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MEDICINA CLERICA TO PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
Pastoral Medicine
Although the point of view expressed by de Valenti and others
of like mind received some attention, it did not have the effect
of securing recognition for pastoral medicine as a branch of
practical theology; and since de Valenti’s time the problems he
discussed so fully and carefully have ceased to be of vital
concern. Today we do not feel the urgency of defining the
relations between theology and medicine. Modern
controversies turn on another problem: it is the question, what is the
status and realm of competence of the spiritual adviser whose
work is the care of souls in relation to the art of psychic healing
or psychiatry? At one time confined in its interest to the study
and treatment of the insanities, this art has now so widened its
horizons that today there is hardly a branch of medical science,
or indeed any other branch of human thought and activity from
philosophy to political economy, that some of its bolder
exponents do not feel competent to discuss with authority.
Religion has not escaped this enveloping movement of the
psychiatrists, many of whom, deriving their knowledge of it
principally from observation of the behaviour of persons
suffering from religious manias and delusions, do not hesitate
to condemn all religious experience out of hand.
On the other hand, the religious care of souls, having
received new impulses and insights from modern psychology
and psycho-therapy (the branch of medicine which treats
functional and other nervous disorders), is tending to make
itself responsible for some of the work that at one time was held
to be within the province of medicine, with the result that some
physicians feel that the spiritual advisers are trespassing on
their territory. There are some grounds for this complaint. It is
from every point of view unfortunate that many clergymen and
ministers have, after studying a few of the more popular
expositions of psychotherapeutic principles, felt themselves
competent to give psychological consultations and treatment to
people who sought their pastoral counsel; sometimes with
unfortunate results. It is greatly to the honour of the profession of
medicine that its members have always been zealous to protect
their calling and the public from treatment administered by
those who refuse the discipline of training and can give no
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