SAINT PAUL UNIVERSITY DUMAGUTE

COLLEGE OF NURSING
DUMAGUETE CITY

In partial fulfillment of the requirements in

PASTORAL NURSING

Submitted to:

Mrs. Rowena Masicampo, RN, MAN

Submitted by:

Jam Mikka G. Rodriguez

Date Submitted:

January 25, 2021

 History of Clinical Pastoral Care

1. Anton Boisen

The Story of Boisen’s life Anton Theophilus Boisen was born October 28, 1876, the first child of Hermann
Boisen and Elizabeth Louisa Wylie Boisen. His father, Hermann Boisen, reared in Schlewig-Holstein (then
a part of Denmark) and educated in Germany, arrived in the USA in 1869. He came to these shores
because his family did not have the means to help him complete a doctoral degree in Germany.
However, it was soon discovered that he was a genius as a teacher; and in 1870, he was recommended
to teach at DePauw University. Then two years later, he came to Indiana University to fill a vacancy in
the Chair of Modern Languages. He spent ten years teaching German at Indiana University before going
east to teach first at Williams College in the Berkshires, then in the Boston area, and finally at
Lawrenceville Academy near Princeton, New Jersey. While teaching at Lawrenceville he suddenly had a
heart attack and died at 38 years of age. Elizabeth Louisa Wylie Boisen, and her two small children,
Anton and Marie, moved into the household of her father and mother Wylie back in Bloomington,
Indiana. The idolized memory of his father was a part of Boisen's entire life. It was a blessing and at
times a curse. His was a blend of the old and the new, the unyielding Covenant Reformed
Presbyterianism of his grandfather Wylie and the more moderate theological formation and foundation
of his mother's Presbyterian Church USA in Bloomington. Later he developed his own “brand” of Liberal
Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Boisen's maternal family was among the
founders of Indiana University. The Rev. Dr. Andrew Wylie, a Presbyterian clergy and first President of
the then Indiana Academy/College, was a cousin of Theophilus Wylie. Theophilus and his family from
Philadelphia came to the “wilderness” of Indiana in 1837; and for 46 years, he was a Professor of
Mathematics and Natural History at IU. When Hermann Boisen died, his wife, and two children moved
into the Wylie home in Bloomington, Indiana. Grandfather Theophilus Wylie was by nature of the
strictest kind. He was a Covenant Reformed Presbyterian clergy, who ruled the household as a faithful
Scotch-Irish Presbyterian. He held that only the Psalms should be used as church music, and that musical
instruments should be forbidden at worship. Sabbath-keeping was regarded as imperative. There was a
tyranny of oughts and shoulds in the Wylie household that remained with Anton Boisen his entire life.
Anton‘s mother, Elizabeth Louisa Wylie Boisen, was one of the first women to enroll at Indiana
University. After her graduation in 1871, she taught at the University of Missouri. She left Missouri at the
end of her first year to marry her teacher of modern language at Indiana University, Professor Hermann
Boisen. Anton Theophilus was their first child. He had a younger sister, Marie Louise, born when Anton
was three. She graduated in psychology at Indiana University in 1900. Anton's sister, Marie Louise, was a
brilliant, spirited, and creative person. Anton held a lifelong jealousy toward his energetic sister, and her
excellence in the world of academia, in particular scientific studies. She married Morton Clark Bradley,
Assistant Controller of the Boston and Maine Railroad. The couple had two children. She lived her adult
life in Arlington, Massachusetts. In his childhood and adolescence, Boisen was thoroughly exposed to
the Reformed Presbyterianism of his grandfather. In reflection, later in life, he said he did not derive
much meaning from the long Sunday morning services and the daily Bible readings and prayers in the
household. However, he admits that this period of his life did have a significant effect upon his basic
view of religion. Hermann Boisen Theophilus Adam Wylie Elizabeth Louisa Wylie Boisen During this
period, the influence of his mother was also very significant. His mother was a progressive woman for
that time. He came to respect her perspective on life. In his junior year of high school he joined the
moderate Presbyterian Church, the First Presbyterian Church. Later in life, having had this foundation in
his relationship to his mother, he showed an interest in Liberal Theology as it was taught at Union
Seminary in New York. Anton attended grade school, junior high, and graduated from Bloomington High
School in 1893. He enrolled at Indiana University and received a BA in Modern Languages on June 9,
1897. He taught French in a high school in Bloomington for a couple of years. At this time, he became
deeply interested in the writings of William James. His favorite teacher at IU, Dr. William Lowe Bryan,
had introduced him to William James' Principles of Psychology and Varieties of Religious Experience.
During this period, he continued to study psychology and French on the IU campus. One day in 1902, he
met a young woman who was a YWCA worker on the IU campus, Alice Batchelder. She was a recent
graduate of Smith College. He and Alice had an on-and-off relationship until her death in 1935. Actually
for Boisen it was primarily off. He wanted to marry her, but she refused his proposals. For him, as he
wrote in his 80s, “She was a gifted woman. Her compassion for me, her wisdom, her courage, and her
unswerving fidelity have made possible the measure of success I have experienced, exploring the inner
world of mental disorder and religious experience." She represented a mysterious, mediumistic, figure
who never became a real person. Imagine, Boisen, the rigid, preoccupied, and distant personality on the
one hand, and Alice, the “guardian angel,” the “unreachable star,” the “guiding hand of God” on the
other - not a match made in heaven. The failure of this relationship was Anton's deepest sadness and
grief for most of his adult life. Boisen gave up teaching high school French and enrolled at Yale
University to study forestry. He received a Master's degree in Forestry in 1905. He was a Forest Assistant
in the United States Government, Department of Agriculture's Forest Service from 1905 to 1908. During
this time, he learned basic research from his lifelong friend, Dr. Raphael Zon who was Chief Forester.
During his years at Yale, he got in touch with a renewed longing of his spirituality. As he was walking
down the streets of New Haven, he felt a call to ministry. The next day, on April 2, 1905 the President of
Union Theological Seminary in New York, Rev. Henry Sloan Coffin, was preaching at the chapel service.
His subject was the “Call to Ministry.” This was a synchronistic moment for Boisen, and he felt his own
call to ministry being confirmed. So, in 1908 he left his job as a forester, and he enrolled at Union
Seminary in New York City. There he studied with Dr. George Albert Coe, an eminent liberal theologian
and teacher of psychological studies and the ministry. Coe was particularity interested in the study of
religious experience. The individualistic approach of Coe stayed with Boisen, and he developed a
dynamic view of the psychology of religion grounded in human behavior and religion. Like Coe, he
despaired that theologians tended to rely on texts rather than human nature. He received a Bachelor of
Divinity from Union Seminary in 1911. Boisen was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1912. He was later
a minister within the Congregational church because that is where ministry opened for him. He referred
to himself as Presbygationalist. He did survey work for the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, served
two very short-term pastorates, and short of a year as Congregational chaplain on the campus of Iowa
State University. During WWI, he worked two years for the YMCA in France. After teaching French,
entering forestry, training to become a parish minister, working in church survey, serving two
congregations, part of a year as a college chaplain, two years in France during WWI, he had yet to find
his true calling. He was now 44 years old, so in 1920, he decided he wanted to settle down and have a
pastorate in a church. His overriding “ulterior” motive was to persuade Alice to marry him. In the
process of writing his Statement of Faith in preparation for a call through the Brooklyn New York
Presbytery, he became obsessed with delusional fantasies. He had a mental breakdown. And he was
committed to Boston Psychiatric Hospital and later he was at Westboro State Hospital. He was treated
for catatonic schizophrenia. He described his experience as "a most profound and unmistakable
madness." In his Statement of Belief he wrote, “I believe that God was perfectly revealed in the life and
teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. His patience with our shortcomings, his Alice Batchelder compassion
upon our infirmities, his unfaltering faith in men, even his enemies, and his method of dealing with
them, not through force, but through the power of love, culminating in his death upon the cross, where
he died, the just for the unjust, the perfect for the imperfect, the strong for the weak.” He felt that the
weak and imperfect should no longer accept this sacrifice and that “they should be willing to give their
lives, the imperfect for the perfect and the weak for the strong, that the divine may be freed from its
prison house of infirmity and be able to come into the world in beauty and power.” Boisen continued, “I
believe that the family should consist of four and not of two, of the strong and perfect and of the
guardian angels who in the joy of serving and sharing in the happiness of those they love will find
compensation for the sacrifices that some will always have to make.” Later, in recovery, he reflected on
this experience, and he began to understand his illness as related to the diversity of religious
experiences. He wrote: "Certain types of mental disorder and certain types of religious experience are,
alike, attempts at reorganization." He'd learned during Dr. William Lowe Bryan's classes at IU that "at
the peak of a human crisis there is a turning toward healing, toward reorganization, toward
reconnection." From the arrhythmia of despair and madness, there emerged a transformation, a new
rhythm, the vital primal rhythm of life that Dr. Bryan called a religious experience of the Holy. Upon
reflection, Boisen said he had "broken an opening in the wall that separated religion and medicine." It
was after studied reflection on this initial episode of mental illness that he discovered his true call to
ministry. Throughout this period, his friend Fred Eastman was a close comrade and associate. He met
Eastman at Union Seminary, and they hit it off immediately. Eastman went with Boisen in 1911 to
undertake a joint study of rural churches in north-eastern Missouri. In the dark days of his first mental
breakdown, 1920, Fred Eastman was with him giving support personally or writing letters which were
encouraging to Boisen when he was in “the depths.” In his autobiography, Out of the Depths, Anton
cites twelve extensive letters to Fred Eastman between 1920 and 1923. These letters represent Anton's
trust in Fred Eastman as they contain the profound depths of his struggle with mental illness. This was
during the period of his first psychotic episode - the "Little Known Country." He said that Fred was, for
him, a representative of psychotherapy at its best. Eastman was not a trained counselor, but he was
skilled in interpersonal relationships of understanding and friendship on one side and trust on the other.
Anton was also greatly influenced by Dr. William Lowe Bryan, by now President of Indiana University. An
example of the relationship is found in a pastoral letter from William Lowe Bryan, now President
Emeritus of Indiana University. He is writing to Boisen in 1941. It seems that it was prompted after
Anton had difficulty with a Bible class in Olney, Illinois. Bryan writes, “Dear Anton, Your experience at
the Bible class in Olney brings to my mind the practice of the Apostle Paul in adjusting his message to his
audiences. This, as you know, is well illustrated in the Acts and is stated by him plainly, even bluntly, to
the Corinthians. He had a profound metaphysic and theology, but he said to the Corinthians you cannot
understand the hidden wisdom...I therefore preach to you nothing but Christ and Christ crucified.” He
goes on in the letter to state the order of salvation, from his point of view, citing Albert Schweitzer who
said that Paul had three conceptions of salvation which did not quarrel with one another.” He goes on in
the letter to cite Paul's metaphysic as coming from the Hebrew philosophers and from the Greeks: Plato,
Philo, Aristotle, and Plotinus. Paul's way to salvation is not mechanical, not legal, but is based on the
belief that we are bound together in one bundle of life with each other and with the Christ.” He ends the
pastoral letter to Boisen saying: "This is a long letter. What I have in mind is that a minister does well
indeed if he can follow Paul's example - talking to children that they can understand him, talking to
businessmen in a giant Bible class so that they can understand him, but always with the underlying spirit
of the Christ that radiates through whatever he says." He ends the letter “Affectionately, William Lowe
Bryan.” This letter from Bryan is an example of their relationship, and the respect they had one for the
other. Bryan's admonition in general and specific terms, regarding what a minister needs to be attentive
to was wisdom for the ministers and for Anton himself. It is a letter representing William Lowe Bryan's
faith in the Bible and in particular the Apostle Paul's message. Also, theologically, Bryan's statement:
“we are bound together in one bundle of life with each other and with the Christ” has a like point in
Anton's theology of Redemption being the “communion of best” and the “Beloved Community.” Boisen
says that all true life is social life, is life-together. It is “being-with” and “being-for” the Dr. William Lowe
Bryan other. He goes into greater depth, in particular the social dynamic of religious life, in Religion in
Crisis and Custom: A Sociological and Psychological Study of Religion with special reference to American
Protestantism. Dr. Richard Cabot, MD, was a well-known medical reformer during this era. He was on
the faculty of Harvard Medical School and was one of America's best known physicians. He created the
Clinical-Pathologic Conference for medical students at Harvard. He wrote and spoke extensively on
medical ethics. His primary concerns were clinical and humanistic. In 1920, he left full-time medical work
to teach social ethics at Andover Theological Seminary and the Episcopal Theological Seminary in
Boston. He founded hospital social work and worked with Anton Boisen to start the CPE program at
Worcester State Hospital in 1925. He proposed the clinical case method of learning for graduate
theological students from his experience with medical students at Harvard. In 1922, he had advocated
that seminary students have a year's supervised experience with people suffering from the infirmities of
humankind just as medical students do before going to their work as licensed physicians. Cabot was a
recognized pioneer in efforts to define the physician's role in human well-being; and, in his work at
seminaries, he promoted that for theological students. His “Plea for a Clinical Year in the Course of
Theological Study” that came out in the fall of 1925 was a major factor toward founding the clinical
pastoral education movement. After a short period in the Social Service Department at Boston
Psychiatric Hospital, Boisen was helped by Dr.Cabot to become chaplain at Worcester State Hospital. In
the contract with Worcester State Hospital, it was agreed that he would teach one term at Chicago
Theological Seminary each year. In this way, Boisen entered specialized ministry as a chaplain and an
educator to become one of the founders of the pastoral care and education movement in the USA. On
Christmas Eve, 1924, two graduate student's in one of Cabot's classes at the Episcopal Seminary in
Boston came to Worcester State Hospital to talk about doing training with Boisen. Although neither one
came to Worcester, they gave Boisen an idea. He designed a program and offered the very first unit of
clinical pastoral training in the summer of 1925. He had four students including Helen Flanders Dunbar,
who later became an important leader in the pastoral care and education movement. By 1930, Dr.
Flanders Dunbar and Boisen were in New York with the formation of the corporation of the Council for
Clinical Training of Theological Students. Later, Rev. Phillip Guiles, Rev. Russell Dicks, and Dr. Cabot
began programs at Andover Theological Seminary and at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. This
was the nucleus for the Institute for Pastoral Care, incorporated in 1944. Subsequent years showed a
steady increase of interest in clinical training for clergy. By 1940, training existed not only in mental
hospitals but also in general medical settings. Dr. Richard Cabot may have been an initial spark that
started the clinical pastoral education movement, but it was the steady work of Rev. Anton T. Boisen at
Worcester State Hospital that actually carried out training and established the model for those who
followed. Boisen developed the case study method as the written human document for theological
reflection. Boisen developed a detailed guide that needed to be used in the process of gathering
information about a person. The strength of this tool was its ability to help students learn how to reflect
