기독(목회)아동상담의 정체성

On the Identity of Christian/Pastoral Child Counseling: A Pastoral Theological Reflection on Psycho-Spiritual Development of Children

Pastoral theology is a form of theological reflection in which caring experience serves as a context for the critical development of basic theological understanding. This article proposes the need for constructing pastoral theological frameworks that more adequately addresses the identity of Christian/pastoral child counseling by liking its ecclesial paradigm with public paradigm for child care issues in Korean society. Children’s spirituality, while not a new topic for theology and religious education, is gaining new attention in clinical literature as an important dimension of childhood and a significant aspect of caring for children. Amidst psychoanalytic literature in association with pastoral counseling field promoting the gigantic clinical implications of childhood, a few researchers in pastoral care and counseling in North America have taken children in their own research. Noting the both internal and social realities of children, the author argues that children’s spirituality (and religion alike) should be noted in conjunction with cognitive, affective, and interpersonal developmental capacities, and that children needs to be cared as the least in a given society as accepted by Jesus in the Gospel. David Elkind’s theory of religious development shows that children’s thoughts and feeling about God or other spiritual themes appear to be a natural part of human development. Even children who are not raised in a religious family and/or institution are likely to ask spiritual questions. The notion of psycho-spiritual development of children facilitates an exploration of questions concerning how children present their own God-talk, leading to a view of children’s spirituality as emotive and interpersonal. Practical theologians such as Don Browning and James Fowler reminded us of the essential focus in practical theology not simply on clerical and ecclesial paradigms but on the public paradigm, As such, the article suggest that the professional in Christian/pastoral child counseling has to be both a spiritually competent pastoral care giver in a local church and an interdisciplinary practitioner for social outreach. The public ministry of palliative child counseling/play therapy team at Severance Hospital is introduced as a sample model for working in a public paradigm.