In this Edition

President's Message

I’m curious what kind of images and thoughts surfaced when you read that question.
How much lightning can you stand? It became a metaphor for the Association meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, April 14-16, 2005. Ann Ulanov first posed the question in her keynote presentation, titled, “Meditations on Aliveness and Deadness: New Horizons for Healing”. With this question she described the point in therapy when the ego is pushed out of the center, and a “primary state of madness” or “simultaneous consciousness” and healing can occur because the client can “make something” of his or her life, responding subjectively to the experience of life. Deadness is the opposite; not being able to feel, respond to life or “make meaning” of life, as when we lose objectivity by grabbing onto a part of the whole and making it the whole.

In the space of feeling, making meaning, responding openly to life there is voltage—how much can we contain? As an organization how much lightning can we hold? Can we be open to the brown outs, the short circuits, power outages and surges, and high voltage of transition of our professional association? There are both depressing realities and exciting possibilities within the space we exist. In what ways does our profession answer the question of how does our full-out living bring us full-heartedly to our end?

John Gottman, also a keynote speaker, shared his couples research indicating that couples are conflicted and “fight” about the same things over a life time. What researchers have learned, is that it is not very helpful to try to change the behavior in the midst of the conflict, but that couples can be taught to repair and to recover their relationship after the fight. Relationships are supported when partners are given opportunities to learn to create safety for each person’s dream to evolve. Gottman’s research also indicates the most effective time for couples therapy is when the first child is expected. As an Association, can we learn to repair our breaches, can we make it safe for each one of our dreams to evolve, and in the midst of our organizational birthing process can we provide the containment for one another to develop a meditative practice in the midst of community… to be able to go on being with an awareness, both of our deadness and of our aliveness?

In the midst of Nascar races, Stockyards, and Art Festivals, barbecue and beer, significant work and fun were also done at this meeting. There are two pieces of work to which I would like to call special attention. The first is a paper on formation, written by Joretta Marshall. Please read it on the new Association web page. If you have time, study it. It’s not exactly light weight reading. If you have any thoughts, reactions, comments or feedback, bring it to the fall meeting or e-mail me (mcmatthaei@aol.com). Joanna Robinson represents the northwest region on the formation committee. She would also appreciate hearing from you.

The second document I’d like to bring to your attention is the Association Mission and Goal plan for 2005-2009. It is a substantial piece of work which is attempting to name action steps for each goal that is presented. I will be receiving strategic plans from a few regions and from them will start a draft for our region, so that we can establish 3 or 4 specific achievable goals for the NW region that compliment the Association’s, giving us specific direction and purpose.

Until I attended meetings for the Chairs of regions, I never really “got” the purpose of the Association. Many of us may just want to practice our own craft in the cocoon of our office or small organization. I do. And yet the activist in me sees the organization as a place to effect communities, creating healing in our communities. There are things the group can accomplish that we as individuals can’t. I am grateful for the men and women, in their grace and in their woundedness, who have poured themselves into shaping AAPC. Howard Clinebell, the first president of AAPC died the day before our meeting. Those who knew him, loved him, fought with him, and respected him; remembered him and brought him to life for those of us at the meeting who only knew his name and his work.

These are my thoughts following the annual Association meeting. Please use the newsletter to communicate with one another. The 3 R’s Task Force, disbanded at the Association meeting, having handed on their recommendations to active committees. Our recruitment, revitalization and retention of members in AAPC is really about developing and maintaining caring and challenging relationships with one another, and that is the responsibility of each one of us in the organization. The newsletter can be a signification resource for communication with one another. Let’s give Andrew our appreciation for editing the newsletter.

Blessings to you all, Marcia Matthaei

Book Review, Shared Wisdom

Submitted by Marcia Matthaei

I’d like to recommend a colleague’s book, Shared Wisdom, by Pamela Cooper-White. I had the good fortune to attend her two part workshop entitled, “Social Activism and the Pastoral Counselor’s Subjectivity” at the Association meeting in Fort Worth, Texas. What follows are Pamela Cooper-White’s words about her book, Shared Wisdom.

Cooper-White offers a contemporary or “totalist” understanding of countertransference as the sum total of all the helper’s thoughts, feelings, fantasies, impulses, and bodily sensations, conscious and unconscious, related to the client. Transference, similarly, is defined as the sum total of all the helpee’s thoughts, feelings, fantasies, impulses, and bodily sensations, conscious and unconscious, toward the helping professional. In this understanding, T and CT operate together to form a complex inter-relation, referred to by some writers as “intersubjectivity” which operates at both conscious and unconscious levels.

