Clinical Pastoral Training at a Pastoral Psychology Center

Abstract: Pastoral care and counseling is a service that requires professional training. However, there is a lack of a professional training understanding and a model developed in Turkey, because the field is very new. In Germany, pastoral care has a deep-rooted history and a professional practice and training. Benefiting from German pastoral care practices and trainings would make important contributions to the theoretical, practical, and educational development of the field in Turkey. This paper reports about the experiences and achievements that I received at the most wide spread pastoral psychological training in Germany, the clinical pastoral training. In short, clinical pastoral trainings aim to provide a competency for pastoral care. The training that consisted of theory units, verbatim analysis, self awareness in group interaction units, practical training, and supervision, took place at the Pastoral Psychology Center in Hattingen/Germany entitled “Spiritual Care - Pastoral Psychological Promotion in Pastoral Counseling/Clinical Pastoral Training”. The training that was according to the German Pastoral Psychology Association’s standards was completed in four intervals during one year. The training was attended in the frame of a Scientific Research Project at Izmir Katip Celebi University