The subject of this book is pastoral counseling as a particular form of
pastoral care in the Christian context. Central in the reflection stays
the counseling process as dialogue and ethical event, inspirend by
thinkers as Levinas, Buber, Honneth, Bakhtin, Vygotsky, Nagy, and others.









The first part provides building blocks for an interdisciplinary
reflection on different forms and fields of counseling as a qualitative
event of conversation. The views on the event of dialogue are
illustrated on the basis of different forms and fields of conversation
that come from both the pastoral as well as the therapeutic and guidance
setting. Contributors to the first part are: Sheila McNamee, Lisbeth
Lipari, Marie-Cécile Bertau, Peter Rober, Vangie Bergum, Darcia Narvaez.









The second part focuses on the pastoral counselling as ‘event of
conversation’ whereby our ‘dialogical human condition’ takes shape in
its own manner. Two seemingly contradictory characteristics are linked
with each other, namely asymmetry and reciprocity, or better reciprocity
in a context of ethical asymmetry, with special attention for the
different aspects of responsibility, recognition, power, and visible or
hidden forms of violence. The different contributors (Marina Riemslagh,
Carrie Doehring, Annelies van Heijst, Axel Liégeois, Annemie Dillen,
Roger Burggraeve) indicate stepstones for a pastoral relationship
without tyranny.









Kenneth and Mary Gergen offer a critical postscriptum on the ‘missing
voices’ to make possible a ‘fully relational ethic’ in (pastoral)
care-giving and counselling.