Skip to main content

Clinical Pastoral Education - An Historical Perspective:

Clinical Pastoral Education - An Historical Perspective:

In the 1920’s theological education began to be profoundly reshaped by the medical model of education which itself was being transformed in response to the renowned Flexner Report of 1910.

Theological education, which was at that point in history almost entirely academic, theoretical, and forensic began to change just as medical education was changing. Pastors began using the mentorship approach to learning “at the bedside” in contact with living persons and their problems.

Thus, began the art and science of Clinical Pastoral Training or Education, the disciplined examination of specific cases of pastoral care and counseling, and the application of the clinical method to the work of ministry.

Clinical Pastoral Education has come to be known as the study of persons and their problems of relating and structures of meaning. This training has become accepted as a formative component in the preparation of persons for religious ministry.

Anton Boisen (1876-1965) was the individual who most provided the initial impetus toward making this change in theological education. Motivated by the urgency to understand his own psychotic episodes and their religious and developmental implications, Boisen inaugurated and institutionalized this new component in theological education known as Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).

At first CPE attracted only a few selected individuals, most of whom sought Boisen because of his and their dissatisfaction with normative theological education. Subsequently, CPE has burgeoned to such an extent that many theological schools require an introductory unit as a prerequisite for graduation.

Clinical Pastoral Education in General:

Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) programs provide an opportunity for ministers, seminarians and lay people to develop pastoral competency within a particular pastoral setting (usually a hospital, parish, hospice, retirement home, etc.), and seeks to foster the pastors own self-awareness as a pastoral care-giver.

The CPE approach to training is based upon an "action-reflection" model of learning. Pastoral interns function as ecumenical chaplains providing pastoral care on assigned areas and use their experience in pastoral encounters as a basis for their learning.

While seminary settings provide an academic environment for the study of pastoral theology in contrast the CPE center provides the clinical basis for learning. 


The College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy 

Clinical Pastoral Training University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Popular posts from this blog

Edwin Friedman Thinking Systems

What I want to do this morning is talk about how congregations function like families. I am going to do it from a variety of points of view. I’m going to begin with a fable. This one is called "Burnout" and it’s about a fish tank with a scavenger fish in it, you know a scavenger fish is supposed to keep the fish tank clean. I’m trying to be as realistic about it in my use of language as possible so I hope that you will appreciate that. Once upon a time there was a scavenger fish that lost its taste for shit. (I don’t think I have to read the rest of the fable. You all got the message already!) It was your normal, garden-variety scavenger and had never previously shown any signs of being different from the other members of its species. It lived in a normal-sized tank with the members of several schools and, from the very beginning of its association with this ecosystem, seemed always to be in perfect harmony with the environment. It never got in the way of the others and th...

Commentary on the ACPE CPSP Tensions

THE CPE HISTORY IS REPEATING ITSELF by L. George Buck As one who has been involved in pastoral training and education for over forty years (certified as a “Chaplain Supervisor” by the Council for Clinical in 1964), I have experienced a good deal of change in the pastoral education movement. It now seems that history is repeating itself. The present friction between CPSP and ACPE is not unlike that of the Council for Clinical Training and the Institute of Pastoral Care. The Council folk looked at the Institute folk as a bunch academic heads who overlooked the psycho-dynamic approach to “CPT”. One of my first supervisors, Tom Klink, once stated that the Institute super-visors needed to get acquainted with Sigmund Freud. On the other side of the fence, the Institute super-visors saw the Council supervisors as a bunch of feelers who refused to think. This war of words, so to speak, went on for several years. In the mid-sixties, I supervised CPT students in up-state New York. When the New Y...

CPSP Clinical Pastoral Education Training Programs

CPSP CPE/PPS CENTERS LISTING UPDATED 11/08 ARKANSAS AR – Little Rock (CPE)  George Hankins-Hull,  M.Div     University Arkansas fo Medical Sciences Medical Center  Little Rock,  AR (501) 686-6888  AR – Springdale (CPE)  C. J. Malone,  M.Div     Northwest Health System  Springdale,  AR72764  (479) 957-8782  CALIFORNIA CA - Long Beach (CPE)  Karyn Reddick,  M.Div     Long Beach Memorial Medical Center / Miller Children's Hospital  Long Beach,  CA90806  (562) 933-1452  COLORADO CO – Lakewood (CPE)  Foy Richey,  M.Div     Rocky Mountain Center for Education and Training  Lakewood,  CO 80235  (303) 797-8255  DELWARE DE – Wilmington (CPE) Bryan Bass-Riley Nemours-Alfred I duPont Hospital for Children 1600 Rockland Road Wilmington, DE 19803 (302) 651-5063 MASSACHUSETTES MA – Boston (CPE/PPS)  William E. Alberts,  Ph.D.,   Boston Medical Center  Boston,  MA 02118  (617) 638-6850  MARYLAND MD – Easton (CPE/PPS)  Benjamin P. Bogia,  Ph.D.     Shore Health System of Maryla...