The Christian church for centuries has practiced the art of soul care, as those in need turned for counsel to their pastors, priests, or respected lay leaders.

Assurances of holy love, forgiveness, divine hope, and sacred presence have provided solace and encouragement during dark times. Holy listening has provided respite and shelter from the winds of ill fortune, tragedy, trauma, and loss.

 

In the mid 1950s, groups of pastors in the United States began to seek more training in pastoral care and counseling, recognizing the needs among their parishioners for in-depth pastoral encounters in sacred confidential dialogue. This vision birthed the movement of the discipline of Pastoral Counseling, eventually leading to the incorporation of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors in 1963.

Pastoral counseling, distinctive from other forms of counseling, is uniquely “pastoral” in nature. Initially, practitioners were ordained clergy with professional formation in parish ministry, a formation that continued with matriculation into graduate programs in pastoral care and counseling, and rigorous standards for membership qualification and certification in AAPC.

 

These pastoral counselors often maintained office space within church buildings, extending the ministry of the local church, and sanctioned with ecclesiastical endorsement from their faith communities. Pastoral counseling centers sprang up across the country through the second half of the 20th century. Pastoral counseling centers were seen as safe havens where clients could meet for counseling within the confines of a church, often with less of the stigma felt at the time in seeking help.

Among the country’s first pastoral counseling centers within the state of Massachusetts were the Worcester Pastoral Counseling Center, the Danielsen Institute for Pastoral Counseling at Boston University, and the Community Pastoral Counseling Center in Abington, Massachusetts (which would later become The Anchorage).

 

The discipline of pastoral counseling evolved toward the end of the century to include not just ordained ministers with specialized training in clinical counseling, but also non-ordained clinicians moving to integrate spirituality into their work. The designation of “pastoral counseling” shifted concurrently, so that the description “spiritually-integrated psychotherapy” became more popular. The American Association of Pastoral Counselors consolidated with the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education in 2019. The former AAPC now exists as the ACPE
Psychotherapy Commission, which continues the work of providing education and formation for spiritual care professionals.

An additional network of support, the Solihten Institute is a national interfaith counseling network of nearly 40 centers in over 200 offices. Solihten, founded as the Samaritan Institute in 1972 and renamed in 2019, recruits, accredits, educates and advances the development of counseling centers that practice spiritually-integrated therapy. Through affiliation with the Solihten Institute, centers are networked to share best practices of clinical and administrative excellence, while remaining anchored in care of the soul through spiritually-integrated psychotherapy.