systematically about the human condition, both psychological and theological. Dr. Richard Cabot CPE
Supervisors in Council for Clinical Training – 1932 FR: Hildreth (Syracuse), Beatty (Mayview), Dunbar
(Director), Boisen (Elgin), Dodd (Rhode Island) BR: Guiles (Field Secretary), Wise (Worchester State),
Bryan (Superintendent) He stayed at Worcester State Hospital from 1924 to 1932 when he left to take a
position in the Chicago area at Elgin State Hospital. He was both closer to Chicago Theological Seminary
where he continued to be Lecturer and Research Associate, and also Alice who worked in Chicago. His
move to Elgin came after a significant episode of mental illness at the time of his mother‘s death, 1930.
This lasted for three weeks, and he left the hospital fully recovered. Simultaneous to Anton's
hospitalization in 1930 was a "falling out" with the leaders of what became the Institute for Pastoral
Care. Dr. Cabot no longer trusted Anton's judgment and his leadership; and a break occurred between
the two. Cabot would have nothing to do with those who purported that mental illness was due to inner
psychiatric problems in living. He rejected the claim of Boisen that a breakthrough had occurred
between the science of medicine and humanity of the religious. Soon after Boisen's arrival at Elgin in
1932, he established the Chicago Council for Clinical Training. He functioned well after the major
episode in 1930. However, he had another mental breakdown in 1935. The precipitating factor in this
episode was twofold: Alice had told him she had cancer and that death was imminent and his
manuscript for The Exploration of the Inner World had not been accepted for publication. Alice died on
December 2, 1935. He was unable to attend her funeral because of hospitalization. His book was
published by Willett, Clark, and Company in 1936. After he left the mental hospital in late December of
1935, he did not have another major episode of mental illness and was symptom free. At this time,
Boisen became close friends with Dr. Flanders Dunbar who was interested in integrating religion and
science and, eventually, medicine and psychiatry through psychosomatic medicine. The Council for
Clinical Training under Dr. Flanders Dunbar's leadership moved to New York City; and the New England
group, under the aegis of Phillip Guiles, centered around Andover Newton Theological School and the
Boston area. It was avowed by Charles Hall in Head and Heart that Phillip Guiles remained loyal to Cabot
and retained the programs in New England separate from the Council in New York. In 1944, the New
England CPE programs came under the Institute of Pastoral Care. This schism was precipitated out of the
encounters, feelings, pride, and audacity of Dr. Flanders Dunbar, Dr. Richard Cabot, Anton Boisen, and
Phillip Guiles. Anton joined the Council with the support of his good friend and colleague Dr. Dunbar.
Through the following years, Anton was both a supporter and critic of both groups. Despite his break
from Dr. Richard Cabot, he gave tribute to Dr. Cabot as a partner in the new venture in theological
education. “No consideration of the beginnings of this movement can leave Dr. Richard Cabot out of the
account. Without his powerful support the movement could hardly have got under way. He stood
behind the early proposal, which of a research project at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital in 1923,
ready, if need be, to provide financial support. It was he who found the opening at the Worcester State
Hospital and it was he who in 1925 gave nation-wide publicity to the idea of a clinical year for
theological students. Also, Dr. William A. Bryan's part as superintendent of the Worcester State Hospital,
and that of Dr. Charles E. Reed at the Elgin State Hospital, has been for me of crucial importance.” In the
formation of what became the pastoral care movement, Anton Boisen joined the Calvinist religious
foundation of his youth and early years with the liberal theology of turn of the century America in
forming a new method of doing theology. He combined the two religious traditions with the radical
pragmatism of William James to emerge with an empirical inquiry into theology derived from listening
to the variety of religious experiences of individuals and eventually groups. He urged his students to
inquire into the lived moments in the lives of ordinary people and there you will discover the elemental
questions humankind faces as people trying to “be human.” His quest was for the “inner genius,” that is
the attendant religious presence that drives an individual with the gift of grace, wisdom, love and energy
in the face of the ups and downs of daily living. More important Boisen wanted his students to discover
the religious experience that brings people successfully through such struggles. His interest was the
revelation and transformation that emerged out of his many recurring episodes of serious mental illness.
Boisen was convinced that the religious was the integrating spine, the originating genes of human life.
Helen Flanders Dunbar Boisen’s Theology: Theology as a Creative Interplay of the Traditional and the
Liberal Anton Boisen wrote a practical and challenging book Religion in Crisis and Custom in which he
said: “as individuals come face to face with the ultimate realities of life and death, religion and theology
tend to come alive.” This became a shaping vision. He believed that “Theology has always been
concerned with the motivating beliefs of people regarding their origin and destiny and their relationship
to the universe. It has dealt with that which is supreme in the hierarchy of desires and values and with
the choices that favor or impede maximum self-realization.” He said in a speech before the Council in
1950, the 25th anniversary, “We are not seeking to introduce anything new into the theological
curriculum beyond a new approach to some ancient problems. We are trying, rather, to call attention
back to the central task of the Church, that of ‘saving souls,' and to the central problem of theology, that
of ‘sin and salvation.' What is new is the attempt to begin with the study of “living human documents”
rather than books, and to focus attention upon those who are grappling with the issues of spiritual life
and death. I believe that love is the paramount human need and that there is a law within which forbids
us to be satisfied with any fellowship save that of the best religious experience that is fellowship raised
to its highest level, and religion is thus a necessary consequence of the social nature of humankind.
From the religious standpoint, the aim of education is to lead the growing individual to transfer her
loyalty from the finite to the infinite. For the religious person this higher loyalty is represented by the
‘idea of God' and that idea stands for something that is operative in the lives of all humankind, whether
they recognize it or not.” Hiltner said: “He and his students, he argued, were not studying psychiatry and
psychology as such, although he always acknowledged the help he had received from psychiatrists and
psychologists. The students were studying theology, because they brought theological questions to the
deep crisis experiences of life, and should return with deeper understanding of theological answers.”
Boisen's theological views were an amalgamation of four major influences. First, there was his early
religious heritage in the late nineteenth century, critically-oriented and intellectually alert view of the
Christian faith. The Calvinism of his grandfather's household ran as a long red string throughout his life.
Second, there was the influence of the theological liberalism of the progressive era, the early twentieth
century. Third, there was Boisen's own serious mental illness, erupting in his mid-forties which he
interpreted not only psychologically but theologically. Fourth, there was the conviction that theology
was method as well as content, and that the study of ‘living human documents' was an indispensable
aspect of that method.” Boisen linked traditional Christianity with early 20th century liberal, empirical
theology. Scotch-Irish Covenanter Presbyterianism First. The strict Scotch Irish Reformed Calvinist
theology of his grandfather defined Boisen even as he sought his way out of it. He bore the marks of a
shame-based life regarding principally his own sexuality. The foundation of this shame certainly came
from this early childhood experience in the Wylie household. Nevertheless, the sense of self developed
in those early years was internalized and it became the lens through which other relationships were
viewed later in life. Theological Liberalism Second. Both his mother and his father were liberal in their
religious life. As he matured, Boisen cast a critical eye on what he considered his strict Calvinist rearing.
He joined the “more moderate” First Presbyterian Church as a teen in Bloomington. At Union Seminary,
