LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Performance of pastoral counselling
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
8/2022
Performance of pastoral counselling
Study on performance has been conducted either in the area of general counseling or in the
pastoral context. In the context of general counseling, Little, Packman, Smaby, and Maddux
(2005) investigated about the counselor performance and their counseling skills. This study
concluded that students who underwent the experimental group Skilled Counselor Training
Model (SCTM) had better counseling skills than the control group who did not follow the SCTM.
This shows that counselor performance is closely linked with the counseling skills. Similar study
was conducted by Schaefle, Smaby, Maddux and Packman (2007) in which they attempted to
explore about the performance of counseling skills training based on the theory by looking at
the actual counseling sessions. Results showed that there was a positive relationship between
a counselor with the counseling skills and counseling performance.
The next study was conducted by Jaafar (2011) to determine the counseling performance
among trainee counselor in Malaysia. The study showed majority of respondents have
moderate score in their overall counseling performance (86%), 14% of them got the high score
in their counseling performance, and no respondent got low score in their counseling
performance. However, the author recommended that counselor educators still need to give
some more effort to ensure that trainee counselor can perform their task in an excellent way.
Lambert (2003; in Leibert, 2011) developed a model of counseling factor that contributes
to counseling outcomes. One of the factors is about the use of models or techniques in
counseling. The use of appropriate counseling model or technique in accordance with the
client’s conditions allows for transformation in the counseling process. When orientation and
technique are congruent with client worldview, skills and resources, it is more likely that
agreement of goals and tasks of treatment are secured (Leibert, 2011).
The study by Schaefle, Smaby, Maddux and Packman (2007) on the performance of
counseling skills training based on the specific theory showed that there was a positive
relationship between a counselor with the counseling skills and counseling performance. While
research conducted by Tsikati (2018) on the factors contributing to effective counselling
servicesindicated that counselor training contributes most to effective counselling services.
Counselor training is responsible for effective counselling. The author recommends that
counselors must receive training in order to provide effective counselling services to their
clients.
Study carried out by Madlambayan (2017) aimed to describe students’ perceived level of
importance and performance of school counselors’ roles and functions. Students were asked to
rate the importance of school counselor roles and functions and then rate their school
counselor’s performance based on the same roles and functions. Results of this study revealed
that participants perceived all counseling and non-counseling functions as very important.
Participants also perceived their school counselors demonstrate very good performance on all
roles and functions with the exception to the role of school counselor as advocate for their
personal/social development. The author recommended that counselors should concentrate on
their roles and functions which are very important for students.
Haron, Jaafar, and Baba (2010) studied about the influence of school climate towards
counselor’s self-efficacy. This study aims to specify whether there is any influence of school
climate towards counselor’s self-efficacy. The result shows there is a significant relationship
between school climate and counselor’s self-efficacy. The results of this study can also be used
to enhance performance in secondary school counsellor effectiveness through guidance and
counselling services provided to students in secondary schools.
In the pastoral counseling context, Young, Griffith, and Williams (2003) investigated about
the integral role of pastoral counseling by African-American clergy. The authors investigated
about how the clergy understood and carried out any pastoral counseling work. The results
showed that many of the respondents reported having and maintaining specialized education
for their counseling work, which they described as including both spiritual and psychological
dimensions.
This study concludes that African- American urban ministers functioning as pastoral
counselors constitute an engaging and useful group with experiences and skills that can be
tapped by interested secular professionals. Another research was conducted by Nyandoro
(2010) about assessment of counseling skills among the Roman Catholic priests in Masvingo
Diocese-Zimbabwe. The result confirmed that there was some lack of counseling skills among
the clergy. This study indicated that the clergy had pastoral skills but no theoretical base in
secular and scientific skills that were needed to blend with pastoral skills. The author
recommended that the clergy be well trained in both psychological and pastoral counseling
skills.
Strategies to Improve Performance of pastoral counselling
Ongoing improvement of counseling performance is a critical component for all counselors.
Pastoral counselors are called to address the particular psychological and spiritual needs of
client by incorporating those aspects, but this can be harmful to clients if the counselors had no
adequate skills. The emerging question for counselors is how to improve their performance.
Some strategies that can enable counselors to enhance their performance are discussed.
