Clergy Polish Counseling Skills to Aid Parishioners : Psychology: Some return to colleges or seminaries to learn how to deal with complex problems and needs.

Mounting personal pressures often send people to their religious leaders for help first, but the days of clergy merely sending troubled individuals home to study and pray are long gone.

Confronted with issues ranging from relationships and sexuality to elder abuse and alcoholism, a growing number of clergy are offering new levels of encouragement through crisis intervention and short-term counseling.

Some are returning to colleges and seminaries to update their skills and learn effective counseling techniques.

“Life is not simple and people cannot be given simple answers,” said the Rev. Cecil Murray of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.

Clergy ordained before this psychological awakening often feel ill-equipped to deal with many of today’s issues. In response to this concern, Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena created a new Ph.D. program in practical theology. Introduced last fall, the doctoral program, which heavily emphasizes pastoral counseling, filled up 21 spaces immediately.

Gwen Garrison, Fuller’s dean of academic advisement, believes that the program will better equip practicing clergy to deal with contemporary problems. “Those re-entering school who have been working in the community are coming back with more pertinent questions based on their life experiences,” Garrison said.

Dr. Richard Blackmun, a clinical psychologist who teaches a class at Fuller to help clergy deal with practical issues and daily stresses, said many pastors feel increasing pressure to become specialists where their predecessors were generalists.

“Many clergy feel inadequate doing the things that make up the bulk of their day, such as administration and counseling,” Blackmun said. “There is an incredible amount of burnout within the religious community, and the burnout is happening at younger ages.”

But those clergy who refresh their skills find themselves better able to serve their congregations, he said.

Although the emotional needs are great within the communities, often the resources are not. In small congregations, up to 60% of the clergy’s time is given to counseling members. And although larger congregations such as All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena and First AME often have resources to retain professionals, a great demand for qualified, affordable religious counseling still exists.

At the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, Herb Robinson, an ordained Presbyterian minister and licensed clinical psychologist, is the executive director of the Creative Counseling Center, one of the first church-based counseling centers in the country. Started in the late 1970s, the center offers sliding-scale counseling with four therapists available.

Robinson believes that clerical counseling has immeasurable value to those in religious organizations. “Oftentimes, an individual is referred to a practitioner who doesn’t honor or respect a person’s faith,” Robinson said. “For many, the issues worked on in therapy--such as marriage and family--dovetail with the person’s faith and value commitments. Practitioners use a much different approach when they understand their client’s faith.”

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A married couple who attend therapy at the Creative Counseling Center agree. They had first gone to an outside therapist who immediately began leading them toward a separation.

“Although our problems were pretty serious at the time, divorce wasn’t an option we were ready to consider,” the woman says. Through religious-based counseling, the two have learned coping techniques that they can use, in accordance with their faith, to strengthen their marriage and help them through the rocky times.

At First AME, Murray and four other ministers do most of the personal counseling, although the church also retains two clinical psychologists for referrals. Murray said he intends to go back to school to enhance his counseling skills and bring them up to date.

“The sheer numbers could require, in a large church such as this, a separate individual who does nothing else (but provide counseling) from 7:30 in the morning to 10:30 at night,” Murray said.

“There is so much talk of suicide in this community that we know that people are hurting in great quantity,” he added.

At the University Synagogue in West Los Angeles, Rabbi Allen Freehling offers crisis counseling, particularly on marital issues. Although he has a psychology doctorate, which he earned shortly after completing Rabbinic school, Freehling believes that it is often wiser to refer his members to other therapists who can more fully explore the issues at hand.

Freehling, who is an AIDS activist and co-founder of the Los Angeles County Commission on AIDS, is often approached by parents of gay and lesbian children who have questions or confusion about their child’s health or sexuality. “Within this role, I discuss many issues relating to the AIDS epidemic as well as death and dying,” he said.

Death is overwhelmingly the main concern at West Hollywood’s Metropolitan Community Church, an ecumenical congregation that, although open to all people, ministers primarily to gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

The Rev. Nancy Wilson heads the church, which offers group counseling sessions to help facilitate the grief and loss resulting from AIDS.

“In many cases, people in the groups will have lost 10, 15, 20 friends to the epidemic,” Wilson said. “We are always in the process of learning new techniques, new support issues, active listening, and anything that will provide comfort to our members.”

Freehling agrees that clergy must be open to learning new ways to help their congregations. “It’s necessary for clergy to extend ourselves intellectually. As we empty out our treasury of ideas, it is imperative that we replenish it.”