The Contemplative Counselor: A Way of Being
The Contemplative Counselor extends the discourse on pastoral counseling beyond theories and techniques to include a focal description of a life lived in active contemplation. The contemplative approach to life, care, and counseling demands a daily call to surrender the underlying attitude of meritocracy that heavily emphasizes good works to produce successful results in counseling. At a fundamental level, the contemplative counselor exhibits an unwavering reliance on the grace of God, which transforms all that is descriptive of the counseling encounter. Here, being precedes becoming, and the act of counseling emanates from the deep and quiet center characterized by silence and solitude of the heart. Such counseling targets holistically body, mind, and spirit as a way of facilitating an experience of well being and transformation.
- Publisher Fortress Press
- Format Paperback
- ISBN 9780800696627
- eBook ISBN 9781451417654
- Dimensions 5.5 x 8.5
- Pages 152
- Publication Date December 1, 2010
Endorsements
"In The Contemplative Counselor, Rolf Nolasco has brought together three worlds that are rarely conjoined in the counseling profession: the clinical practice of counseling, of course, a deep appreciation and integral use of the contemplative traditions in Christianity, and an edgy social commentary on our society. Moreover, he has a sure grasp of the relevant theoretical materials and yet is able to integrate these fields in terms of the intimacy of his own personal experience. Christian counselors and pastors can find in this book a seed–bed of ideas with which to nourish their own further contemplative integration and professional lives. This book is far better than a treatise on what constitutes "Christian counseling"; it is an exhibition of it."
—Robert Cummings Neville
Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology
Dean Emeritus of the School of Theology, Boston University
"A contemplative way of being lays a foundation for healing in any approach to counseling. Whether you are a student of counseling or a counselor wearied by the pressures of clinical work, Nolasco's examination of the Christian tradition's resources for contemplation offers a way toward the holy human relatedness that motivates most of us who offer care for those who suffer. Descriptions of using contemplation with individuals in troubled relationships and also with survivors of the Rwandan genocide remind us that contemplation's value is personal but also relational and political."
—Kathleen J. Greider
Professor of Practical Theology, Spiritual Care, and Counseling
Claremont Graduate University
—Robert Cummings Neville
Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology
Dean Emeritus of the School of Theology, Boston University
"A contemplative way of being lays a foundation for healing in any approach to counseling. Whether you are a student of counseling or a counselor wearied by the pressures of clinical work, Nolasco's examination of the Christian tradition's resources for contemplation offers a way toward the holy human relatedness that motivates most of us who offer care for those who suffer. Descriptions of using contemplation with individuals in troubled relationships and also with survivors of the Rwandan genocide remind us that contemplation's value is personal but also relational and political."
—Kathleen J. Greider
Professor of Practical Theology, Spiritual Care, and Counseling
Claremont Graduate University