|
In this Edition
Notes from the Chair
Seattle University Externships Needed
AAPC Directories Online
Ron Richardson Publishes New Book
Speakers Bureau to Attract New Members
Jon Carr Teaching in India
NW Region Member Update
Inspirational Quotes
Notes from the Chair
Like many other pastoral counselors, I'm looking ahead to AAPC participation in the Spiritual Care Collaborative in Orlando, Florida, February 4-9, 2009. This is a historic event, combining us, the Clinical Pastoral Education folks, and several chaplaincy groups. Registration is currently available on-site only.
We're still looking for ideas for the fall AAPCNW conference, to be held in the Seattle area; speakers, workshops, other events. We'll also need lots of volunteers. Planning team contacts are Clint McNair, mcnairc@seattleu.edu, and Gary Steeves, garysteeves@hotmail.com.
There are a number of new Student Members of AAPC. If you know any of them, please welcome them to AAPC, invite them to conferences, get together with them for coffee, and find out if their school has information about AAPC.
And please let me know any questions or comments — if I don't know the answer, I can always refer you to someone else.
— Sally Wing, Chair, NW Region, AAPC
Seattle University Externships Needed
Student members of AAPCNW completing their academic work at the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University in June, 2009, would be interested in exploring externship possibilities in a pastoral counseling practice. While opportunities for externships exist in various community settings, we would prefer to continue to refine and expand our skills in a pastoral counseling environment. We are looking for dialog partners and potential opportunities. Please contact John Baumann (johnbau@comcast.net or 425-226-4038) if you would like to help provide some guidance and/or opportunities.
AAPC Directories Online
Gary Steeves, NW Region Certification Co-Chair, reminds us that we are encouraged to visit the updated AAPC web site Members Only area to enter information about ourselves for the directories. There are two directories on the updated site, the Referral Directory for the public to find pastoral counselors and the Members Only Directory for all AAPC members.
To check your information, use the following process. 1) Go to the web site http://aapc.org, 2) Enter your member number in both the "username" and "password" box on the left side of the home page, 3) Select “My Account” under “Administer”, 4) Select “Edit” on top of page, 5) Change your password to ensure security, 6) Select “Member Contact”, “Academic Preparation” or “Current Professional Position” to update or enter information about yourself.
In the future, the AAPC may include position title, specialties and practice type on the Referral Directory. Student Member contact information can be accessed in the Members Only Directory.
Ron Richardson Publishes New Book
Ron Richardson has published a new book. It is called Becoming Your Best: A Self-Help Guide for Thinking People. It is published by Augsburg Press and available also on-line through Powells.
In this book Ron focuses just on Murray Bowen's concept of differentiation of self (or as he calls it in the book, emotional maturity) and looks at some of the ethical implications of this concept for relationships. Ron expands on some of the main features in Bowen's concept of differentiation and each chapter is devoted to specific principle. He points out that issues of character are a neglected area in psychotherapy and shows how he had attempted to integrate it into his therapy through the use of case examples.
One other significant feature of this book is that Ron has also made use of the novels of Jane Austen. In addition to the clinical examples he gives a number of quotes from Austen. Her stories perfectly demonstrate the ethical aspects of differentiation that Ron is talking about. If Jane Austen had been asked, "What makes for a good relationship?" she may well have answered, "Why, of course, good people make good relationships."
So the book will make a provocative read as Ron tries to deal with some ethical issues in relationships without being moralistic. What do you think about Jane's possible answer to the question, "What makes for a good relationship?" and what do you think of Ron's approach? He is interested to hear discussion on this topic.
Speakers Bureau to Attract New Members
Certification Committee Member, Jim Stumbo, is organizing a Speaker Bureau to present AAPC to prospective new members. Plans are being made to make a presentation at Regent College in Vancouver, BC Canada, an International Graduate School of Christian Studies. The AAPC Action Council Grant will be used to facilitate these events. Contact Certification Co-Chairs Gary Steeves or Fred Schramm about Universities or Seminaries that would appreciate a visit.
Jon Carr Teaching in India
From Kottayam
As a followup to two previous trips to India (2003 and 2004), Marilyn and I were invited to spend some time during January and February 2009 at the Mar Thoma Theological Seminary in Kottayam, Kerala, S. India.
During the 2003 and 2004 trips, I met the Principal of the Seminary, Dr. Abraham Kuruvilla who, at the time, was Director of the Thomas Mar Athanasius Counselling Centre in Kottayam. Abraham is a good friend of Brian Grant, who led our group of pastoral specialists on a 4-week tour of India in 2003.
If we had travelled all the way to Kottayam in an unbroken trip, we would have been in transit for more than 50 hours. So we decided to break the trip into three parts.
- Edmonton to Calgary to San Francisco (via Air Canada) and then on to Hong Kong and Singapore via Singapore Airlines (about 35 hours door-to-door)
- Singapore to Cochin (Kochi) on Silkair (a 4 1/2 hour plane trip)
- Cochin to Kottayam via car (2 hours)
We stayed over in Singapore for two-plus days at the Singapore YMCA International House — where we had stayed in 1990 for a week on our way home from spending 15 months in Christchurch, New Zealand. This YMCA is much more upfront about its roots in Christianity than any North American Y that I know about.
Our trip from Singapore to Cochin got us in there after midnight — so we stayed at a hotel at which we had stayed during our 2003 tour with Brian Grant.
The automobile trip from Cochin to Kottayam saw us stopping at about the halfway break for a drink of cool and refreshing coconut milk (drunk through a straw from the coconut itself). In Kotayam we were welcomed most warmly by the seminary community and settled into a "cottage" — actually an apartment in a six-unit apartment building.
On January 14, I started the first of three courses which I will be teaching (Pastoral Research Methodology, Theories of Individual Counseling, and Systemic Theories of Counselling — in that order). After completing these three courses, each of them 5 days of student contact, with some breaks in the middle of and between each course, I will be involved in a consultation on pastoral research with seminary faculty in the area.
We are looking forward to the remaining nearly 6 weeks of living and learning here in Kottayam. More about our experience in the next AAPCNW Newsletter.
NW Region Member Update
John Bauman, Linda Greer, Margaret Pierce and Eric Stroo, all students at Seattle University’s School of Theology Master of Arts in Pastoral Counseling Program, will be attending the Spiritual Care Collaborative Summit ’09 in Florida February 1-4. John, Linda and Margaret are all Student Members of AAPC.
Kimberly Dawn Kibby, Bellevue, WA; Alice Irene Jeffers, Tacoma, WA; Barbara Ann Bauml, Graham, WA; Gretchen Champoux, Seattle, WA, and Margaret Mary Pierce, Bellingham, WA, have all become new Student members of AAPC during the fourth quarter of 2008.
Inspirational Quotes from Jane Austen
“One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.”
“Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.”
“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.”
“There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.”
|
