Shared Wisdom: Use of the Self in Pastoral Care and Counseling, rev. ed.

by Pamela Cooper-White

Publisher:

Fortress Press

, 2024

Overview

For twenty years, clinical pastoral educators, congregational caregivers, chaplains, pastoral psychotherapists, and pastoral theologians have turned to Pamela Cooper-White’s Shared Wisdom to ground their teaching, training, and understandings of countertransference and how the use of the caregiver’s self, in turn, impacts the relational dynamic between caregivers and care seekers. Now, Cooper-White updates her groundbreaking book to present new insights on how understanding one’s own emotional reactions remains a core competency for ministry.

With precision and depth, Cooper-White continues to innovate the theory and practice of spiritual care, counseling, and spiritual psychotherapy. This revised and expanded 20th anniversary edition explores current research on countertransference and intersubjectivity; mutual influence and unconscious relationships; and intercultural and interreligious dynamics in caring relationships. Cooper-White examines how the relational paradigm for pastoral assessment and theological reflection that she pioneered now has important implications for evolving types of care relationships. As she does so, she addresses emerging topics such as postcolonial theory, spiritual and religious fluidity, and gender diversity.

CPE supervisors, pastoral care and counseling educators and practitioners, pastoral theology scholars, and psychotherapists looking for an in-depth understanding of relationality and intersubjectivity will find the 20th anniversary edition of Shared Wisdom a must-have resource to build and expand upon a core competency.

Key Features

• Presents new insights on how understanding one’s own emotional reactions remains a core competency for ministry.
• Explores current research on countertransference and intersubjectivity.
• Addresses emerging topics such as postcolonial theory, spiritual and religious fluidity, and gender diversity.

Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Countertransference: A History of the Concept in Theory and Practice
• Chapter 2 The Relational Paradigm: Relational and Postmodern Concepts of Countertransference and Intersubjectivity
• Chapter 3 The Relational Paradigm in Spiritual Assessment and Theological Reflection
• Chapter 4 The Relational Paradigm in Spiritual Care, Pastoral Care, and Chaplaincy
• Chapter 5 The Relational Paradigm and the Slippery Slope
• Chapter 6 The Relational Paradigm in Spiritually Sensitive Psychotherapy
• Chapter 7 Toward a Relational Theology: Multiplicity and a God-in-Relation

Praise for Shared Wisdom

Shared Wisdom, over the years, has proven to be an indispensable resource for chaplains, spiritual care providers, therapists, and clinical pastoral education educators. Using case study as a pedagogical method to highlight the intersubjective nature of caring relationships, this new and updated edition offers the reader a fuller and more nuanced understanding of who we are, who others are, who God is, and the shared wisdom that arises in spiritual care relationships. It is an essential text for theological schools preparing students for the reflective practice of spiritual care within the context of complex interreligious realities.

—Dr. Su Yon Pak, vice president of academic affairs and dean, Union Theological Seminary, and coauthor of Sisters in Mourning: Daughters Reflecting on Care, Loss, and Meaning

This updated edition is a must-read for all spiritual care practitioners as they strive to provide effective, relevant, quality care. Through case studies, Pamela Cooper-White identifies common themes and dynamics in today’s world (for example, gender and racial equity, religious pluralism) that require the caregiver’s commitment to crafting healthy responses through self-reflection, self-monitoring, and self-analysis.

—Bishop Teresa E. Snorton, BCC, ACPE (retired); Ecumenical and Program Development Officer, The CME Church; and coeditor of Women Out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multicultural World

This book is a must-read to understand in-depth and work with the shared wisdom generated in therapeutic relationships and in spiritual care in particular. Pamela Cooper-White has birthed an improved classic: gracefully crafted with compelling insight and generous guidance for competent praxis.

—Daniel S. Schipani, author of Spiritual Care in Our Multifaith World: A Primer on Practice and Theory

Product Details

• Title: Shared Wisdom: Use of the Self in Pastoral Care and Counseling
• Author: Pamela Cooper-White
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Print Publication Date: 2024
• Logos Release Date: 2025
• Pages: 274
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Pastoral counseling; Countertransference (Psychology); Pastoral psychology; Pastoral care; Self psychology; Pastoral counseling › Psychological aspects
• ISBNs: 9798889831983, 9798889831976
• Resource ID: LLS:SHRD20NNVRSRDTN
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-02-05T17:01:05Z

About Pamela Cooper-White

Pamela Cooper-White is the Ben G. and Nancye Clapp Gautier Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care, and Counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. She is the author of Exploring Practices of Ministry, Shared Wisdom: Use of the Self in Pastoral Care and Counseling, and Many Voices: Pastoral Psychotherapy in Relational and Theological Perspective.