George Coe taught him that liberal theology was a religion of social immediacy; a spontaneous
experience shared with another, a social experience. Boisen wrote in Religion in Crisis and Custom
(1945): “Religious experience is rooted in the social nature of man and arises spontaneously under the
pressure of crisis situations. We frequently find the sense of contact with the ultimate reality to which
we give the name of ‘God.' This means a new awareness of the individual's continuity with society at its
best.” Paramount Human Need for Love Boisen said: “The paramount human need is for love and that
there is a law within which forbids us to be satisfied with any fellowship save that of the best.” To be
saved meant to be (1.) “One with the best in the social experience, and (2.) Be a useful participant in the
struggle for the attainment of the determined objectives.” There was always a social communitarianism
in his theology placing humankind in the Community of the Beloved. In this sense, his theology was
contextual. Boisen was not always comfortable with the social community aspect of liberal theology. He
had personal difficulty being dynamically connected to a community even though he wrote a lot about
community, the “Beloved Community.” He was often too invested in the forest of research, and his own
personal struggles, to be able to see the trees of human relationships. He was unabashedly Christian in
his outlook, upholding the belief that what God intends to accomplish through the life and ministry of
Jesus is a lasting demonstration of the depth of Divine Love. Boisen was at once defined by traditional
and liberal theological perspectives, and also simultaneously, he did not find comfort either in the
Covenanter Presbyterianism of his youth nor in the liberal theology of his more mature years. He was
critical of both. Liberal theology became a dominant theme in is life but I believe he had a hard time
finding spiritual comfort in his liberal theology. What Title as a Theologian? What title can we give to
Boisen as a theologian? I have settled on the term: progressive empiricist. Progressive: Boisen was a
product of the progressive era. He emphasized individual needs and the capacities, strengths and
weakness, of each student and patient. Developing a theology of uses, in an attitude toward one
another, in how we treat one another, in what use we make of ourselves, this was primary in human
relationships. He was constantly in discourse with the common human experiences of life. Indeed, one
of his progressive empirical methods was to create models, metaphors, symbols, and signs that reflected
humankind's best understanding of God and Christ as the door to the dominion of God. Empiricist for he
believed clergy should include in their preparation the “study of living human documents.” His basic
concern was that the use of theological language be in touch with concrete data of human experience.
In theological education he advocated for the study of concrete religious experience accompanied by a
deep concern for the welfare of troubled individuals. What he wanted to return to is something like
Freiderich Schliermacher's theology of religion as experience, “clearing up the channels of
understanding within individuals and between individuals.” Schliermacher was the father of empirical
theology. His appeal was to religious experience. He said, “Religion's essence is neither thinking nor
acting, but intuition and feeling.” Charles Gerkin reminds us that “Central to Boisen's intention was that
the depth experience of individuals, in the strugglers of their mental and spiritual life, demanded the
same respect as do the historic texts from which the foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith are drawn.”
The genius of Boisen's progressive empirical theology was that the care of the soul began in a particular,
often (although not necessarily) problematic situation. It was that situation and its particular resolution
that was the foundation for theological reflection. It was not the rational theologian's concern with
generalization that was at issue. Progressive empirical theology was focused on the particular, and it was
this that related it to liberal theology while retaining a grounding in the language and meaning of
traditional Christianity. What Boisen most clearly contributed to pastoral care and counseling was the
importance of theological context. Boisen put students into situations in the mental health facility asking
them to “join with another person's curiosity about their beliefs and the complex entanglements of
actual life.” His was a cooperative inquiry. Out of this context, is raised the question: “How is it going
with you and God?” The relationship begins to build, and thinking theologically begins to occur.
Narrative Theology Boisen pioneered for us what we call today narrative theology. He was a
“Superauditor.” Narrative theology first emerged in the early part of the twentieth century. In
theological circles today there is heightened interest in human life structured by narrative. We make
sense of life through the stories we tell. Stanley Hauerwas, a strong proponent of narrative, said,
“Christian convictions take the form of a story, or perhaps better a set of stories that constitute a
tradition, which in turn creates and forms a community. My contention is that the narrative mode is
neither incidental nor accidental to Christian belief. There is no more fundamental way to talk of God
than in story.” For Boisen, the insight into the living human document, the depth experiences in the
struggles of their mental and spiritual life, came from listening and telling story, by listening to the story
of the living human documents theology develops ideas with confidence. In the light of the focus on
narrative theology; and his new and crisp theological methodology, Boisen's contribution has important
theological significance for our time. Henri Nouwen said: “Although he did not come up with new
theological insights, his new clinical approach to these ageold questions gave it a new and fresh
articulation, placing it in a relevant context and brought theology back from the ‘brains-level' to the
‘guts-level.” Legacy: The "Johnny Appleseed of the Clinical Pastoral Education Movement" Wayne Oates
called Anton T. Boisen the "Johnny Appleseed "of the clinical pastoral education movement. In the oral
history video Wayne Oates says: “He was a Johnny Appleseed kind of planter of the clinical approach to
the empirical study of theology.” He planted and he nurtured the movement throughout his long life.
This was his passion. Anton Boisen died at Elgin on October 2, 1965. He was eighty-eight years old. A
brief committal service was held at the Hilltop Cemetery at the Elgin State Hospital at which time his
ashes were strewn over the grounds of the cemetery. Rev. Donald Beatty, a longtime colleague at Elgin
State Hospital paid tribute to the life of Anton Boisen. Beatty said: "It should be remembered, in
assessing the value of Boisen's pioneer work, that in 1925 there were very few full-time chaplains in
general and mental hospital; and there were almost none where the incumbent had specific training for
this specialized ministry. How different is the situation now only a scant forty years later. Our
Association (ACPE) was in very large measure influenced by Boisen and those who had come into this
field of ministry either directly or indirectly by virtue of his influence." Describing Rev. Anton Boisen's
funeral, Thomas Klink says, "The scene was not spectacular, today. The weather was modestly autumnal
and the sky just ordinarily overcast. Except for the cluster of awkward mourners - forty or fifty people
including Chaplain Charles Sullivan, Professor Victor Obenhaus (who, respectively, read the requested
service and the obituary), a few patients, a handful of friends, a few hospital staff, and a little group of
ex-students - it was an unremarkable state hospital burial. There were no tears. There was little
conversation, little drama. But, because he lived and suffered and imposed his always-distant urgency
on others, some of the living seem less likely to be scattered as burned-out ashes 'back of the hospital,'
over the fallow waste ground." Boisen is important today for he was primarily concerned with helping
graduate seminary students learn theology by deepening their insights into the nature of the human
predicament and the religious response through the study of ‘living human documents,' as well as
through books and journals and sermons and human reason. As we get to know him personally through
his life struggles and accomplishments, through his writings, his essays, and the oral history and
comments of his students and professional colleagues, a deeper respect, understanding and practical
usefulness of his method will enhance theological education in the twenty first century.

