The Contemplative Counselor: A Way of Being

The purpose of this book is two-fold. First, it examines critically how the field of pastoral counseling has responded to the resurgence of interest in issues of spirituality, particularly the appropriation of various texts on spiritually-oriented psychotherapies in counseling. Second, moving beyond description, the book addresses the need to re-define the identity and practice of pastoral counselors as contemplative healers by appropriating insights from the rich tradition of contemplative spirituality, theology, and psychology, and to integrate this identity with professional standards and practices.



The Contemplative Counselor extends the discourse on pastoral counseling beyond theories and techniques to include a focal description of a life lived in active contemplation. The contemplative approach to life, care, and counseling demands a daily call to surrender the underlying attitude of meritocracy that heavily emphasizes good works to produce successful results in counseling. At a fundamental level, the contemplative counselor exhibits an unwavering reliance on the grace of God, which transforms all that is descriptive of the counseling encounter. Here, being precedes becoming, and the act of counseling emanates from the deep and quiet center characterized by silence and solitude of the heart. Such counseling targets holistically body, mind, and spirit as a way of facilitating an experience of well being and transformation.