are bringing promising new possibilities and challenges to pastoral practice. Employing these insights, in this groundbreaking book Pamela Cooper-White offers a new relational paradigm for pastoral assessment and theological reflection. She uses the caregiver's own responses and...

'Many Voices' is a full scale disciplinary framework for pastoral psychotherapists/pastoral counselors at intermediate and advanced levels of clinical training and also for experienced pastoral counselors and psychotherapists in professional practice.

Description: What if we are more multiple as persons than traditional psychology has taught us to believe? And what if our multiplicity is a part of how we are made in the very image of a loving, relational, multiple God? How have modern, Western notions of Oneness caused harm--to both individuals and society? And how can an appreciation of our multiplicity help liberate the voices of those who live at the margins, both of society and within our own complex selves? Braided Selves explores these questions from the perspectives of postmodern pastoral psychology and Trinitarian theology, with...

In this comprehensive, practical assessment of various forms of violence against women, Pamela Cooper-White challenges the Christian churches to examine their own responses to the cry of Tamar in our time.

Describes practices such as: preaching and public speaking, teaching, leading liturgies, conducting ceremonies, counseling and offering pastoral support for persons undergoing life transitions, and serving as organizational leaders in congregations, chaplaincies, social ministries, and in the public arena.