In our sanitariums and hospitals we have a natural field in which to train our theological students in practical personal work and pastoral counseling. The world is recognizing the hospital as a natural field, and is rapidly making use of it in the training of both students and ordained ministers. There are now clinical training centers in approximately twenty-five institutions, mental hospitals, general hospitals, and penal and correctional institutions, east of Iowa. Included among these are such hospitals as Massachusetts General in Boston and Bellevue in New York City.
I have visited the school at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was there introduced to forty-four ministers, nearly all from active positions in churches, and a number of them ordained with years of service behind them. Among them I was introduced to several doc tors of divinity. These ministers were from all over the United States and Canada, and each was enthusiastic over the wonderful opportunities being provided for him in his clinical training course. There were opportunities to gain a better understanding of the human being, his fears and anxieties, and how better to work for his welfare.
At the New England Sanitarium in Melrose, Massachusetts, we are endeavoring, with the cooperation of Gerald H. Minchin and the theological department of Atlantic Union College, to make these opportunities available to our theological students. Each summer a clinical training course is offered, and an hour of credit is given for each week of training. The course is directed by the chaplain of the sanitarium, and is taught by him, together with lectures and demonstrations by staff members, technicians, and teachers in different fields covered in the course. Among the subjects covered are:
I.—RELATIONSHIP OF MINISTER TO HEALTH MESSAGE.—The sanitarium is a natural place for orientation to our health work. Extreme positions are discussed, also the use and misuse of drugs, so that the student will be acquainted with and have a knowledge of our health work in general a's a background with which to meet problems in the field.
II. POSSIBILITIES FOR HEALTH WORK IN THE FIELD.—These may be discussed in evangelism, home nursing classes, et cetera. The potential possibilities to be found in graduate nurses who might be in one's field of labor are also considered.
III. RELATIONSHIP OF MINISTER TO DOCTOR AND HOSPITAL.—Included in this is the discussion of ethics relating to hospital organization and doctors. The student becomes better acquainted with where the minister's responsibilities begin and end. He learns how to make any general hospital a field of labor and a source of contacts.
IV. AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SICK.—The student is able to develop sympathy with those who are sick as a result of better psychological insight into patient's reactions, shock, fears, et cetera, and thus is better able to minister to them.
V. PRACTICAL HOMILETICS AND BIBLE. WORK.—There are more than forty public services held each month at the sanitarium, including the vesper services for the patients, church services, and prayer meetings. These all provide excellent opportunities for the student to gain experience in public speaking. A tape recorder is provided so that a student may hear back his sermon for self-criticism. Many opportunities are found for Bible studies, and for these the student has access to projectors and slides as well as charts on the message.
VI. TRAINING IN BROADCASTING.—The sanitarium is equipped with dual turntables and a sound setup comparable to a radio studio, so that regular broadcasts, complete with timing, can be given the patients. This offers the stu dent opportunity to try out this field. A record of one of these broadcasts can be cut for him to take with him when he leaves. Opportunities are provided for him to visit live religious programs in Boston. He also gains an insight into the use of sound equipment for evangelism.
VII.—PASTORAL COUNSELING AND PERSONAL EVANGELISM.—This training is the main part of the course, and our sanitariums provide a perfect center for such training. Here a vast cross section of religious beliefs, personalities, nationalities, problems, anxieties, and situations is at one's finger tips. The different methods of counseling used by recognized authorities are examined, and the pros and cons of each are discussed, so that the student may formulate an efficient plan of procedure in counseling for himself, and practice it while visiting patients. The student soon develops a technique that gives him a confidence and calm assurance as others bring their problems to him.
The writings of Mrs. White are used, together with several textbooks, such as Pastoral Counseling, by Seward Hiltner; Counseling and Psychotherapy, by Carl Rogers; and The Art of Visiting the Sick, by Cabot and Dicks.* Special emphasis is placed on Bible therapy as the positive side of counseling, and the ad vantages of what we can offer as Christian workers over a worldly type of psychology that leaves out God are emphasized too. The staff psychiatrist is available for lectures and demonstrations for this part of the course, and aids the student to recognize and understand the neurotic and the psychotic, and their different forms, and to understand his proper relationship to them.
The student visits with the chaplain in his visitation program and listens to the conversation. After each visit a discussion period is held concerning the patient, and points are brought out in the visit. The student hears the chaplain pray with the patients of different faiths, and is taught the acceptable terminology to use with each, and how to react and pray in a situation where one might have a Protestant, a Catholic, and a Jew all in the same room. He is taught to deal and dispense with the tensions arising in such situations.
The student prepares, word for word, written interviews of his own most interesting visits, and these are reviewed with the chaplain, and the good and bad points of the interview are discussed in the light of the counseling principles learned. This proves a most valuable method of improving the student's choice of words. It would prove valuable for every worker to take the time to write out the conversation, as nearly as he can remember it, between himself and the person who comes to him with a problem. As he sits back and analyzes his conversation, he will see many mistakes that he would never have noticed otherwise. After doing this a few times he will make better use of the blessing of speech that .God has given to us as one of the chief tools with which to work in His cause.
The student also, under the close supervision of the chaplain, has opportunity to visit and minister to those who are preparing for death.
Some of us can well remember that first call at two in the morning to minister to the dying and the nervous, wondering what we could say and how we could say it upon arrival. We feel that it is better to have this first experience where counsel can be had and constructive criticism offered, where correct approaches and techniques can be formulated before wrong ones become habits.
The course at the sanitarium has proved successful both from the student's standpoint and also from the sanitarium's, for the student becomes the chaplain's assistant. Although much time is used up in teaching, yet the patients are visited more, for there are two workers instead of one. It also lessens the speaking load of one individual. At present the course is taught for four, six, or eight weeks in the summer, but it is hoped that arrangements can be made for a year-round program.