Countertransference in this construction is a valuable instrument for listening to the other. Those of us who prefer a psychodynamic model will be more attracted to Cooper-White’s approach. The book leads the reader through a method of pastoral assessment and theological reflection that makes use of the pastoral caregiver’s own self as the primary tool for discernment and praxis. The first three chapters of the book trace the pastoral relationship, and in particular the idea of countertransference through its historic context. The larger portion of the book presents a pastoral assessment and theological reflection illustrated in four case studies. The final chapter offers the reader a relational theology that attempts to bridge new understandings of human relationships with our understanding of the relationality of God.

Shared Wisdom would be an excellent resource for students. As a presenter, I found Pamela Cooper-White to be warm and engaging, knowledgeable, articulate and embodied. Her book is exceptionally readable and led to reflection on my own clients and our intersubjectivity. In her words, “By listening for the music of our own inner world as we sit with another, we listen to the other’s music as well, through the counterpoint (both harmonious and dissonant) of shared wisdom that springs up between us. This is how the use of the self becomes a treasure for helping another”.

Minutes of February Regional Council Meeting

Minutes

Regional Council Meeting
February 12, 2005

Present: Marcia Matthaei, Joanna Robinson, Rod Landes, Sally Wing, Ann Beattie, Fred Schramm, Anthony Terndrup, Andrew Whitmont, Ron Kirstein. Guests: Doug Anderson, Jerry Smith

1. Minutes were approved for September 2004. There were no minutes taken for the October regional meeting. There was one action item from that meeting. Marcia Matthaei, Penelope Gunterman, John Carr, and John Nestor agreed to write goals and action steps that we deem significant for the Association to include for its mission and vision for the future. These recommendations would become part of a working document of a Strategic Plan the AAPC would continue to refine for presentation to the Association membership in April 2005.

2. Association Matters: Marcia Matthaei, Regional Chairperson
a. “State of the region” reports indicate the NW region is relatively healthy—some regions are strong, a few are in crisis. Strategies to grow membership and leadership are being discussed.
b. The work of the 3 R’s Task Force (Recruitment, Retention and Revitalization) led by Janet Foy, is a significant piece of the entire mission of AAPC at this time. John Carr is the NW representative for the task force.
c. The “Working Paper for Mission and Goals, 2005-2009” continues to be crafted. Doug Ronsheim’s focus is to create action steps for each goal so that intentions are realized. It will be presented at the business meeting for the Association at Fort Worth in April.
d. The restructured financial plan for the Association provides for a consolidated portfolio for the entire Association while maintaining clarity of each region’s participation in the portfolio. The AAPC will be making recommendations to the BOD on how to best utilize for mission the returns from the portfolio.
e. Each region has been asked to contact each individual who has not paid dues, to hear stories and concerns, to answer questions and to encourage continued membership by addressing the changes in the organization to support the viability of member’s practices.
f. The Program Planning Committee thinks that the NW region is unwilling to host a conference in our region. Marcia recommended that the region agree to host the Association meeting in Seattle or Portland in 2007 or 2008. The motion passed unanimously. Marcia will contact the committee.

3. Report of Vice Chair, Anthony Terndrup
a. Registrations for the Spring Meeting, “Integrative Healing: Accessing and Integrating EGO STATES in Pastoral Counseling and Psychotherapy” with Doug McLemore, at Dumas Bay on March 4-5, are low. Fall meetings at Alton Collins are consistently better attended.
b. The Fall Regional Meeting will be held October 21-22, 2005, at Alton Collins Retreat Center. A speaker has not been determined yet.

4. Ron Kirstein presented the Treasurer’s Report. Accepted by the Council.
a. Ron requested permission from the Council to provide the region’s mailing list to Seattle University for the marketing of their new Master’s in Pastoral Counseling program. Unanimous approval.

5. Leadership Committee Report, Ann Beattie
a. All offices are presently filled. No elections until next year. Fred suggested that the Certification Committee could use another member.

6. Institutional Accreditation Committee and Program Planning, Rod Landes
a. Samaritan Counseling Center of Fairbanks, Alaska, was accredited.
b. The IAC has continued to work on a model including four levels of training programs rather than a “one size fits all” set of standards. That would include 1) training programs designed to train Pastoral Care Specialists, 2) ones that provides supervision from a pastoral counseling perspective, 3) stand alone pastoral counseling programs in degree granting institutions that offer certificates and include both supervision and full coursework in p.c. and 4) training programs in degree institutions where CACREP dual accreditation may also be available.
c. Bert Kae-Je, who represents the T&SCC on Program Planning requested through Marcia, feedback for preferences for pre-conference workshops. The Council preferred “Prepare and Enrich” for couples and “Dealing with Clergy Sexual Misconduct,” because of the recruitment and marketing potential for nonmember clergy in the area of the conference.

