"Psychoanalysis and Spirituality: How Can They Coexist in the Training of Chaplain Interns?"

by Yvonne Valeris

Abstract

This study examines whether the integration of modern psychoanalytic techniques with traditional training methods enhanced the learning process of student-chaplains. The study population included a number of chaplains doing their training at a New York City hospital where the author was a chaplain-supervisor. Through analysis of verbatim material collected from student-chaplain group sessions, and from individual supervisory sessions with each chaplain, the author shows that a combination of spiritual and counseling techniques are not only beneficial in the training but that modern analytic techniques—such as emotional communication, joining, following the contact, using induced feelings to form interventions, and working intensely with the transference and resistance—heighten the impact of the supervisory experience. In addition, the findings demonstrate that student-chaplains were able to modify long-standing characterological blocks to listening and responding to patients in the here-and-now. The study finds that psychoanalysis and religion are not incompatible; in fact, they are synergistic. They compliment and strengthen each other. Even the most resistant student-chaplain was able to benefit from using this integration of methods.