Abstract
This paper explores dialectical relationships between affective mental disturbance and religious development in men. It then proposes a form of pastoral engagement—the mutual encounter—with men so afflicted. In care giving, the pastor may draw on his or her own charismatic endowment to solicit the recognition of the same within the care seeker, all the while respecting a man’s attenuating psychosocial need for communicative boundaries and privacy. Both pastor and care seeker may engage the care process as a mutual, continuing, and dialogic quest for authentic Christian relationship, charisma, and selfhood where each serves as “guide” and “messenger.”
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Notes
Mutuality presumes an ethical community that is equal in God’s sight, while reciprocity presumes ethical distinctiveness with pooled gifts (charismata) applied for an expedient objective. Reciprocity is concerned with who acts, and when. The therapeutic model based on reciprocity presumes that the self is autonomous and constituted as its own judge, while mutuality presumes ethical equality before God. In a mutuality model of pastoral care, there is no a priori reason that the ethos of the caregiver should take precedence over the pathos of the care seeker.
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The “shadow side of hope” is a phrase taken from Gunton (2003, p. 173).
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Olds, D.B. In the Shadow Side of Hope: Charisma and Mutuality in the Pastoral Care of Men with Tendencies Toward Affective Disturbance. Pastoral Psychol 56, 593–608 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-008-0145-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-008-0145-y