2. Richard Cabot

In 1925, Dr. Richard C. Cabot, father of medical social work, had written a plea for "A Clinical Year for
Theological Students" at Harvard. This called for an internship for theologicals similar to those in medical
school. Later, Anton Boisen gave credit to those on whom the success of this movement depended. He
named in addition to Dr. Cabot and Dr. Bryan, Dr. Charles F. Reed of Elgin State Hospital, Professor Fred
Eastman, later of Chicago Theological Seminary, who had supported him in his acute disturbances
beginning in 1920, Professor Arthur Holt, at Chicago in 1924. Boisen singled out the first supervisors,
Alek Dodd, Donald Beatty, Frank McPeek, Wayne Hunter, Fred Kuether, Carroll A. Wise, Seward Hiltner,
Russell Dicks, Philip Guiles and Rollin Fairbanks as those who enabled this form of ministry education to
rapidly expand. On January 21, 1930, Dr. Richard Cabot, Henry Wise Hobson, Episcopal Bishop, Samuel
Eliot of the Arlington Street Unitarian Church of Boston, William A. Healy of the Judge Baker Foundation,
and Ashely Day Leavitt of the Harvard Congregational Church, met in the study of Dr. Eliot, adopted a
constitution and bylaws, and signed the incorporation papers for the Council for Clinical Training of
Anton T. Boisen Richard Cabot Theological Students. Rev. Philip Guiles was made the Executive Secretary
and Helen Flanders Dunbar the Medical Director." Later in 1930, Helen Flanders Dunbar was made
Executive Director. “After the adoption of the “Constitution and Bylaws” the following officers were
chosen: Dr. Richard Cabot, President; Henry Hobson, Vice President; and Rev. Anton Boisen, Secretary;
Rev. Philip Guiles was then appointed field secretary. In 1932, Dr. Helen Flanders Dunbar moved the
Council for Clinical Training to New York, and a split developed involving Cabot and Guiles in New
England on one hand, and Boisen and Dunbar in New York on the other. The division grew larger that by
1935 a major break occurred. Cabot and Guiles from Boston separated from the New York group and,
later in 1944 formed the Institute for Pastoral Care. These two associations for clinical pastoral
education existed until 1967 and the formation of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc.
The ACPE formation also included the Lutheran Advisory Council and the Southern Baptist Association of
Clinical Pastoral Education consisting of a group of supervisors trained by Wayne Oates in Louisville. In
1931, Boisen was succeeded by Rev. Carroll Wise at Worcester State Hospital. Wise had a different view
of what clinical training was all about. Boisen was primarily a researcher of religious experience
connected to mental illness, and Carroll was interested in a pastoral emphasis. Carroll commented, “He
(Boisen) finally forgave me for changing the Worcester program from a research to a pastoral
emphasis.” Where is Boisen in the midst of these various rivalries, factions, fights, and formations? In
1930, Anton had another mental breakdown at the death of his mother. (He had five episodes during his
life.) Dr. Richard Cabot felt that his ability to function as a supervisor was put at risk, and he withdrew
his support to Anton. His influence in the day-to-day activity of CPE faded in the eyes of the Council for
Clinical Training for Theological Students after this serious episode of mental illness. So in 1932, Anton
Boisen packed up and went to Elgin State Hospital near Chicago. This brought him close to Chicago
Theological Seminary where he was teaching one semester a year; and to Alice Batchelder, the
unrequited love of his life, who worked in Chicago. He was chaplain and supervisor at Elgin until 1954.
He continued to make an impact on the pastoral care and education movement through his lecturing
and his writings. He contributed 164 articles, letters, and reviews, along with 4 books, and one hymnal
use in mental hospital settings. His 1936 book, “The Exploration of the Inner World” that he dedicated to
Alice who had recently died, was highly praised by the New York Times Review of books as being a
“significant contribution to the religious literature field.” Council for Clinical Training of Theological
Students The pastoral care and education movement became an organization on January 21, 1930 in the
home of Samuel Eliot, pastor of the Unitarian Church of Boston. The Council was originally formed in
Massachusetts, but later the headquarters moved to New York City. In the 1930s and 40s, with the
influence of strong personalities who were Directors of the Council, there emerged a divide between the
leadership within the Council. The two leaders were, Seward Hiltner and Robert Brinkman. The “Hiltner
tradition” (Director - 1935 to 1938) stressed theological reflection about human experience. To think
theologically included theological content as well as the terms of the "theological" setting in seminaries
as the locus of teaching. He enlisted many seminaries in the work of the Council. The “Brinkman school”
(Director -1938 to 46) emphasized science and psychology and subsumed the importance of pastoral
theology. The desire of Brinkman was "to enable students to gain a profound understanding of people,
their deeper motivation, their problems, their emotional and spiritual conflicts, their infirmities and their
strengths." It is conceded that in the long run Hiltner's position gained dominance, although an element
of Brinkman's stance remains to this day. Dr. Helen Flanders Dunbar, MD, PhD operated as director with
absolute authority until the mid-thirties. In 1935, Seward Hiltner came on board as Executive Secretary.
She and Hiltner did not see eye-to-eye, so she replaced Hiltner with David Brinkman as Administrative
Assistant. Hiltner stayed on as Executive Secretary until 1938 when he went to the Federal Council of
Churches. In these dawning years there was much jockeying for position and strong differences of
opinion regarding how CPE was to be administered. Brinkman was given more authority by Dunbar; and
by 1941, he and the supervisors emerged in control - a tenure that lasted until 1967. The Council grew
from three centers in 1930 to 20 in 1940 and from three supervisors to 19 during the same period.
Students consisted of from 16 initially in 1930 to 78 students in 1940. Institute for Pastoral Care In the
early years, 1925 through 1944, the New England group of supervisors and supporters included the Rev.
Austin Philip Guiles, Dr. Richard Cabot, MD, the Rev. Russell Dicks, Rev. Rollin Fairbanks, and Dr. Paul
Johnson, PhD. The New England group quickly expanded into general hospitals as centers for leaning. In
1944, a group of theological educators and chaplains in the Boston area incorporated as the Institute of
Pastoral Care. The Institute had close ties with the seminaries in the environs of Boston and nearby
areas of New England. However, Chicago Theological Seminary on the campus of the University of
Chicago was he first to officially have a supervisor and a training program. In Massachusetts, the
beginning of the Institute was in the halls of Newton Theological School (now called Andover-Newton) in
Newton, Massachusetts. The Institute has remained in close affiliation with seminaries and graduate
programs in theology. Beginning in 1932, Austin Philip Guiles found an opportunity to develop clinical
pastoral education as a part of a theological curriculum at Andover-Newton Theological School. Financial
assistance was provided by the Erhart Foundation, the family of Guiles's wife. The Andover-Newton
Project was developed with the aid of the President of Andover-Newton Theological School, Dr. Everett
Herrick, and Dr. Richard Cabot, MD, who came to Newton in 1934 from a renowned position at Harvard
Medical School. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was the major training center for students in