Professional Development Professional development, as viewed as gaining knowledge and
skills by keeping up-to-date clinically, managerially, and professionally (Parboosingh, 1998), is
the main strategy for counselors to continually strengthen their performance in counseling
practice. Ronnestad, Orlinsky, Schroder, Skovholt, and Willutzki (2018) described professional
development of counselors as changes in the skillfulness, attitudes, coginitive capacities,
emotional and interpersonal functioning and vocational identity of professional counselors.
Professional development is considered as an essential tool for enhancing counselors’ content
knowledge and developing their counseling practice in order to do counseling to a high
standard as professionally required by the profession.
Continuing professional development aims to increase professional expertise, professional
competence and individual wellbeing as well as to increase the competitiveness and
effectiveness of organizations and professions (Collin, Van der Heijden, & Lewis, 2012).
Professional development enables counselors to measure not only their current competence to
do counseling but also to measure their commitment to expanding their expertise and the
boundaries of the body of knowledge, skills and experience of the profession of counseling as a
whole (Crockett, 2007, 2010).
Professional development is essential in any profession including in pastoral counseling.
Continuing professional development is a core element for all professionals as suggested by
Eraut (in Neary, 2016)) that professionals must engage in continual learning to support their
professional practice. This supported the idea of considering continuing professional
development as a moral duty and part of ethics that frame professional practice. Mulvey (in
Neary, 2016) expressed that embracing continuing professional development challenges
practitioners to take responsibility for their professional actions. Pastoral counselors are
required specific knowledge, training, and skill in order to perform
counseling professionally.
Hence, pastoral counselors need to engage in professional development that
enables pastoral counselors to work to a high standard by maintaining and updating their skills
and knowledge to ensure they can meet new challenges and improve on existing methods
(Crockett, 2007, 2010). It can be done through further education or training, professional work-
based activities, self-directed and informal learning, personal activities outside work, courses,
seminars and conferences (Crockett, 2007, 2010).
Nyandoro (2010), in his study about assessment of counseling skills among the Roman
Catholic priests in Masvingo Diocese-Zimbabwe to examine the competence of the clergy,
recommended that the local clergy (pastoral counselor) needs to be well trained in both
psychological and pastoral skills in order to increase their performance in doing pastoral
counseling. Pastoral counselor needs to be aware of having sufficient knowledge and skills in
pastoral counseling. Sufficient knowledge and skills in pastoral counseling requires pastoral
counselors to have training not only in theology, biblical studies, ethics, and church history but
also in psychological and counseling as well.
It is not adequate for counselors to be called as pastoral counselors without understanding
and practicing all dimensions into their practice. The practice of pastoral counseling is by its
very nature an inter-disiplinary activity which includes theology, biblical studies, psychology,
sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and other social sciences (Lynch, 2002). Skilled
pastoral counselors should integrate all those aspects in their pastoral counseling practice,
because the failure to integrate those dimensions in pastoral counseling indicates that the
pastoral counseling has lost its identity and uniqueness (Benner, 2003; in Pedhu, 2019).
Integration of religion/spirituality into the therapeutic practice indicates that pastoral
counselors have shown their awareness of client’s religious beliefs and background. In pastoral
counseling activity, addressing the issue of spiritual is essential. Effective counseling has to
address not only the body and the mind, but also the spirit. Counselors can help their clients’
access spirituality as a strength including spiritual strivings, knowledge, experience, practices,
relationships, and coping methods. It is no doubt that Pargament (2007) has already made a
very rich contribution to the understanding of how to integrate spirituality into psychotherapy.
He (2007) argues that spirituality is an extraordinary part of the ordinary lives of people.
According to Pargament (2007) spiritual assessment in counseling not only provides useful
information for the therapist, but also opens the door to future discussions to openly talk about
religious and spiritual life in therapy activity.
The involvement of spiritual elements in counseling requires a firm commitment of
counselors to the values of the individual and especially to the values acting for the benefit of
the client subjected to a therapeutic approach. At the same time, therapists or counselors are
required to have competencies in working with values. West (in Nyandoro, 2010) demonstrated
the importance of counseling skill when he wrote that they are like “a laboratory for integrating
psychology, theology, and social sciences”. Pastoral counselors should have a deep knowledge
and skills in integrating theological understanding with psychological insight (Woodruff, 2002).
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