In this Edition

Notes from the Chair
John Landgraf Moves to Northwest Region
Book Suggestion from Doug McLemore
John Carr Teaching in India, Part II
NW Region Member Update
Inspirational Poem

Notes from the Chair

My AAPC activities recently have focused on the Spiritual Care Collaborative conference February 1 - 4 in Orlando, and the AAPC Action Council, so let me note a few highlights.

The Spiritual Care Collaborative included an amazing array of pastoral counselors, chaplains, and CPE people, all of us focusing on spiritual care for our clients/patients and empowering them in their own lives. We quickly discovered that we are more alike than different, and did a lot of sharing in workshop sessions, in corridors, and anyplace else where participants gathered. The organizers did a good job of mixing us up, with a variety of scheduled meetings for organizations, committees, faith groups, and even a bit of free time! The conference, in the planning stages for several years, was entitled Summit '09; Health and Hope: The Hard Reality of Living Intentionally in a Village of Care.

Since we were housed on Disney property, we frequently witnessed the "elves" springing into action to set up and dismantle room arrangements and transport people from one location to another. I even had a brief tour of one of the Disney parks, reminiscent of the site in Anaheim I had visited many years ago. When there is another conference like this, which we all urged, please consider participating.

Among other events, I attended sessions on care for caregivers, and an Islamic chaplain's gracious inclusion of other chaplains in his work with hospice patients.

AAPC had our own business session at a luncheon meeting, which included an invitation to the April 15 - 17, 2010 conference in Indianapolis. We also got reacquainted with Joretta Marshall, current AAPC president, and Doug Ronsheim, executive director, both of whom were active participants in the entire conference. I really appreciate their approachability, for everything from serious consultation to casual conversation.

The Association Action Council, which meets in another week in Baltimore, "shall monitor and coordinate the overall program of the Association." As regional chair, I'm part of the Council, which met the first time (for me) in Orlando, to help us become acquainted with each other as chairs and vice-chairs of Regions. We're having the opportunity to share Regional guidelines, and develop understanding for how each region operates. We share a lot of the same concerns despite our geographic and other differences. I'll obviously learn more as I actively participate in a working weekend with this group.

  —Sally Wing, Chair, NW Region, AAPC

John Landgraf Moves to Northwest Region

Just in time for a white Christmas with their kids and grandkids, John and Laura Landgraf arrived in Post Falls, ID from the Bay Area – a permanent move from the madding crowds to an idyllic setting on the Spokane River.

John has been active in AAPC since 1971. He was a pastor, a hospital chaplain, Director of Oakland’s Center for Ministry, President of Central Baptist Seminary in Kansas City, and Director of the Samaritan Counseling Center of the Mid-Peninsula in Palo Alto. He taught in the GTU and at Fuller Seminary in Menlo Park. He authored Singling: A New Way to Live the Single Life (Westminster/John Knox) and other books and articles.

Of late John was Musical Director for performances at the Plush Room in San Francisco, 142 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, the Onwentsia Club in Chicago, the Reserve Club in Palm Desert, and charter cruises down the Mississippi and up the Columbia. He wrote 23 original compositions for the Russian River production “FORT ROSS.” He receives kudos for his piano jazz improvisations and his cabaret work with his musical partner and wife Laura. They have released two CDs and in January ’09 finished the studio sessions for a third CD titled GRATEFUL.

Retirement, to John, means choosing what supervising, counseling, consulting, teaching, writing, or music making he best likes to do, while letting the rest go by. He is eager to participate in NW Region activities…and he and Laura are available for special events such as retreats, conferences, parties or concerts! You can find John at jrlandgraf@landgrafmusic.com.

Book Suggestion from Doug McLemore

I would like to give a recommendation for a book that I have found very helpful for clients. This is not a formal review, but my experience with a helpful resource.

The book is The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine Aron, 1996. I have known about the book for years but have resisted reading it because it sounded too much like pop-psychology. The blurb on the cover by John Gray did not help any. However, at the urging of some very respected colleagues of mine, I got the book from the library and found it extremely helpful for working with a number of clients. I have since bought several copies at used books stores and passed them on.

Occasionally I would have a client that would only get moderate relief from what I was calling anxiety symptoms after they had done the work in therapy to clear the past trauma. The methods that I was using to clear the trauma were very helpful but the client was often left having frequent episode of feeling overwhelmed. These clients were also quite sensitive to medication as well as a host of other things. Elaine Aron’s book helped me identify this phenomenon not as anxiety but as a heightened sensitivity to the environment. Often this sensitivity is a real asset to the person but can be very problematic.

Aron gives a way of understanding the self for individuals with this trait and a way of managing the experience of being overwhelmed. It is a very good resource for self-care. One of the chapters talks about how to listen to your infant self as a way of taking care of yourself and your needs.

