Clinical Pastoral Education Program Begins

At Danbury Hospital

DANBURY — Clinical pastoral education is an exciting new spiritually focused training program beginning in September at Danbury Hospital.

“Spiritual care is a relatively new term in the fields of counseling and religion. Actually, it is something of a hybrid discipline in addressing a person’s spiritual distress by listening and helping a person access their own resources of faith, religion, or spirituality,” said Rabbi Jeffery M. Silberman, the director of Spiritual Care at Danbury Hospital, who is also a certified educator in clinical pastoral education (CPE).

In this unique part-time educational offering CPE provides an opportunity for students to learn how to provide spiritual care by making visits to hospital patients, interacting with families and supporting staff in the difficult personal illnesses and situations while in the hospital.

Science has begun to explore and validate the tasks of spiritual care. A recent study by Dr Amy B. Wachholtz, a psychiatrist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, finds that 49 percent of Americans have used prayer to deal with a health concern.

Dr Lisa Saunders of the Yale University School of Medicine has written that when a patient can tell his or her story, it helps the patient to understand how their own healing can occur. A primary focus of spiritual care is listening to the patient’s story and drawing upon the person’s belief system as a source of strength and healing.

When CPE began in the 1920s it was designed for seminarians and clergy. Today, all manner of people from many religious backgrounds who find themselves on a spiritual journey enroll in the intense training that CPE offers. Therefore, laypeople as well as clergy are eligible to apply for this program.

The part-time program entails about 16 hours a week on a flexible schedule. Interested persons can call the Department of Spiritual Care (203-739-7885) for more information.

Applications can be obtained at the national website (www.acpe.edu) or by calling the Spiritual Care office at Danbury Hospital.