8. Certification Committee, Fred Schramm
a. Mark Shields, LCSW was interviewed and accepted as a new Fellow at the Fall Meeting, October, 21, 2004.
b. Doug McClure, Psy.D., and Joseph Roy Ph.D., were elected co-chairs to represent the states of Oregon and Washington, respectively.
c. The NW region recommends its procedure for consulting with candidates be adopted by the Association.
d. Philip Struefert is a candidate for Certified pastoral Counselor to appear before the committee on March 4, 2005. The committee is made up of Joseph Roy, presenter and committee members, Rosemary Raynaud and Gary Steeves.
e. Fred will be giving a presentation in Florida at the time of the interview. An observer is needed. Marcia volunteered.
f. Several resolutions have been passed by the Association Certification Committee. They can be reviewed on the Association website.
g. The committee continues to be challenged to define the parameters of acceptable ecclesiastical endorsements.

9. Advocacy, Sally Wing
a. Doug Ronsheim has created a network to disseminate advocacy information. Both Oregon and Washington have mental health parity legislation this term.

10. Regional Matters:
a. Andrew Whitmont was welcomed as the new Newsletter Editor. Suggestions for articles include: report from the AAPC meeting from Marcia, report on the Seattle University Masters in Pastoral Counseling program, book reviews, review of the Association meeting in Ft. Worth, Pastoral Counselor of the Year bio when it is awarded, article about the Spring meeting, article about the pastoral counseling program through UPS and WPCA in Tacoma, Certification Committee report…. Newsletter articles can be sent to Andrew at yakpsyche@yahoo.com
b. A person has been designated as the next recipient of the PC of the year. Plans are under way.
c. The Committee chair travel policy was clarified. The region pays transportation for the meeting and the Association pays for the room, double occupancy, and food, $35/day of committee meetings.
d. Doug Anderson and Jerry Smith requested $5,000 in seed money grant from the region for the Spiritus Institute. Spiritus Institute is a free standing institute for the study of soul care 20 years in the making. It operates under the 501-C-3 umbrella of Presbyterian Counseling Service. Its purpose consists of training candidates for the Ph.D. degree in spirituality and psychology. Spiritus would use this money to fund writing of more grants to raise between $600,000 and $1,000,000 for start up fees. The second goal would involve holding a week-end retreat, that would model for all interested parties—potential students, prospective funders, and other community members, both the style and content of the Spiritus doctoral course. Discussion followed on the stewardship of our funds and the desire to support creative ideas that will develop continued leadership for AAPC in our region. The Council agreed to grant $3,000 to Spiritus.

11. Date of the Fall Council meeting will be September 10, 2005 at Chehalis UMC.

Calendar

Editor's Message

I hope you’ve found this edition of the newsletter interesting and readable. I have put into it the material that has been made available to me.

I would like to be able to make the newsletter as useful as possible to everyone and to have it serve as a vehicle for dissemination of useful information.

There is no regular schedule for publication, and the first edition here has taken me considerable time to get together. This is usually the case when “breaking trail” and I imagine that future editions will not be so difficult to assemble, having done it once. My aim is to get it out at least twice a year. However, if an abundance of content is presented to me I will certainly increase the publication frequency.

I invite you to submit items to me for inclusion, as the newsletter is nothing but that which you send in.

The procedure is simple. Just send me an e-mail. My e-mail address is Yakpsyche@yahoo.com. It is not case sensitive. One caveat. Be sure to indicate that this is something for the newsletter in the header, because otherwise I might just think it is spam and trash it without opening it. I get incredible amounts of spam and unless there is a good clear indication of what your missive is it may get dumped. Sorry, but I just won’t automatically recognize every sender’s name and/or email address without an explicit cue.

In any item you submit please let me know if its alright to edit it or not. If there is no notice, I’ll feel free to tweak away.

There is no other editorial policy that I know of. Although I must say, that it’s a given that I won’t publish obscenity, slander, attacks, or what-not that is obviously unprofessional. Opinion pieces are otherwise fine.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Andrew

As an official notice, please be advised that all opinions and positions expressed in this and all other editions of the newsletter are not official, unless otherwise indicated, but are exclusively those of the writers. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of the NW region of the AAPC nor that of the national AAPC organization and do not represent official policy or position of either group.

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