PTH 1900 - Spirituality & Pastoral Counseling

Spirituality & Pastoral Counseling

Doctorate Degree in Pastoral Counseling & Thanatology

PTH 1900

Breyer State University
Instructor: Juan Kenigstein, PH.D, M.ED., GC-C

SYLLABUS

COURSE OVERVIEW: Welcome to Spirituality in Pastoral Counseling, a Doctorate Level course in the curriculum for the Degree, Doctorate in Pastoral Counseling and Thanatology. I'm pleased to offer you this course. This is an exciting course. This course identifies that Pastoral care is a search for the Divine in the circumstances of our lives. Its aim is for the patient/client to find meaning and purpose in his/her situation and for the caregiver to find meaning in his/her profession. This is an exciting course. This course presents a perspective and a vision. This perspective and vision articulates a clear rationale and strategies that you can use to integrate spirituality into the practice of your caring work.

TIME FRAME: This is a six-semester hour course. This course is allotted ten weeks of time. You must complete all of the requirements for the course successfully by the end of the ten-week period. The first day of week one will begin the day that you register for the course, or the day which you notify me that your text book(s) have arrived and you are ready to begin your studies. Please be cognizant of the time frame. It is rare that extensions of time are permitted, unless you have good justification. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be awarded six semester hours of credit. Students may accelerate, but may not complete this course in less than four weeks.

TEXTBOOK: There is one (1) required textbook for this course.

Book 1: Spirituality in Pastoral Counseling and the Community Helping Professions. Charles Topper, Ed.D. The Haworth Pastoral Press. 2003: ISBN # 0-7890-0861-0.

This text may be found at your local bookstore. Your local bookstore most often will order it as a special order for you. Or, you may purchase it online from:

Amazon.com at
www.amazon.com

Barnes & Nobel at
www.bn.com

Borders Books at
www.borders.com

EXAMINATIONS: There are no examinations for this course; grades are based on completion of assignments and activities.

GRADING SCALE: The grading scale for this course is as follows:

90-100%    = A
80-89%      = B
70-79%      = C
Below 70% = Fail

GRADING COMPOSITION:

Twenty-five (25) Exercises         50%
Self evaluation                            5%
Assignment                               15%
Discovery & Intention Statement 10%
Research Report                        20%

TOTAL 100%

GOALS: The aim of education about Spirituality in Pastoral Counseling is to introduce course participants to a process of reflecting on their personal and professional formation as pastoral caregivers. In this course will introduce basic concepts, fundamental skills of counseling, and spiritual assessments.

COMMUNICATION: You are encouraged to communicate with me. I am available as a teacher, coach, and mentor to assist you in meeting your goals for this course. Primarily, communication is through email. However, I am also available for conversation by telephone if you would like. Our classroom for this course has a "chat" room. I am also very willing to meet with you one-on-one in the chat room at your request. From time to time, depending on how many students are enrolled in this course at a particular time, we will have some scheduled group chats. You will receive more detailed information at the time such chat sessions are scheduled. Please keep my email address handy so that you can contact me whenever necessary. Upon registration, you will receive my email address. If at any time during this course you change your email address, please be sure to notify me right away.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

1). Become more aware of spirituality and spiritual needs.
2). Not hesitate to work more with a client's spirituality.
3). Think about and assess yourself and your clients from a spiritual perspective and not from a psychological point of view.
4). Understand, identify, learn and effectively use a method of spiritual assessment and care.
5). Accept your identity as a spiritual caregiver.
6). Relate spiritual care to a helpee's ethnic heritage and how it influences the individual spiritually and indeed psychologically.
7). Effectively introduce to your clients some clinical instruments of spiritual assessment.
8). Develop a spiritual assessment survey for your work setting.
9). Assess your own skills for spiritual care.
10). Develop further competencies for spiritual care.
11). Establish standards of spiritual care for your own care giving practice or the organization that you serve.

COURSE OUTLINE:

1). Spirituality.
2). Spirituality Assessment.
3). The process of Spiritual Care.
4). Tools for Spiritual Assessment.
5). Basic Aptitudes and Skills of Spiritual Care.
6). Broader Skills of Spiritual Care.
7). A Community Model of Spiritual Care.