Traditional pastoral counseling Essay Example for Free

Traditional pastoral counseling EssayA final area of church support in the secular arena is that of handed-down pastoral counseling. This counseling area, usually conducted in private and found in personal trust relationships between the churchs pastor and the congregants, includes ministry for life events. distress counseling, marriage counseling (both pre-marriage counseling and counseling for relationship difficulties), career counseling and one-on-one discussion about difficulties such as substance abuse and sensual or mental health are all appropriate and common areas of support for the church pastor. Moore discusses the appropriateness of pastoral counseling in the area of calamity support. Her justification of the pastor in bereavement support is simple. The clergy holds a distinct advantage over professional health counselors because parishioners are more likely to receive their pastor when faced with bereavement and grieving. Spiritual counseling is part of the cl ergys responsibility to the congregation, for which, there is neither cost nor stigma attached. Moreover the relationship is based on trust.Typically, parishioners do not seek the services of early(a) professionals concerning issues of death, illness and emotional adjustment, if they believe the spiritual counseling they have received has helped them (Moore, 48). In some other words, the area of bereavement counseling is an area where the most natural and comfortable place for provision is within the church, with the pastor. African Americans have a unique heap of death and dying which makes treatment of these issues within the church, the most central of Black institutions, appropriate.Moore summarizes African-American beliefs and responses to death and bereavement African-Americans are more accepting and less dreaded of death than other American ethnic groups the view of death is often reflected in African-American visual and musical arts as well as poetry and the continued ex posure of African-Americans to higher death rates, both from natural causes and from violence, significantly strengthens the belief in the afterlife (Moore, 50).The Black church has particular rituals and forms of reverence which deal with death and dying, which make the church the best place to deal with grief and bereavement counseling within the community, rather than the formal mental health care system which may be preferred by those who do not belong with a church (Moore, 56).LITERATURE REVIEW CONCLUSIONA review of the extant literature on the impact of the Black church on its congregants secular lives reveals a range of formal programs, informal processes, traditions and practices, which source from within the community and come from outside, which are limited to the congregants or offered community-wide, which touch all aspects of the Black church members life. Historically, the Black church has been touch into service as a care provider for a marginalized and underserved population if the church did not provide medical care, mental health support, economic self-support and eruditeness and literacy programs, no one would.Today, Black churches continue to offer these services, either on their own or through collaboration with public and private foundations, research groups and other helpers. These programs are often more successful than those offered outside the church, because of the perception by church goers that the providers understand their needs and feel an affinity for their history and a sensibility for their cultural norms.The Black church also serves as an extended family to its members, strengthening the Black community as a whole and offering a guard against the onslaught of historical disadvantages, racism and the problems caused by low socioeconomic status. It serves as an assistant to parents, offering youth programs that range from helping teen parents to helping children place into and attend college. The literature shows that t he Black church is, overall, very responsive to the secular needs of its members as well as the spiritual.