Salem Pastoral Counseling Center

In this blog post, we will talk about the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center and what services do they offer.

We will also explain the notion of pastoral counselling, and the differences between psychotherapy, counselling, psychiatry and pastoral counselling.

What is the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center?

Salem Pastoral Counseling Center has been open since 1980.

They keep on being focused on their statement of purpose, accepting their work is service.

Places of worship, specialists, schools, and insurance agencies keep on being reliable referral sources for the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center. 

The centre’s board members have consistently been a stable, basic part, offering backing and vision.

They are deliberate about recruiting staff who are ecumenical and bring different religious foundations just as novel clinical aptitudes.

The Salem Pastoral Counseling Center focuses on keeping on living essentially, offsetting their service with a should be monetarily liable for their costs.

After these years, their picture in the network continues as before: steady, reliable, Christian advocates who function admirably with holy places and are devoted to giving the best clinical and otherworldly consideration conceivable to the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center’s customers.

The goal of Salem Pastoral Counseling Center is to be a service educated by the Christian custom and committed to counseling and teaching.

These administrations are given by qualified proficient and authorized counsellors and are accessible to people in the Salem territory and Willamette Valley who might not have a confidence foundation. 

The Center satisfies its service through the structure of mental wellbeing and prosperity coordinated with otherworldly development.

 According to their official website and personal statement, Salem Pastoral Counseling Center is committed to the following:

• Each person is valued by God.

• Each counsellor is a well-trained, competent and recognized professional as well as a committed person of faith, in good standing in a religious community.

• The counselling process will usually be short-term, supportive, and focused on improving relationships and one’s ability to cope with life.

• Counseling is a ministry which can assist in fulfilling the purpose of the church.

Charges for one to one counselling sessions are $195.00 for the initial meeting and $165.00 for each individual meeting.

Payments can be made by cash, check or credit card.

Similar to the Salem Pastoral Counseling center, there is another Counseling service in Gloucestershire and PF Counselling which serves almost the same purpose.

What counsellors are at the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center?

At the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center, there are well-trained and licensed therapists that can help anyone regardless of the nature of their problem.

The Salem Pastoral Counseling Center deals with issues such as anxiety, addiction, depression, suicidal thoughts, problems in personal relationships, family relationships or work.

• Judy Tuttle-Zollner is a Licensed Professional Counselor and the co-director of the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center. Judy is a trained marriage, family and individual therapist. Her approach to counselling is based on “family systems” theory which emphasizes problem-solving therapy within the context of the family-of-origin, the marital family and the social system. 

You can contact Judy at  judy@salempastoralcounseling.org

• George Olson is also a Licensed Professional Counselor and the co-director of the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center. George has an integrative and strength-based approach to counselling with a strong reliance on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, and Positive Psychotherapy utilizing individual, couples and group counselling, biblio-therapy and homework assignments. 

You can contact George at george@salempastoralcounseling.org

• Kathy Back is also a Licensed Professional Counselor. Kathy’s approach to counselling is holistic and person centered. She believes that wholeness is the result of spiritual, mental, emotional, and relational health. Because of this, the counseling process may include exploring your family of origin, your life experiences, relationships,  thought processes, the way you interpret events and the integration of new skills.

You can contact Kathy kathy@salempastoralcounseling.org

• Jill Conrad is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist. Her goal is to meet individuals and families where they are and walk alongside them as they strive to cultivate a deeper and more meaningful connection with one another.

Email Jill at jill@salempastoralcounseling.org

• Aubrey Dobrkovsky is a Licensed Professional Counselor. Aubrey adheres to a person-centered model of therapy, where she provides a genuine, empathetic, and safe place that empowers you to steer the direction of your own future. 

Her email address is aubrey@salempastoralcounseling.org

• Tyrone “Ty” Dripps is a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Certified Alcohol & Drug Counselor, Level 1.  Ty believes that everyone can reach an optimum state of mental and emotional health as they commit to the process of growing in wholeness. As a Person-Centered therapist, he believes that people hold the keys to a healthy emotional balance within themselves.  

You can contact Ty at ty@salempastoralcounseling.org

These are only some of the Salem Pastoral Counseling Centre experts in their field.

If you go to the centre’s official website, you will be able to read about all the counsellors. 

What is pastoral counseling?

Psychotherapy and pastoral counselling are therapeutic approaches that consider religious beliefs and practices as integrated into the psychology and social dimension of human behaviour. 

The pastoral psychotherapeutic approach combines therapy and spirituality, using both traditional psychological therapeutic methods and religious resources such as prayer, Scripture readings, and participation in the life of the religious community.

In the case of pastoral counseling, a therapist is a person educated in both religious service and the science of human behaviour.

The name “pastoral” refers to the responsibility of the counsellor priest towards the counselled persons and to his attitude of religious service. 

