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CPE began in 1925 when Richard Cabot, a physician and Christian layperson, introduced a fresh way of training theological students drawing on teaching methods used in medical education.
In the same year the Reverend Anton Boisen, who himself had experienced several periods of hospitalisation, began to refine this initiative into an educational process, including a case-study method of theological inquiry. He was chaplain at an USA hospital where, with the encouragement of several people including Cabot, the first group of theological students underwent ‘supervised’ clinical pastoral education.
Amongst the first four students that Boisen recruited was a woman called Helen Flanders Dunbar. She spent a month in that 1925 course doing research, returned to CPE in 1927, and then became an influential leader within CPE for more than a decade.
This group of four students worked during their summer vacation in the psychiatric hospital as orderlies. Each evening, Boisen and the students would meet together to talk about their experiences and what they had observed as they worked with very disturbed patients.
Boisen wanted to discover whether “many forms of insanity” might not be “religious rather than medical in nature.” From his perspective, it was not sufficient that persons who were mentally ill should be treated in, what we would today call, a ‘biological way’. He believed, in the language of the time, that in order to help troubled people, the Church had to develop “physicians of the soul.”
The students were required to write up ‘clinical case studies’ prompting them to think very fully about the “living human documents” with whom they were working. Over time, these ‘case studies’ developed into the written ‘Pastoral Encounter Reviews/Verbatim’ of CPE which direct students towards first-hand living source materials – men and women actually in crisis – rather than toward second-hand statements in textbooks.
CPE has continued to evolve since these first steps in 1925, though the essentials have not changed i.e. an emphasis upon the practical rather than the theoretical; a focus on the “living human documents”; the writing of ‘Pastoral Encounter Reviews/Verbatim’; the desire to help people become more fully integrated in body, mind and spirit – all key aspects of CPE.
Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is education and formation for the professional work of pastoral/spiritual care. CPE uses an educational methodology that combines knowledge of theology/spirituality (what we believe), with knowledge of education (how we learn), with knowledge of the behavioural sciences (who we are as human beings). CPE’s methodology utilizes the ‘action-reflection’ model of learning. The ‘action’ component entails practical experience in the work of pastoral/spiritual care within a pastoral/spiritual care setting; this care acknowledges and attends to the human condition, particularly life’s spiritual dimensions. The ‘reflection’ component entails the exploration, articulation and integration of the pastoral/spiritual carer’s experience, the dynamics present, and the theological/spiritual implications. This ‘action-reflection’ process is integral to CPE students’/participants’ understanding and the formation of their pastoral/spiritual care identity and competence. CPE encourages learning from living human documents.
The specific content of a CPE Unit will depend upon the particular interests and needs of the students/ participants and the context(s) in which they offer pastoral/spiritual care. The learning process allows for the addressing of the particular learning goals that each student/participant identifies. The process balances the practical experience of pastoral/spiritual care, small group supervision/interaction, and personal individual supervision, in an integrated programme of experiential and theoretical education.
A CPE Unit is a total learning process of at least 400 hours of supervised learning, integrating clinical experience, group and individual supervision, personal and collegial reflection, and directed critical reading and recording.
For each CPE student/participant these 400 hours include AT LEAST:
200 hours | practicum (i.e. clinical experience in a pastoral/spiritual care placement) of which at least 100 hours is actual face-to-face pastoral/spiritual care; the remaining 100 hours may be spent observing others offering pastoral/spiritual care, preparing and delivering pastoral/spiritual rituals/services, debriefing, inter-disciplinary conferring, collegial conferring, self-care following a particularly challenging pastoral/spiritual encounter, writing notes regarding a pastoral/spiritual care encounter (notes that later may be shaped into a full PER), handover, statistical recording etc … |
90 hours | group supervision, and seminars/didactic-presentations (at least 80% attendance) |
10 hours | one-to-one supervision (or equivalents) |
100 hours | reading, reflection, and preparation of written/videoed/oral material |
A CPE Unit can be completed over a minimum of 10 weeks or a maximum of 44 weeks.
A CPE Unit shall be supervised by at least one Level 2 or 3 (or Provisional Level 2 or 3) Clinical Pastoral Educator.
A CPE Unit student/participant peer group shall consist of no fewer than 3 participants and usually no more than 6 participants.
The clinical context for a student’s practicum needs to be made in dialogue with the CPE Supervisor, as the placement can have a significant impact on a student’s/participant’s learning in a CPE Unit.
Each CPE student/participant is required to prepare in written/visual/oral form AT LEAST:
1 | personalised Learning Contract / Learning Goals Statement (mutually acceptable to student/participant and supervisor) |
1 | description of what their received theology/spirituality teaches about pastoral/spiritual care and how their own spiritual journey impacts the pastoral/spiritual care they offer |
9 | Pastoral/Spiritual Encounter Reviews (PERs) (or equivalents) |
1 | Mid-Term Evaluation |
1 | Final Evaluation |
Each CPE student/participant is required to present within the learning group at least 8 of the above 13 written/visual/oral materials for peer and supervisor feedback.
Student/participants may be asked to complete other papers, presentations and learning journals as required.
Foundational CPE requires of an applicant an awakened level of personal awareness, pastoral/spiritual formation, and professional competency. Further Foundational CPEs build on the awareness, knowledge and competencies achieved in Foundational CPE 1, further bolstering and extending these competencies.
Each Member Association (e.g. NZACPE) shall determine the process by which:
Professional Practice
Demonstrates the capacity to:
Reflective Practice
Demonstrates the capacity to:
Informed Practice
Demonstrates the capacity to:
Evolving Practice
Demonstrates the capacity to:
A student/participant will usually have completed a number of Foundational CPE Units before being considered for Advanced CPE.
Advanced CPE requires of an applicant a heightened level of personal awareness, pastoral/spiritual formation, professional competency, and may include the intention to seek professional development in a pastoral/spiritual care specialisation. Advanced CPE builds on all the competencies achieved in an applicant’s preceding Foundational CPEs.
Each Member Association (e.g. NZACPE) shall determine the process by which:
Professional Practice
Demonstrates the capacity to:
Reflective Practice
Demonstrates the capacity to:
Informed Practice
Demonstrates the capacity to:
Evolving Practice
Demonstrates the capacity to:
consider alternative approaches to pastoral/spiritual care, to use a variety of pastoral/spiritual stances with people, and to develop a range of strategies
Download the CPE Brochure by right-clicking and selecting Save Link As, or left-click to view.