CPSP Little Rock Chapter

Getting to Know Yourself by George Hankins Hull, Dip.Th., Th.M Self-awareness as a pastoral care giver is essential to good pastoral care. Issues of transference and counter-transference loom large in pastoral encounters. Therefore, it’s of vital importance for the pastoral care giver to understand the use of the Self in the pastoral role. In her book,  When Helping You is Hurting Me , Carmen Berry addresses the detrimental aspects of a lack of self-awareness in the person of the care giver in what she calls the “Messiah trap.” The “Messiah trap”, is defined as continued circumstances in which individuals are persistently putting their own needs aside in order to help others. Berry offers an important caution to all in the helping professions against becoming addicted to helping and then, like an addict, seeking out supplies for their fix. Further complicating the issue is what Berry calls the double-sided trap of helping: ‘If I don’t do it, it won’t get done’ and ‘Every one else’s nee...

Jesus of Nazareth: The Peasant from Galilee as Model for Chaplaincy by James D. Hester Professor of Religion, Emeritus University of Redlands A Paper Presented to The Mid-South Fall Pastoral Care Institute Trinity Presbyterian Church Little Rock, AR October 30, 2008 Introduction: When George Hull called and asked if I would make a presentation to this group, I really had to consider just what I could say to you! I am, after all, a retired Bible teacher, with very little pastoral experience. The question I kept asking myself was, “Is there anything from my experience of 40 plus years of teaching, preaching, and publishing that I might use to provide food for thought for folks who deal with ill and frightened people facing the unknown?” I did come up with an answer, but I have to leave it to you to judge if it is a useful one. A couple of more comments before I move into the heart of the presentation: I carefully chose the terms used in the title of the talk. It seems to me that two ...