목회상담자의 자기 이해에서의 인간됨

The personhood and theology in self-knowledge of the pastoral counseling

Effective and creative pastoral counseling requires an ad-equate self-understanding involving attention both to all di-mensions of personhood and to personal theology. The person who undertakes the care of souls must attain self-understanding be-cause the caregiver s inner life is involved in his or her healing ministry. The whole process of counseling reflects the all aspects of counselor himself from the initial diagnosis of the counselee to the end phase of the counseling session. If the pastoral counselor does not understand himself appropriately, his or her counseling ministry would be hindered by it. One of the central functions of the pastoral counselor is to provide for others a model of a person who experiences some sense of meaning in life, who has a purpose that energizes him or her, and who is able to apply personal insights through appropriate actions. This is not possible without continuing to grow as a person. In order to understand pastoral counselor s personhood, he or she should review his innate factors such as gender, class, fam-ily background. Counselors also need to know both the influences of the significant others in their lives and socio-cultural back grounds to which they belong. In order to grow the pastoral counselor, the counselor him- orherself should evaluate his or her personal models of caring and understand his or her life cycle. The pastoral counselor should avoid the messiah trap and hurdle the burnout barrier. He or she should concentrate on building sturdy relationships and improve his or her psychological health. Pastoral counselors should take care of him- or herself physically, psychologically, and spiritually. The growth of the pastoral counselor in self knowledge can be furthered in the course of theological discipline. The pastoral counselor must be a theologian and the kind of practical theologian who can keep theological concepts in significant relation to human experiences. Every theological subject should be the occasion for self-knowledge. Pastoral counselors need clarity in their thinking about the meaning of God for them through examining their paren-ts theology, denominational tradition, and home church tradition. They also needs clarity about christology, ecclesiology, and other theological issues related to them. The pastoral counselor who is to be effective in his work to-day will need more knowledge than ever before. The most urgent work the pastoral counselors can do is to keep on growing through understanding their personhood and theology. In their desire to serve others, pastoral counselors should keep on growing them-selves both through learning professionally and through spiritual disciplines such as prayer and Bible reading. If they neglect to do so, they will not be able to help others grow.