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MEDICINA CLERICA TO PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
purpose is to heal. Its power to heal is limited and its practice
is methodical. Billstrom defines it as the treatment of disease by
influences directed upon the mental life. Its proper sphere of
action is the condition known as ‘functional nervous disorder’
or ‘psychoneurosis’, and certain forms of insanity. The most
common methods of treatment include psycho-analysis,
hypnosis and suggestion.
The principal field of action of the psychiatrist or mental
specialist is among people who suffer from mental disease,
though his advice and help are often extended to those who
cannot strictly be described as insane. He employs both physical
and psychological methods of treatment as occasion requires.
The defining characteristic of the medical psychologist is,
however, that he performs the work of healing mainly by
psychological means. If laymen did this same work under
medical supervision their function would also be definable in
these terms.
A distinction at once emerges between the psychotherapist
and the pastoral psychologist. The field of action of the latter
does not coincide with any realm of medical specialisation. His
work is not limited to people who are suffering from illness of
a particular kind in the treatment of which he specialises. He
is not the exponent of a particular psychotherapeutic method.
His responsibility is to care for the souls of men by guiding,
advising and re-educating them as circumstances may suggest.
His interest cannot be confined to those who are ill, whether in
body or mind, or to those who are physically well. When a
person who happens to be suffering from disease is in his charge,
the treatment of that person’s illness is not his responsibility and
there is no reason why he should accept it. On the other hand,
if he is desired by a physician to assist in the treatment of a
patient suffering from a psychological disorder, there is no
reason why he should refuse his co-operation, as long as the
methods of treatment he employs lie within the limits of
pastoral psychology. These limits are transgressed if he uses
hypnosis or psycho-analysis or ‘suggestion’ —using that word in
the technical sense.
In other words, just as the neurologist is a physician with
special training, so a pastoral psychologist is a spiritual adviser
with special training. The reasons why he must be thoroughly
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