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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
evidence of competence for a highly responsible task; and they
can hardly be blamed if they resent the claim of a person to be
accounted an exception to this rule because he is in Holy
Orders.
Psycho-therapy and the Christian Care of Souls
H. L. Schou,? a Danish psychiatrist, has tried to define the
boundary line between medical psychology and the Christian
care of souls. In his opinion the former is concerned with
‘the treatment of the mental life’, this treatment having a
purely logical, rational basis, like physical medicine and giving
no consideration to religious conceptions. The care of souls,
on the other hand, is exclusively occupied with Christian
solicitude for the human soul and concern for the individual’s
eternal salvation. Schou comes to the conclusion that if
psychotherapy and the care of souls be defined in this way, “There is
actually no connection between psycho-therapy, which is a
purely rational, humanistic action, grounded in experience,
and the care of souls, which is an offer of salvation and
new life with God, limiting the range of human succour
and referring the enquirer to the power and might of God
alone’.
The burden of Schou’s contention is not that the Christian
spiritual adviser must exclude from his sphere of interest
everything pertaining to psychology or medicine, but that the
spiritual and psychological realms are distinct areas of activity
that must not be confused. He writes: ‘Priest and physician
have each their field of activity. These are of different nature
and must not be blended. Priests may have to become expert in
knowledge of psychology and psychiatry, not to exercise the
art of mental healing but for two reasons: partly to be able to
recognise mental illness when they see it and refer the sufferer
from it to a physician, and partly to be able to impart knowledge
of the Gospel more effectively, especially to the mentally sick
person who may have difficulty in understanding what
Christianity is.
Does this mean, then, that under no circumstances whatever
should a spiritual adviser practice psycho-therapy? It would
appear that Schou has this possibility in mind. He says: ‘We
1 Sjukdomens betydelse for det religiösa livet, Uppsala, 1944.
36
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