the Boston area. Rev. Russell Dicks was the training supervisor at Massachusetts General. He was the
first to use verbatim records of student's visits. President Herrick declared in support of the Andover-
Newton Project that “A curriculum must have a clinical character, related to experience and practice."
He continues later in the article, "It is time to stand up to our task and consider the place of theology in a
clinical curriculum.” In 1934, Philip Guiles identified the reasons for setting up a clinical project separate
from the Council. The nature, purpose, and location of clinical pastoral education (in seminaries) differed
markedly from the Council for Clinical Training. The Institute of Pastoral Care grew out of the Andover-
Newton Project in 1944. Lutheran Advisory Council A third group that emerged in the 1940s was the
Lutherans. In 1945, a Council for Clinical Training certified supervisor was installed at City Hospital in St.
Louis, Missouri. Prior to that date, the Lutheran Church/Missouri Synod had supplied chaplaincy for City
Hospital. This supervisor replaced a LCMS chaplain where Lutherans had held that position since 1915.
The Lutherans were awakened to the fact that their hospital chaplaincy was in jeopardy. In response, Dr.
Louis Sick, the President of Concordia Seminary, hired Rev. Ed Mahnke to the faculty of the seminary;
and he was sent off to get clinical training under Ernie Bruder and Henry Cassler of the Council. Ed
Mahnke returned and in 1947 supervised his first unit of training. Then, in semi-official meetings
throughout the 1940s, Lutherans from the various church bodies began to think together about clinical
pastoral education. Simultaneously, in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, Rev. Frederic Norstad, was a
supervisor. His training had been at City Hospital in Boston with Rev. John Billinsky, and at
Massachusetts Memorial Hospital with Rev. Leicester Potter, both Institute supervisors. He began to give
training to students in 1949 as Director of Chaplaincy Services of the Lutheran Welfare Society of
Minnesota. He had earned an S.T.M. at Andover-Newton Theological School, so he also was named
Professor of Practical Theology at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. In the 1950s, Lutheran supervisors
including Henry Cassler, J. Obert Kempson, Clarence Bruninga, and Granger Westburg were concerned
about the scarcity of pastoral theological education in CPE. Then, the Board of Social Welfare of the
LC/MS began a plan for the creation of a clinical pastoral program under Lutheran auspices for Lutheran
seminarians. In 1949, out of meetings of the several major Lutheran bodies, the Lutheran Advisory
Council on Pastoral Care emerged. Its purpose was to promote clinical training as part of theological
education, help seminaries to develop training centers, and establish standards for clinical training
programs. The Lutheran Advisory Council established standards in 1949 that were later adopted by the
National Conference of Certifying Associations and formed a large part of the standards for ACPE when
formed in 1967. At a Boston conference, representatives of the Lutheran Advisory Council, the Institute
for Pastoral Care, the Council for Clinical Training, and the Association of Seminary Professors in the
Practical Field sowed the first seeds for the formation of the Committee of Twelve which developed a
process that eventually emerged into the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education in 1967. The first
year of operation for ACPE, Inc. was 1968. Southern Baptist Association of Clinical Pastoral Education In
1957, the Southern Baptist Association of Clinical Pastoral Education was formed to provide certification
for primarily Southern Baptist chaplains. The Southern Baptist Association was developed by Dr. Wayne
Oates who provided a climate for CPE at the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville. Oates' careful
scholarship and unswerving enthusiasm for the pastoral care cause earned wide respect in the pastoral
care field. Baptist leaders, as Wayne Oates, Richard Young, Edward Thornton, and others, have insisted
that pastoral care functions emerge from a theological foundation and serve to strengthen and correct
theological knowledge. For Oates, learning focused on “training workers for a ministry that affirms the
Christian Gospel and builds pastoral skills to relate to people suffering from problems with which the
pastor will have to deal throughout her/his ministry. Association for Clinical Pastoral Education In
October of 1967, after several years of joint discussions and planning, the four groups merged into the
Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. at a meeting in Kansas City, MO. The organization has
three commissions: Standards, Accreditation of Centers, and Certification of Supervisors of clinical
pastoral education. Since 1969 it has been on the Federal Government's Department of Education's
Commissioner's list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies/associations in the field of clinical
pastoral education. This merger brought together the four existing ruling bodies for clinical pastoral
education. The disparate views of all four groups continued to exist, yet as a second and third
generation of supervisors appeared; along with the development of Standards certifying supervisors and
the accreditation of centers developed, the differences narrowed. Still today, Dr. Homer Jernigan at
Boston School of Religion asks, “Should there be an effort to recover and redefine the relations of CPE to
theological education? “The point-counter point of “head and heart” remains a vital aspect of the
clinical pastoral education model invested in the theological discipline of Pastoral Theology. The quest
goes on. The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. is divided into nine regions and is managed
by a Board of Representatives representing each of the regions. Also, one representative each from its
Council for Seminaries and its Council for Denominations Faith Groups is represented on the Board of
Representatives. The President of the Board is elected biannually. The Board employs an executive
director. The national office is in Decatur, Georgia. Regional and national conferences are held annually.
Its national archives are located at the Pitts Theology Library, Emory University in Decatur, GA. Regions
also have archival collections at theological seminaries to preserve the heritage of the Association. In the
beginning, and for at least 50 years, the Certified Supervisors were all male, mostly Protestant Christian,
and almost all white. When I (Robert Leas) was certified in 1974, there were two female certified
supervisors. Today, there are approximately 140 plus active women out of 670 active supervisors. Most
of the major faith groups in the USA are counted among supervisors - Protestant, Roman Catholicism,
Jewish, and Islamic. In 1981, the Racial Ethnic Minority (REM) group was formed to provide leadership in
recruiting African American and Hispanic students and supervisors. Today REM is one of the most active
and vital networks in ACPE. CPE is international today, with clergy and graduate students in theology
coming from a number of countries throughout the world along with the certification of international
clergy. CPE has grown in 80 years to include over 3,300 members that make up the Association for
Clinical Pastoral Education, with some 350 ACPE Accredited CPE Centers, and about 600 ACPE certified
faculty members (called CPE Supervisors). There are about 118 theological schools as members, and 21
faith groups/agencies who are partners with ACPE. The model of education that CPE represents is a vital
part of theological education today.