The counsellor provides support and understanding to patients, focusing on faith, compassion, techniques and spiritual experiences.

Both counselling and psychotherapy refer to assisting the person to change their attitudes and behaviour. 

However, there are some differences – and similarities – in terms of finality, addressability and treatment methodology.

Psychological counselling has a short or medium duration and focuses on a specific problem in the patient’s present; psychotherapy treats emotional and mental disorders, analyzes and interprets certain aspects of the patient’s life, past and present.

After evaluating the patient’s problem, the pastoral counsellor draws on psychological theories, the principles of the faith he or she serves, and the cultural dimension of the problem to recommend appropriate means of intervention. 

These vary between individual counselling, group therapy, couple therapy, family counselling, spiritual guidance, etc.

The religious history of the patient and his family is important, as well as the way in which he contributed to the formation of pathological or maladaptive aspects of the patient’s behaviour and thinking.

Misconceptions about oneself or others may be the result of a theological confusion maintained by family or religious institutions.

Psychotherapy and pastoral counselling are highlighted by other therapeutic approaches by respecting the spiritual or religious orientation of the patient, as well as by the effort to make the patient recognize and use his spiritual resources. 

The pastoral counsellor is the connecting element between the patient and the spiritual and religious community.

The basic objective of pastoral counselling is the optimal psychosocial functioning, by obtaining the state of mental health, personal development and prevention.

How is pastoral counseling different? 

Although there are no steep boundaries between counselling, psychotherapy and psychiatry, they still are distinct.

Counselling aims to facilitate the latent potential of the individual in understanding himself, the environment and his own problems, leading to the solution of problems and possible predominantly extrinsic crises.

Psychotherapy does the same thing in the case of patients whose cause of problems

 are in themselves, focusing on understanding and restructuring designs, through psychotherapeutic means. 

Psychiatry addresses psychopathological disorders through medicinal, chemotherapeutic, physiotherapeutic, socio-occupational and therapeutic means. 

Psychology has as the object of study the structure, functions and dynamics of human psychism.

In time,  psychotherapy deals with the mechanisms and proximate causes of mental and emotional suffering, developing guidelines, methodologies and techniques for improvement. 

Christianity goes to their etiological roots of a problem, a contribution that can not be ignored, related to the ultimate cause of the suffering of any kind and death.

More than that, the God of this religion, the only has the answer, the means and the power to counteract the effects of suffering and death. 

Theologians are called to accept that the plot of sin affects the structural fabric of the human soul, and this one is the subject of psychological therapy, psychotherapy and psychiatry, and psychologists must understand that often the ultimate cause of many psychological sufferings lies only in a mechanism that works poorly, but has deep roots that concern the meaning of existence, the meaning of life on this earth. 

In short, theologians must learn the pathophysiologic mechanisms of psychism, methodology and dynamics of psychotherapy, and psychologists and therapists must accept the ultimate, spiritual causality. 

Conclusions

In this blog post, I talked about the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center and what services they offer.

We also explained the notion of pastoral counselling, and the differences between psychotherapy, counselling, psychiatry and pastoral counselling.

The goal of Salem Pastoral Counseling Center is to be a service educated by the Christian custom and committed to counseling and teaching.

At the Salem Pastoral Counseling Center, there are well-trained and licensed therapists that can help anyone regardless of the nature of their problem. 

The Salem Pastoral Counseling Center deals with issues such as anxiety, addiction, depression, suicidal thoughts, problems in personal relationships, family relationships or work.

Psychotherapy and pastoral counselling are therapeutic approaches that consider religious beliefs and practices as integrated into the psychology and social dimension of human behaviour. 

The pastoral psychotherapeutic approach combines therapy and spirituality, using both traditional psychological therapeutic methods and religious resources such as prayer, Scripture readings, and participation in the life of the religious community.

The EIP is a service just like the one mentioned above, though the difference between the both is that EIP works with patients who suffer from their first episode of psychosis.

You can also visit the Life Changes Group treatment center which offers quality counselling and treatment plans.

Please feel free to ask any questions or to leave a comment on the content!

Further reading

Personhood and Presence: Self as a Resource for Spiritual and Pastoral Care, by Ewan Kelly

Raging with Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil, by John Swinton

Pastoral Care & Counselling (Ethics in Practice Series), by Gordon Lynch

Foundations of Pastoral Counselling: Integrating Philosophy, Theology, and Psychotherapy, by Neil Pembroke 

The Living Human Document: Revisioning Pastoral Counselling in a Hermeneutical Mode, by Charles V. Gerkin

References

Salempastoralcounseling.org website

Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures, by David W. Augsburger

Journal of Pastoral Care, Volume: 48 issue: 1, page(s): 33-43