The Oates Journal (ISSN: 1098-1446) is a publication of the Wayne E. Oates Institute addressing issues related to spirituality, ethics, and healing from the perspective of pastoral care and counseling.

In my graduate student experience with Wayne Oates, and in some subsequent CPE supervisory experiences, I recall a few students and trainees who were from other countries, such as Brazil, Japan, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Getting to know these persons from distant lands was an enjoyable experience. Yet, when they returned to their native lands, I never heard what difference their U.S. education and training had made in how they performed their work. There was little data on what happened when the American model of pastoral care and counseling was exported to another country. Was it successfully used? Did it work in other cultures?

I have recently returned from two weeks in a very distant land, South Korea. It was my fifth trip there since participating in the Asia-Pacific Conference on Pastoral Care and Counseling, meeting in Seoul in 1997. Subsequent trips have involved lecturing and teaching intensive courses to Korean pastors and others who were in training for this ministry. Howard Clinebell had been to Korea numerous times to teach and his lectures helped to lay an important foundation.

My first lecturing experience was as the featured speaker at a large, weeklong pastor’s conference sponsored by Soongsill University, in which about 300 clergy participated. I was impressed with the interest of these pastors and their desire to learn. The last three speaking engagements have been leading intensive graduate level courses involving residents and students enrolled in the training program at the Korea Professional Psychotherapy Institute, and included not only clergy but also professional counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, and educators. Most were Christian, some were Buddhist monks and laypersons, and some had no particular religious affiliation but were interested in body-mind-spirit perspectives and spiritual integration in psychotherapy. The interest is remarkable and the eagerness for training, often at considerable effort and sacrifice, is gratifying and impressive.

One of the reasons for the timing of my recent visit was the celebration event for the 15th Anniversary of the Korea Professional Psychotherapy Institute (KPPI), in itself a remarkable story in which I have been privileged to have a part. The founder of KPPI is The Rev. Steve Sangkwon Shim, Ph.D., who fled North Korea with his grandmother at the age of 11, wading across the chest high river into South Korea in the dark of a winter night to escape the communist lockdown which has existed now for over 50 years. As a young man who had become a committed Christian and had been given the Christian name of Steve by a Presbyterian missionary, he came to the USA for his higher education. After graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary, he entered the Ph.D. program to study under Howard Clinebell at Claremont School of Theology, completing the degree as CST’s first Korean graduate. After approximately 30 years as an AAPC certified pastoral counselor and an appointed leader of the California Korean Presbyterian community of the PCUSA, Steve and his wife decided to return to Korea to start a pastoral counseling center and introduce the AAPC model of pastoral counseling to his native country.

That risk reflects the kind of determination and courage seen in his escape from communist North Korea and in immigrating to America. KPPI is accredited by AAPC as a Service and Training Center, and it attracts men and women from all over Korea to its highly developed training program. Graduates of its program can qualify for certification by AAPC as Pastoral Counselors and membership as Pastoral Care Specialists without ever leaving Korea, a major milestone in international development. The success of this program, against numerous obstacles, demonstrates that pastoral counseling is relevant beyond the borders of North America.

It also helps us understand several important factors about pastoral counseling that are relevant for our continued training and practice in this country in a time of multiculturalism and religious pluralism. Some of these are as follows: 1) Although pastoral counseling grew up in a predominantly protestant, middle class American context as a specialized ministry, it is relevant and effective for other ethnic, cultural, social, and religious contexts as well. 2) To adapt pastoral counseling to these different contexts requires intentionality and flexibilty, as well as leadership by persons who are indigenous to these various cultures and who are adequately trained and credentialed in the AAPC or related model of practice and code of ethics. 3) The disciplined integration of spirituality into counseling and psychotherapy needs to recognize and reflect the pluralistic dimension of religious belief systems in this country and throughout the world. 4) Although the spiritual orientation and maturity of the care provider is a major consideration, the integrative process should focus on the spirituality of the care receiver. The intent is to enable the counselee to draw upon his/her faith tradition and internalized experience in a positive and healing way in dealing with the life issues they face. 5) Whereas the care provider needs to project a mature, caring, and integrated spirituality throughout the process, fee-based counseling itself is not an evangelistic enterprise. To make it so could involve manipulation and exploitation which would be unethical. The goal is not for the client to adopt the faith tradition of the counselor, but rather to develop and/or therapeutically utilize their own. This requires multicultural and multi-faith awareness and sensitivity on the part of the care provider, as well as an open and transparent faith perspective in listening and responding to others. These principles protect the client in any cultural context from exploitation and promote the healthy adaptation of pastoral counseling and psychotherapy in other lands, as well as in the increasingly pluralistic society of the USA.

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