3. Helen Flanders Dunbar

Helen Flanders Dunbar was born in Chicago on 14 May 1902. She was the oldest child of Edith Vaughn
Flanders (1871-1963), an Episcopalian clergyman's daughter who was a professional genealogist, and
Francis William Dunbar (1868-1939), an electrical engineer and patent attorney. Helen's brother Francis
was born 8 March 1906; he earned an M.A. in botany at Stanford University. The household included
Dunbar's grandmother, Sarah Anne Ide Flanders (1827-1920), and her maiden aunt, Ellen Ide Flanders
(1868-1961). Dunbar received her early education from tutors and at private schools. She published her
1929 dissertation as H. Flanders Dunbar, and after 1939 was known simply as Flanders Dunbar. She
married Theodor Peter Wolfensberger (a.k.a. Theodore P. Wolfe, 1902-1954) in 1932; they were
divorced on 12 December 1939. On 13 July 1940 she married George Henry Soule (1888-1970), an
economist and editor of The New Republic. Their daughter Marcia Dunbar-Soule [Dobson] was born
within two years. Issues related to her own embodiment awakened Dunbar's later interest in
psychosomatic medicine. As a child, she suffered from pseudo infantile paralysis, a "rachitic, weakening
disease" (Powell, 1974, pp. 81-82), and in adolescence she was diagnosed with a "metabolic
disturbance" (p. 86). As an adult, she stood a mere 4'11", and her Bryn Mawr schoolmates (B.A. 1923)
dubbed her "Little Dunbar"; later, she always wore custom-built platform pumps. The "shy,
unsophisticated, and extremely vulnerable" (p. 87) Dunbar earned four graduate degrees (in theology,
philosophy, and medicine) from three different institutions in seven years. She managed these studies in
New York and New Haven in part by employing two secretaries/research assistants: Rosamund Grant
and Mary Ewer. Dunbar's interest in theology was reinforced by undergraduate courses with the
eminent psychologist of religion, James Henry Leuba. Dunbar wrote her B.D. thesis (Union Theological
Seminary, 1927) on Methods of Training in the Devotional Life Employed in the American Churches: this
involved the study of symbolism and ritual. During the summer of 1925, she was among the four
seminary students who trained at Worcester State Hospital with Anton Boisen, one of the co-founders
of the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) movement. Dunbar's thesis won her an Ely-Eby Landon Traveling
Fellowship, and in late 1929 she traveled to Europe to study "religion as the unifying power in personal
life and ... its relation to healing and development" (Powell, 1974, pp. 87-98). She studied under the
psychoanalytic internist Felix Deutsch at the General and Psychiatric-Neurological Hospitals of the
University of Vienna, and commuted to Zürich to study at Jung's Burghölzli Clinic. She conducted
research on psychic factors in disease by traveling to Lourdes and to other healing shrines in Germany
and Austria. Dunbar studied philosophy at Columbia University. She wrote her MA thesis (1924) on  The
Sun Symbol in Medieval Thought, and drafted a manuscript on The Medieval Mass in the West (1923-
1924). Her PhD dissertation (1929) on Symbolism in Medieval Thought and its Consummation in The
Divine Comedy earned her a permanent place in Dante scholarship: she applied biblical exegesis to her
interpretation, and demonstrated that "religion and science are not antagonistic but complementary
through symbolism" (Powell, 1974, p. 91), an idea that recurs in her psychosomatic medicine and links
her work to that of Boisen and Elwood Worcester. Dunbar matriculated for medical school at Yale
University, where classmates called her "Pocket Minerva" (p. 95). Before leaving for Europe, Dunbar
completed a subinternship in medicine and obstetrics, as well as work in "fluoroscopy of the heart and
electrocardiography" (p. 99). Her M.D. thesis (1930) was on The Optic Mechanisms and Cerebellum of
the Telescope Fish (Carassius Auratus Var.). From 1930 to 1942 Dunbar was the medical director of the
newly formed Council for Clinical Training of Theological Students, a role that immortalized her as the
matriarch of the CPE movement (see Holifield, 1983). Her departure from the Council was due in part to
her Freudian and Reichian ideas (Theodore Wolfe translated and advocated Reich's work). Dunbar
directed the Joint Committee on Religion and Medicine of the New York Academy of Medicine (1931-
1936): her book Emotions and Bodily Changes: A Survey of Literature on Psychosomatic
Interrelationships: 1910-1933 was a report to this committee. It became a classic, reprinted in 1938,
1946, and 1954. Within psychology, Dunbar is generally known as "the mother of holistic medicine"
(Stevens & Gardner, 1982, p. 93). In the early 1930s, Dunbar completed her residency and served as an
instructor at Columbia Medical College. As director of the psychosomatic research program (1932-1949),
she conducted holistic evaluations of more than 1,600 patients at the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital
that established the relationship between "personality constellation" and psychosomatic disorder.
Dunbar's books in this field are still "classics": Psychosomatic Diagnosis (1943) was the first
handbook: Mind and Body: Psychosomatic Medicine (1947) was the first best-seller. Her other books
include Synopsis of Psychosomatic Diagnosis and Treatment (1948), Your Child's Mind and Body: A
Practical Guide for Parents (1949), and Psychiatry and the Medical Specialties (1959), which appeared on
the day of her death. Dunbar founded the American Society for Research in Psychosomatic Problems
(American Psychosomatic Society) and its journal Psychosomatic Medicine: Experimental and Clinical
Studies. She edited Psychosomatic Medicine (1939-1947), Psychosomatic Medicine Monographs (1939-
1946), and Psychoanalytic Quarterly (1939-1940), and served on the editorial board of Personality:
Symposia on Topical Interests (1950+). She was an instructor at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute
(1941-1949).Dunbar's last years were difficult, and she sometimes handled the stress with alcohol.
Soule's views on social medicine created problems for her with the New York Academy of Medicine; a
secretary committed suicide in 1948, a patient (Raymond Roscoe Squier) in 1951; Dunbar was in a near-
fatal auto accident 1954; she had to defend herself against a senseless and sensational lawsuit. On 21
August 1959 Dunbar was "found floating face down in her swimming pool" (Powell, 1974, p. 275).
The New York Times and Herald-Tribune reported her death as a suicide; the coroner ruled it simply
death by drowning.

4. Paul Pruyser

Paul Willem Pruyser (1916–1987) was a Dutch-American clinical psychologist at the Menninger Clinic,

influenced by James, Freud, Otto, and Winnicott, one of the most famous contributors to the
psychological theories of religion. He created the Psychology and Culture model, which discusses the
three "Worlds" in which people live — The Autistic, The Illusionistic, and The Realistic. In his book The
Minister as Diagnostician (1976), Pruyser affirmed the theological expertise and clinical authority of
hospital chaplains on interdisciplinary healthcare teams.

Paul W. Pruyser (1916–1987) was a clinical psychologist who, especially by means of his prolific
writing, contributed greatly to the psychology of religion while working at the Menninger Clinic in
Topeka, Kansas (now located in Houston, Texas). His monographs include A Dynamic Psychology of
Religion (1968), Between Belief and Unbelief (1974), The Psychological Examination (1979), and The
Play of the Imagination (1983). He edited Diagnosis and the Difference it Makes (1976b) and Changing
Views of the Human Condition (1987). And, with Karl Menninger and Martin Mayman, he wrote The
Vital Balance (1963). In addition to these books, he also wrote some 30 book chapters and 80 journal
articles. Pruyser also contributed to the field of psychology of religion by serving as President of the
Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and by serving on the editorial boards for  The Journal for
the Scientific Study of Religion and Pastoral Psychology.
 5. Karl Menninger

Karl Augustus Menninger (July 22, 1893 – July 18, 1990) was an American psychiatrist and a member of
the Menninger family of psychiatrists who founded the Menninger Foundation and the Menninger
Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.
Biography

Menninger was born on July 22, 1893 in Topeka, Kansas, the son of Florence Vesta (Kinsley) and Charles
Frederick Menninger. In addition to studying at Washburn University, Indiana University and
the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he also studied medicine at Harvard Medical School. He
graduated from the school cum laude in 1917.[1] While at Washburn, he was a member of the Alpha
Delta Fraternity, a local group. In 1960 he was inducted into the school's Sagamore Honor Society.
Beginning with an internship in Kansas City, Menninger worked at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital and
taught at Harvard Medical School. In 1919, he returned to Topeka where, together with his father,  he
founded the Menninger Clinic. By 1925, they had attracted enough investors, including brother William
C. Menninger, to build the Menninger Sanitarium. His book, The Human Mind, which explained the
science of psychiatry, was published in 1930.
The Menninger Foundation was established in 1941. After World War II, Karl Menninger was
instrumental in founding the Winter Veterans Administration Hospital, in Topeka. It became the largest
psychiatric training center in the world. He was among the first members of the Society for General
Systems Research.[4]
In 1946 he founded the Menninger School of Psychiatry. It was renamed in his honor in 1985 as the Karl
Menninger School of Psychiatry and Mental Health Science. In 1952, Karl Targownik, who would become
one of his closest friends, joined the Clinic.
Personal life
Menninger married Grace Gaines in 1916, with whom he had three children: Martha, Julia and
Robert.The couple divorced in February 1941. Menninger remarried on September 9, 1941, taking
Jeanette Lyle as his wife. Together they adopted a daughter named Rosemary in 1948. [1] He died
of abdominal cancer.
In popular culture
  Author Chaim Potok quoted Menninger on the dedication page of his novel, The
Chosen (1967).
 Renee Richards quoted Menninger on the dedication page of her memoir, Second
Serve (1983).
 In the 1995 biographical film Killer: A Journal Of Murder, Menninger is portrayed by John
Bedford Lloyd, as the psychiatrist in charge of testing the sanity of serial killer Carl Panzram.
 Karl Menninger figures in the French film (in the English language) Jimmy P: Psychotherapy
of a Plains Indian(2013), portrayed by Larry Pine.

