Healers Harmed and Harmful

Rollo May published in "The Art of Counseling" (1938) his vision that one day clergy and related helping professionals would engage in an intensive program of psychotherapy as part of their training and preparation. This vision, he thought, would become accepted practice within only a few years...such a proposal was an obvious solution to the need for the development of a mature body of clergy. This practice for clergy in training has not happened. A program of intensive psychodynamic psychotherapy can assist in restructuring toward a wholeness in which the professional emerges wounded but well...This book explores the factors that can lead a religious professional either to become depressed or to interact with others in inappropriate ways. Moreover, congregations act to provoke and sustain conditions that can further endanger religious professionals. These need careful attention from theorists and counselors alike.