Content

This unit is an advanced practice unit. It introduces the skills of a narrative approach to the pastoral counselling relationship. This approach is used to underpin a professional approach to ministry practice. Narrative approaches are characterised by applicability in multiple fields of pastoral endeavour from the individual counselling room, group facilitation and the clinical pastoral educational setting through to general community work. Students who enter this unit will already have developed skills in attending, questioning and disclosing. Students will also develop the prerequisite critical thinking skills, central to the narrative approach, with which to examine their professional religious and other pastoral practices. Here, of particular moment, are the ethics of the power relations integral to the pastoral relationship.

Unit code: DP9650P

Unit status: Archived (New unit)

Points: 24.0

Unit level: Postgraduate Elective

Unit discipline: Pastoral Theology and Ministry Studies

Delivery Mode: Face to Face

Proposing College: Pilgrim Theological College

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Learning outcomes

1.

Demonstrate critical thinking skills in relation, firstly, to pastoral counselling and, secondly, the operations of structural and social power inherent in such counselling.

2.

Conduct interviews to establish goals for a pastoral intervention using a narrative approach.

3.

Demonstrate the key skills of the narrative interviewing model including respectful engagement, safety/boundary negotiation, externalising conversations, thickening of unique outcomes, thickening of the preferred identities.

4.

Critically reflect upon their own personal engagement in the counselling context and with pastoral counselling skills in relation to the narrative approach.

5.

Reflect upon the theological significance and relevance of the narrative approach to pastoral counselling.

Unit sequence

DP3605P/9605P: Pastoral Counselling and Professional Ministry Practice

Pedagogy

Lectures, Seminars

Indicative Bibliography

  • van Breman, Peter. As Bread That is Broken. Denville, NJ: Dimension Books Inc., 1974.
  • Hill, C. Helping Skills; Facilitating Exploration, Insight, and Action. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2009.
  • Hutchison, D. The Essential Counsellor: Process, Skills and Techniques. 2nd Edition. Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2012.
  • Morgan, A. What is Narrative Therapy? Adelaide: Dulwich Centre, 2000.
  • Teyber, E. *Interpersonal Process in Therapy: An Integrative Mode*l. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 2006.
  • White, M. & D Epston. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1990.
  • White, M. Maps of Narrative Practice. New York: Norton and Co., 2007.

Assessment

Type Description Word count Weight (%)
Skill Demonstration

Narrative Recorded Skills Demonstration and Post-interview critical reflection against assessment grid. (equivalent 2000 words) (Must be passed)

2000 40.0
Journal

Narrative Journal compiled weekly during semester. (3000 words) …An integrative reflective summary drawing on Narrative Journal (1000 words)

3000 60.0
Approvals

Unit approved for the University of Divinity by John Capper on 31 Dec, 2014

Unit record last updated: 2020-10-28 14:50:33 +1100