Recognizing changes are coming to the healthcare delivery system, pastoral care departments are developing a new vision of spiritual care. As they educate and hire staff, many directors are finding that alternative staffing approaches can help them make the transition. Flexible schedules for pastoral care professionals improve the care they deliver and enhance morale. Restructuring responsibili...

The term "pastoral crisis intervention" has been defined by Everly (2000) as the functional integration of faith-based resources with traditional crisis intervention assessment and intervention technologies. Pastoral crisis intervention has been differentiated from ministry and the provision of chaplaincy services. This paper provides a public health model for integrating pastoral crisis interv...

This paper surveys classical Jewish texts--from the Hebrew Bible through Medieval codes--regarding the concept and practice of Bikkur Holim, literally, "the sick visit." How does this literature understand this ethical, religious act; who are the practitioners; what are their objectives? Although the Hebrew Bible does not contain a biblical precedent or legal mandate for Bikkur Holim, various c...

There is increasing interest in rural development circles in promoting alternative livelihoods opportunities for pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods. However, there is very little empirical evidence that effectively evaluates the impact of the existing approaches. As pastoral and agro-pastoral production conditions change, due to factors such as increasing competition over natural resources ...

background and purpose: spirituality is a complex and multidimensional concept that has cognitive, experiential, and behavioral aspects. according to studies many patients believe that religion and spirituality play important roles in their lives. usually they expect such considerations to be taken into account by physicians. the aim of this study was to investigate the viewpoints of physicians...

Part 1 of this study1 sought to establish frames of reference for measuring success in pastoral ministry and to evaluate the relationship between leadership practices and those criteria. The purpose was twofold: to discover correlations between leadership practices and success in pastoral ministry, and to move toward evaluating effectiveness of leadership formation in graduate theological educa...

Throughout the arid regions of Africa formerly mobile pastoral populations are becoming sedentary. Although pastoral sedentarization is encouraged by international development agencies and national governments as solutions to food insecurity, poor health care, and problems of governance, it has not been demonstrated that abandoning the pastoral way of life, and particularly children’s access to...

This essay frames an invitation to pastoral counselors and pastoral theologians to examine connections and perhaps interactions between themselves and traditional shamanic healers who use ayahuasca in their healing ceremonies. Indigenous people in South America have used ayahuasca for centuries, and the ritual has become common among the mestizo populations in urban areas of the Amazon, particu...

This article focuses on the different images of Mediterranean Portugal developed by three important Portuguese social scientists of the 20th century: the geographer Orlando Ribeiro, the ethnologist Jorge Dias and the social anthropologist José Cutileiro. The article argues that these different images stem from different ideological attitudes towards the countryside, ranging from pastoral to cou...

This series will present a variety of current thought and suggested practice bearing on what might be broadly characterized as the science of modern health care chaplaincy. A basic premise underlying this series is that pastoral care in health care can, and should, and needs to make increasingly predictable and evidence based contributions to the holistic care of those who are suffering, and th...