Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures

In this book David Augsburger discusses the dynamics of pastoral care and counseling across cultural lines. Augsburger combines theology with global perspective and cultural sensitivity to posit an inclusive understanding of pastoral care. This book will be of great interest to pastoral counselors in both academic and practical contexts.

"Christians are being called upon increasingly to care, counsel, and cure across cultural boundaries," writes the author. Of course foreign missionaries counsel people from other cultures, but so do many pastors - particularly those in urban settings. Because Christian counseling theory presupposes that counselor and counselee share the same culture, the insights of this discipline must be brought together meaningfully with the cross-cultural perspectives of missiology. Counseling Cross-Culturally pioneers this new field. After surveying approaches to counseling in the West and those in the non-Western world, the author develops a theory of Christian cross-cultural counseling. The final part, consistent with the author's broad view of counseling, discusses counseling concerned with the well-being of people, Christian conversion, spiritual growth and development of a Christian life style, and Christian service. Numerous case studies, drawn from a variety of cultures, provide realistic examples of the questions that counselors will encounter. A psychologist who trains Christian workers for cross-cultural service describes this book as "a helpful, thoughtful study of complex issues surrounding counseling.... It is extremely valuable to expose any missionary candidate to this type of book. It broadens awareness to cross-cultural issues and touches on common problems of missionary-counselors.... Counseling Cross-Culturally is an admirable attempt to integrate a conservative, evangelical theology with the complexities of culture and life."

Offering a primary focus on North American cultural and ethnic diversity while addressing global questions and issues, Counseling Across Cultures, Seventh Edition, edited by Paul B. Pederson, Walter J. Lonner, Juris G. Draguns, Joseph E. Trimble, and María R. Scharrón-del Río, draws on the expertise of 48 invited contributors to examine the cultural context of accurate assessment and appropriate interventions in counseling diverse clients. The book’s chapters highlight work with African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos/as, American Indians, refugees, individuals in marginalized situations, international students, those with widely varying religious beliefs, and many others. Edited by pioneers in multicultural counseling, this volume articulates the positive contributions that can be achieved when multicultural awareness is incorporated into the training of counselors.

The meaning of pastoral care in modern multicultural societies is challenged and reexamined from a pluralistic, global perspective in this book. Emmanuel Lartey stresses the importance of recognizing different cultural influences on individuals in order to effectively counsel, guide and empower them. He provides a clear and concise history of pastoral care and considers its relationship to different models of counseling and spirituality. This new edition has been updated to reflect postmodern and postcolonial studies and provides illustrations of how an intercultural approach can work in practice. Theological teachers and students will welcome its return as an indispensable introduction to the field of pastoral care. In Living Color is an essential source of inspiration to leaders from any religious stream who wish to provide pastoral care in a way that reflects their community's cultural diversity. This book is also a useful resource for practitioners in a wider range of caring contexts who work in multicultural environments.

Believing not only that conflict is inevitable in human life but that it is essential and can be quite constructive, Augsburger proposes a shift to an "international" approach in resolving conflict. Augsburger focuses on interpersonal and group conflicts and provides a comparison of conflict patterns within and among various cultures.

Offering a primary focus on North American cultural and ethnic diversity while addressing global questions and issues, Counseling Across Cultures, Seventh Edition, edited by Paul B. Pederson, Walter J. Lonner, Juris G. Draguns, Joseph E. Trimble, and María R. Scharrón-del Río, draws on the expertise of 48 invited contributors to examine the cultural context of accurate assessment and appropriate interventions in counseling diverse clients. The book’s chapters highlight work with African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos/as, American Indians, refugees, individuals in marginalized situations, international students, those with widely varying religious beliefs, and many others. Edited by pioneers in multicultural counseling, this volume articulates the positive contributions that can be achieved when multicultural awareness is incorporated into the training of counselors.

"Pastoral counseling in Africa and the West is a masterpiece but a simple read for anyone who wants to practice counseling across cultures. It enables you to understand the wide variety of cultures in which the discipline operates with their distinctiveness. It equips the readers to counsel people from different cultures in a practical manner. The findings are based on research I conducted to understand the wide gap between pastoral counseling in Africa and the West. The results describe what counselors do in both settings. Counseling in the African context operates within the African worldview, but in the West is informed by psychology as its basis of operation. Due to the vital role that the African worldview plays in pastoral counseling within that context, it has culture, prayer, spirituality elements of prophecy and deliverance embedded in its practices. Christians are aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit. They acknowledge him and invite the Holy Spirit to be a significant partner in their practice. On the other hand, pastoral counselling in the West is built on professionalism, with psychology as its backbone. At the onset of counseling in the West, it had a Christian foundation. However, the growth of psychology in the therapeutic profession means that it has gradually relegated scripture to the background in some practices. In contrast, psychology is promoted even in Christian based counseling. This book touches on various forms of counselling such as couple, family, intending couples, pre and post-marital counseling. Despite the different perspectives from which these practices are drawn and focus, they can still encourage and learn from each other. Therefore, pastoral counselling in Africa and the West calls on its readers to learn from each other and improve on this worthy call to counsel."--

Using a wide variety of concrete cases, van Beek outlines sensitivities, awarenesses, and skills fundamental to cross-cultural counseling issues such as identity, sense of belonging, worldview, identification, family counseling, and use of biblical resources.

In his holistic and intercultural re-visioning of pastoral care and counselling, Emmanuel Lartey attempts to capture the complex nature of the interaction between people who have been influenced by different cultures, religions, social contexts, origins and gender. He examines various models of pastoral care, drawing on experiences, reflections and theories from the 'Third World', and appraises the International Council for Pastoral Care and Counselling founded in 1979. He examines approaches to pastoral care that draw on liberationist perspectives from Latin America, Asia and Africa; feminist theology, womanism and Black theology. A contemporary spirituality is discussed which draws on different religious traditions including African, Eastern, Semitic and Western. Ultimately, this book aims to make pastoral care and counselling more relevant to the multicultural contexts within which most pastoral practitioners now live.

Drinking from the Same Well is designed for those who seek a praxis-oriented theological grounding in the exploration of cross-cultural perspectives in the field of pastoral care and counseling. It traverses the broad terrain of cultural analysis and also explores in depth a number of discrete cross-cultural issues in pastoral counseling, related to communication, conflict, empathy, family dynamics, suffering, and healing. Cultural analysis and theological reflection are situated alongside numerous case studies of persons and situations that enflesh the concepts being discussed, and readers are invited to engage personally with the material through a variety of focus questions and reflective exercises. This book can serve as a helpful textbook for seminarians and a useful guide for pastors and priests, church study groups, multicultural parishes, and anyone engaged in helping ministries with persons from other cultures. The goal is to develop culturally competent pastoral caregivers by providing a comprehensive and practical overview of the generative themes and challenges in cross-cultural pastoral care.