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The Concise Dictionary of Pastoral Care & Counselling

Reviewed by Chris Skilton.

The magisterial Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counselling was published in 1990 and revised in 2005 and was the first ever major reference work in this field. This book is an attempt to reproduce the “classic timeless articles” from the main work for a wider audience – with some shortening and updating. The articles are grouped around six headings – Definitions; History and Biography; Issues of Power and Difference; Interfaith Issues and Methods; Clinical Methods and Pastoral Theological Methods.

There are some excellent articles in the historical section – most notably on The History of Pastoral Care; Pastoral Care and Counselling in a Post-Modern Context and The Pastoral Care Movement. Readers of Ministry Today will be pleased to see that there is a separate entry for Richard Baxter (but not alas for George Herbert!). Other entries are inevitably down to personal selection – why Ambrose of Milan, but not Benedict for instance?

The selection inevitably reflects the American provenance of the work and of the majority of the contributors – most notably in the more ‘practical’ chapters. There is, for instance, an excellent article about ‘power’ which crosses the Atlantic well, but the articles on ‘Jewish and Hasidic Care and Counselling’ are longer and weightier than the corresponding Islamic one. I’m sure too that a contemporary British work would have carried far more material about end of life issues.

Most articles carry a helpful bibliography. As long as readers accept that this is a subjective selection from a much bigger work and contains what it does, it is a helpful background and reference (most especially on the history) for those interested in reading around the subject.