Pastoral Care and Counseling

Program Overview

The Doctor of Christian Counseling in Pastoral Care and Counseling is for ministers who carry the care of souls in congregations and communities. Long before counseling became a profession, the church practised what William Clebsch and Charles Jaekle called healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling, to which Howard Clinebell added nurturing. This program renews that tradition with the disciplines modern pastoral counseling has learned. Students read the classic sources — Gregory the Great's Book of Pastoral Rule, Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor, Seward Hiltner's shepherding perspective, and Anton Boisen's insistence on studying 'living human documents', which gave rise to clinical pastoral education — alongside Henri Nouwen and contemporary pastoral theology. Practice courses cover pastoral visitation and presence, crisis intervention, the short-term structured pastoral counseling that David Benner set out, counseling around life transitions, and the pastor's part in suicide prevention. Equal attention goes to what makes pastoral counseling distinctive: the minister's dual role in a congregation, boundaries and power, confidentiality in community, the use of prayer and Scripture with consent, and referral to clinical care when it is needed. The doctoral project designs and evaluates a pastoral care system in the student's own ministry: a visitation network, a lay care team, a crisis response plan. Graduates serve as pastors of care, chaplains, and directors of pastoral counseling, and they train others to share the work. Like every counseling doctorate in this group, the degree is formation for ministry and does not confer a license to practise counseling.

Core Courses

• PCC 801 — The Cure of Souls: History and Theology of Pastoral Care (6 credits)
• PCC 812 — Pastoral Presence, Visitation, and Crisis Care (6 credits)
• PCC 824 — Short-Term Structured Pastoral Counseling (6 credits)
• PCC 836 — Care Across Life Transitions (6 credits)
• PCC 848 — Ethics, Boundaries, and the Pastor’s Self (5 credits)
• PCC 860 — Practical Theology Research Methods (4 credits)
• PCC 899 — Doctoral Project in Pastoral Care and Counseling (24 credits)

Admission Requirements

• Master's degree in counseling, pastoral care, ministry, psychology, or a related field
• Experience in counseling, pastoral care, chaplaincy, or lay care ministry
• Statement of purpose describing the people you care for and the question you want to pursue
• Current resume or ministry profile
• Official transcripts from prior institutions when available
• Signed acknowledgment that the degree does not by itself confer a license to practise counseling in any jurisdiction