Abstract
Under steady pressure from ordinary pastoral practice German Protestantism gradually made proclamatory pastoral care more responsive to human need and more adequate to human complexity. In doing so it drew heavily from psychology, but the very refinements helped obscure its original intent. For that and other reasons it came into crisis and was replaced by “therapeutic pastoral care,” which now dominates German pastoral thought and practice. Each of these paradigms of pastoral work reflected in its own way on the theological aspects of pastoral care, producing quite different theologies of pastoral care and employing psychology in that process in quite different ways.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Reference Notes
According to Seward Hiltner pastoral theology examines the shepherding activities of pastor and church, beginning with theological questions and ending with theological answers. The result is an organized body of knowledge, not just skills or techniques, Seward Hiltner,Preface to Pastoral Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1959), pp. 24, 218. Cf. Coval B. MacDonald, “Methods of Study in Pastoral Theology,” ed. William B. Oglesby, Jr.,The New Shape of Pastoral Theology (Nashville: Abindgon Press, 1969), p. 164; Don S. Browning, “The Influence of Psychology in Theology,”The New Shape, p. 121; Peter Homas,Theology after Freud (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), p. 110. Cf. also Thomas C. Oden,Contemporary Theology and Psychotherapy (Westminster Press, 1967), pp. 55ff.
Thomas S. Kuhn,The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd. ed., enl. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970; Phoenix Books, 1970).
Wolfgang Trillhaas,Der Dienst der Kirche am Menschen (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1958); Eduard Thurneysen,Die Lehre von der Seelsorge (Zollikon Switzerland: Evangelischer Verlag, 1946), E. T.,A Theology of Pastoral Care, tr. by Jack A. Worthington, Thomas Wieser, assisted by a panel of advisers (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1962); Adelheid Rensch,Das seelsorgerliche Gespräch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967); Hans-Joachim Thilo,Der ungespaltene Mensch; Ein Stück Pastoralpsychologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957); Theodor Bovet,Lebendige Seelsorge, 3rd ed., enl. (Tübingen: Katzmann Verlag, 1962); Otto Haendler,Grundriss der praktischen Theologie (Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann, 1957); Alfred Dedo Müller,Grundriss der praktischen Theologie (Berlin: Evangelische Verlags anstalt, 1954); Hans-Otto Wölber,Das Gewissen der Kirche; Abriss einer Theologie der Sorge um den Menschen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965); Adolf Allwohn,Das heilende Wort (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958). These titles were those most often mentioned by respondents to a questionnaire that I sent to professors of practical theology at German universities. Joachim Scharfenberg,Seelsorge als Gespräch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971); Dietrich Stollberg,Seelsorge durch die Gruppe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971),Seelsorge praktisch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970),Mein Auftrag, deine Freiheit: Thesen zur Seelsorge (Munich: Claudius Verlag, 1972); Hans-Joachim Thilo,Beratende Seelsorge (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971); Hans-Christoph Piper,Gesprächsanalysen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973); Richard Riess,Seelsorge: Orientierung, Analysen, Alternativen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973). These I picked on the basis of my own experience in Germany, with the consultation of Prof. Heije Faber of the Netherlands.
Kuhn,Scientific Revolutions, p. 43.
Ibid., p. 37.
Ibid., p. 87.
Ibid., p. 24.
Ibid., p. 150.
Ibid., p. 153.
Thurneysen,Theology, p. 1.
Thurneysen, “Rechtfertigung und Seelsorge,”Zwischen den Zeiten, Vol. 6, 1928, p. 210. My translations throughout the article.
Dietrich Rössler,Der ‘ganze’ Mensch; das Menschenbild der neueren Seelsorgelehre und des modernen medizinischen Denkens im Zusammenhang der allgemeinen Anthropologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), p. 20.
Ibid., p. 52.
Ibid., p. 92.
Thurneysen,Lehre, p. 110; see my article, The New Pastoral Care in Germany” for a brief excerpt.
Thurneysen,Theology, p. 156.
Ibid.; Bovet,Seelsorge, pp. 17, 84; Uhsadel,Seelsorge, p. 140f.; Wölber,Gewissen, pp. 58, 214f; Haendler,Grundriss, p. 130.
Thurneysen,Lehre, pp. 176, 179ff.
Ibid., p. 235.
Ibid., p. 246f.
Müller,Grundriss, p. 292.
Wölber,Gewissen, p. 188.
Ibid., pp. 217–231.
Ibid., p. 234.
Haendler,Grundriss, p. 325.
Uhsadel,Seelsorge, pp. 58–9.
Rensch,Gespräch, pp. 11–17.
Allwohn,Wort, pp. 10, 246.
Ibid., p. 16.
Müller,Grundriss, p. 289.
Rensch,Gespräch, p. 23.
Ibid., p. 93.
Ibid., p. 97.
Bovet,Seelsorge, p. 125.
Haendler,Grundriss, p. 325.
Bovet,Seelsorge, p. 161.
Thurneysen,Theology, p. 133.
Rensch,Gespräch, pp. 41–129.
Haendler,Grundriss, p. 326.
Ibid., p. 309.
Ibid., p. 329.
Ibid., p. 229.
Thilo,Mensch, pp. 34ff, 128f.
Uhsadel,Seelsorge, pp. 106–7.
Ibid., pp. 171–2.
Wölber,Gewissen, p. 234.
Ibid., pp. 8, 58.
Rössler,Mensch, p. 96.
Scharfenberg,Sigmund Freud und seine Religionskritik als Herausforderung für den christlichen Glauben (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968), p. 25.
Scharfenberg,Freud, p. 38.
Scharfenberg,Gespräch, p. 19.
Thilo,Seelsorge, pp. 17–30.
Lit. “Beicht”-Kind, the German designation for the confessant.
Riess,Seelsorge, pp. 185–6.
Thurneysen,Lehre, p. 216.
Cf. my article for excerpts of Piper's work relating psychological and theological materials, “The New Pastoral Care,” p. 225f.
Riess,Seelsorge, pp. 129–130. HERAUS stands for Hören—“listening that is open and free from anxiety”; Einfühlen—“empathy, identification without surrender of one's own identity”; Reflektieren—“thinking through (cognitive understanding)”; Annehmen—“acceptance of affect, endurance of ambivalences”; Unterstützen—“sustaining in situations that have no way out (operation, loss of organ, death, grief)”; Sondieren—“determination of alternatives (strengthening the ego).”
Ibid., p. 78.
Ibid., pp. 53–67.
Thilo,Seelsorge, p. 16.
Ibid., pp. 40–43.
Scharfenberg,Gespräch, p. 10.
Stollberg,Gruppe, pp. 185–198
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Dr. Burck is Assistant Professor of Religion and Health and Chaplain-Supervisor at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, 1753 W. Congress Parkway, Chicago, Illinois 60612. This article is a sequal to his “The New Pastoral Care in Germany,” published in the Summer, 1978 issue ofPastoral Psychology.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Burck, R. From the word to the conversation: Paradigms and psychology in German protestant pastoral thought. Pastoral Psychol 27, 105–118 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01026773
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01026773