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The Sine Qua Non of the Clinical Pastoral Care & Training Movement


No pastoral care and certifying organization can be compelled to adopt a posture of critical self-reflection. However, one would expect that one of the marks of an organization standing within the historical clinical pastoral care and training movement would be a posture of critical self-reflection. Given this tradition of self-critical reflection this would not negate the critique of one cognate group by another rather it would promote it. The self-critical faculty is the sine qua non of the pastoral care and training movement. The movement is best safeguarded when all the serious voices of critique are validated and none are censored. In contrast to movements seeking to speak with one voice the clinical pastoral care and training movement speaks with many voices and is best represented by the voice of many.

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