This book is anything but pop-psychology. Aron comes with a background in Jungian depth psychology. The lens that she uses to see this trait of the “highly sensitive person” has been extremely helpful in looking at affect regulation and affect tolerance with many clients. I hope you will give this perspective your consideration. I would be interested in your feedback at drmclemore@live.com.

—Douglas R. McLemore, AAPC Fellow in Silverdale, WA.

John Carr Teaching in India, Part II

From Kotayam, Kerala, S. India by John C. Carr, Ph.D. (AAPC Diplomate/Retired)

As I write this (February 23), our time in India is coming to a close. We leave for Edmonton this evening.  Marilyn and I left Edmonton on January 4 and arrived here on January 9 – having spent a couple of days in Singapore en route.  In Singapore we stayed at the YMCA’s International House – an ideal location and very comfortable and relatively inexpensive accommodations.

We were received most cordially by the Mar Thoma Theological Seminary community.  Our quarters (4 rooms plus bath) are quite comfortable and we have been provided for quite well by the refectory kitchen staff for our noon and evening meals.  We prepared our own breakfast.

The seminary community lives on a 4-acre site which includes the classroom building, the administration block, the library and study centre, the chapel, 4 bungalows and an apartment building for faculty, a men’s and women’s hostel for single students, an apartment building for married students (mostly M.Th. students), and the 4-apartment building in which we are quartered (with the other three flats assigned to D.Th. students).  I have attached a picture of the front gate of the property and of the classroom building.  Our quarters were at the rear of the property, nearly half a mile from the front gates - which meant that we had a good cardiovascular workout climbing the hill from our quarters to the classroom building (at least 30 yards elevation).

Marilyn’s Christian education, volunteer management, and lay pastoral care experience was not able to be utilized but she was able to use her ESL experience.  The first language of most of the students is Malayalam, a language with 56 letters, some of which are combined to represent additional sounds.  While the Malayalam students had reasonably good skills with written English, they were having trouble conversing with us and also were finding it difficult to participate fully in class learning – which is in English.  So Marilyn volunteered to do conversational English classes with the B.D. students – and that was a great success with much learning and a lot of fun.

I have been working with 17 persons.  The core group of 5 first-year M.Th. students (Mar Thoma, Church of South India, Pentecostal, and Baptist) participated in all 3 of my 5-day intensive courses (research methodology, introduction to counselling theory, and family systems therapy) between January 14 and February 9.  Three second-year M.Th. students also participated in the learning – through attending one of the courses and/or through participating in consultation regarding their thesis research.  A Syrian Orthodox priest who is staff in a de-addiction centre was in the research course.  Other staff from the same de-addiction centre and students from a counselling centre participated in the counselling courses.  Also, I was able to help a de-addiction centre staff member who has been working on a Ph.D. through a U.S. seminary get “unstuck.”  I am particularly happy about the work I did with the 10 persons in relation to their research projects – helping them to understand the strengths and limitations of quantitative research and introducing them to qualitative inquiry.  I also pointed students and faculty to the resources available on the Internet for scholarly research.

There were verbal communication problems with some of the students in my courses.  How­ever, I had put most of my content in slides and power point presentations, and projected these with an LCD projector (see classroom picture) - so we were mostly able to overcome the communication problems.
We had social times with faculty and students – visited church-related social service agencies – had boat rides through the backwaters that stretch from Kottayam nearly to Cochin and also around a lake (created by a dam project) which has been set aside as a wildlife reserve.  We made some new friends. Without the distraction of TV, radio, or telephone Marilyn and I spent a lot of time talking.  We did have broadband Internet connectivity in the library.

As an expression of appreciation, on Sunday evening, February 15, I led the seminary community in a service of musical worship – presenting an eclectic mix of Euro-North American solos and engaging the faculty, students, and families in hymns and community worship songs from various traditions.

NW Region Member Update

John Landgraf, M.Div, PhD, MFT, AAPC Diplomate has moved into the northwest region and is living in Post Falls, Idaho.

Pam Van Der Does, United Methodist from Rathdrum, Idaho, is a new AAPC Professional Affiliate in the NW Region. Pam is the Washington Counseling Association Executive Director and in charge of Membership Services. The Professional Affiliate membership category is for ministers, pastoral counselors or persons who practice pastoral counseling as defined by the AAPC and/or are members of a human service profession who have an interest in the ministry of pastoral counseling, pastoral counselor training or in pastoral counseling centers, and who are duly licensed/certified by a state or province, where applicable, or who are otherwise credentialed by a professional human service association.

Inspirational Poem

“Love, that outreaches to the humblest things;

Work that is glad, in what it does and brings;

And faith that soars upon unwearied wings.

Divine the Powers that on this trio wait.

Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate.

Love, Work, and Faith — these three alone are great.”

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (American poet and writer 1850-1919)