Three Formative Pastoral Analytic Psychotherapy Texts

There were three formative books for me in my earlier Training in Pastoral Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. I wish to write here of all three................It could be said that Oscar Pfister was the first pastoral psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He was certainly the first to be influenced by Sigmund Freud, the creator of psychoanalysis. Pfister was a Lutheran pastor who was also a close friend of Freud. He consulted with Freud regarding his pastoral counseling with his parishioners. The Pfister tradition was continued in the United States by Carrol Wise. ( Wise was a student of Anton Boisen who in the 1930's became the founding Father of Clinical Pastoral Education.) Wise, a chaplain, pastoral psychotherapist and seminary professor, wrote the classical text, Pastoral Psychotherapy, in 1983. This book integrated Modern Freudian Psychoanalysis with the wisdom of religious faith, and became a major influence for pastoral psychoanalytic therapy practitioners. This book was a significant influence while I was undergoing training to become a pastoral analytic psychotherapist. Matter of fact it inspired me to write my own text in 1997, Caring Beyond Words: The Power of Christian Symbols to Heal the Soul ( published by Smyth and Helwys). Of all the books on pastoral psychoanalytic therapy that are out there today, Wise's book continues to influence me the most. ( I will share two other books in the next post).