Work
During his career, Menninger wrote a number of influential books. In his first book,  The Human Mind,
Menninger argued that psychiatry was a science and that the mentally ill were only slightly different
from healthy individuals. In The Crime of Punishment, Menninger argued that crime was preventable
through psychiatric treatment; punishment was a brutal and inefficient relic of the past. He advocated
treating offenders like the mentally ill.
His subsequent books include The Vital Balance, Man Against Himself and Love Against Hate.
Honors

 In 1981, Menninger was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.

 In 1985, the Menninger School of Psychiatry was named for him.

Letter to Thomas Szasz

On October 6, 1988, less than two years before his death, Karl Menninger wrote a letter to Thomas
Szasz, author of The Myth of Mental Illness.
In the letter, Menninger said that he has just read Szasz's book Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences.
Menninger wrote that neither of them liked the situation in which insanity separates men from men and
free will is forgotten. After recounting the lack of scientific method in psychology over the years,
Menninger expressed his regret that he did not come over to a dialogue with Szasz.

Publications

 1930. The Human Mind. Garden City, NY: Garden City Pub. Co.
 1931. From Sin to Psychiatry, an Interview on the Way to Mental Health with Dr. Karl A.
Menninger [by] L. M. Birkhead. Little Blue Books Series #1585. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-
Julius Press.
 1938. Man Against Himself. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
 1942. Love Against Hate
 1950. Guide to Psychiatric Books; with a Suggested Basic Reading List. New York: Grune &
Stratton.
 1952. Manual for Psychiatric Case Study. New York: Grune & Stratton.
 1958. Theory of Psychoanalytic Technique. New York: Basic Books.
 1959. A Psychiatrist’s World: Selected Papers. New York: Viking Press.
 1963. The Vital Balance: The Life Process in Mental Health and Illness. New York: Viking
Penguin.
  1968. Das Leben als Balance; seelische Gesundheit und Krankheit im Lebensprozess.
München: R. Piper.
 1968. The Crime of Punishment. New York: Penguin Books.
 1972. A Guide to Psychiatric Books in English [by] Karl Menninger. New York: Grune &
Stratton.
 1973. Whatever Became of Sin?. New York: Hawthorn Books.
 1978. The Human Mind Revisited: Essays in Honor of Karl A. Menninger. Edited by Sydney
Smith. New York: International Universities Press.
 1985. Conversations with Dr. Karl Menninger (sound recording)

6. Norman Vincent Peale

Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) was a religious leader who developed a blend of psychotherapy and
religion based on the idea that nearly all basic problems are personal. He spread this message through
his radio and television programs and through his popular book The Power of Positive Thinking and
other writings.

Norman Vincent Peale was born in the small Ohio town of Bowersville on May 31, 1898, son of the local
Methodist minister. The family moved frequently, in the Methodist itinerant tradition. They were not
wealthy, and young Peale earned money delivering papers, working in a grocery store, and selling pots
and pans door-to-door.

Graduating in 1920 from Ohio Wesleyan, a Methodist-founded college, Peale worked as a reporter on
two newspapers, the Findlay (Ohio) Morning Republican and the Detroit Journal, for about a year before
deciding that his life work lay elsewhere. Ordained to the Methodist ministry in 1922, he took a master's
degree and an S.T.B. (Bachelor of Sacred Theology), both in 1924, from the theological school at Boston
University. Faculty members at BU were religious liberals, many interested in the relationship between
psychology and religion—a life-long concern of Peale's.

After serving from 1922 to 1924 as pastor in Berkeley, Rhode Island and then from 1924 to 1927 in
Brooklyn, New York, Peale crowned his Methodist career with an appointment to University Methodist
Church in Syracuse, New York. He married Loretta Ruth Stafford, herself an active church worker, in
1930.
In 1932 Peale changed his denomination from Methodist to Dutch Reformed, when he moved to the
300-year-old Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. This church traced its parish life back to Dutch
New Amsterdam and was to be Peale's home church for the next half-century.

Peale and Smiley Blanton, a psychoanalyst, established a religio-psychiatric outpatient clinic next door to
the church. The two men wrote books together, notably Faith Is the Answer: A Psychiatrist and a Pastor
Discuss Your Problems (1940). In 1951 this blend of psychotherapy and religion grew into the American
Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry, with Peale serving as president and Blanton as executive director.
Peale started a radio program, "The Art of Living," in 1935. Under sponsorship of the National Council of
Churches he moved into television when the new medium arrived. In the meantime he had begun to
edit the magazine Guideposts and to write books: The Art of Living (1937), A Guide to Confident
Living (1948), and most notably, The Power of Positive Thinking (1952).
Peale's books enjoyed only a modest circulation until the great religion boom after World War II, a
movement of which Peale was both a maker and a beneficiary. By the early 1950s the publishing climate
for books like Peale's was highly favorable. Publisher's Weekly noted (January 23, 1954) that "the theme
of religion dominates the non-fiction best-sellers in 1953," including such gems as The Power of Prayer
on Plants and Pray Your Weight Away. The most successful such book, The Power of Positive
Thinking, was on the New York Times best-seller list for three years and was translated into 33
languages.

If Peale had his ardent admirers, he had also his vocal detractors. He was accused of watering down the
traditional doctrines of Christianity, of stressing materialistic rewards, and of counseling people to
accept social conditions rather than reform them. Also, his best-known book was replete with "two 15-
minute formulas," "a three-point program," "seven simple steps," "eight practical formulas," and "ten
simple rules." Some readers found his message too easy to be plausible.

Asked to compare Peale with St. Paul, the two-time presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson of Illinois
quipped that he found Paul appealing and Peale appalling. That remark perhaps reflected political bias.
Boston University's liberalism may have loosened Peale's theology, but it did not seem to influence his
politics. For a time Peale was chairman of the ultraconservative Committee for Constitutional
Government, which lobbied vigorously against New Deal measures. In 1960 Peale, as spokesman for 150
Protestant clergymen, opposed the election of John Kennedy as president. "Faced with the election of a
Catholic," Peale declared, "our culture is at stake." The uproar resulting from that pronouncement
caused the pastor to back off from further formal partisan commitments, possibly to avoid offending
part of the mass audience for his primary religio-psychological message. He was, however, politically and
personally close to President Nixon's family. In 1968 he officiated at the wedding of Julie Nixon and
David Eisenhower. He continued calling at the White House throughout the Watergate crisis, saying
"Christ didn't shy away from people in trouble." It has been argued that even his "positive thinking"
message was by implication politically conservative: "The underlying assumption of Peale's teaching was
that nearly all basic problems were personal."

In 1984 Peale was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan. In that same year,
after 52 years at the pulpit, Peale retired from preaching at Marble Collegiate Church. For the next seven
years he spoke to an average of 100 groups a year (a live audience numbered in the millions) and made
frequent television and radio appearances. During this time he also produced more than a dozen books.
Peale died at his home in Pawling, New York on December 24, 1993, at the age of 95. He was survived by
his wife Ruth and their three children.

7. Smiley Blanton

An American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Smiley Blanton was born in 1882 in Unionville, Tennessee,
and died on October 30, 1966, in New York. A patient of Freud, his Diary of My Analysis with
Freud appeared in 1971. Born in the South into a family of strict Presbyterians, he studied medicine
at Cornell University, became an M.D. in 1914, and was trained in psychiatry by Dr. A. Meyers at Johns
Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. After serving in World War I, he received a degree in neurology and
psychological medicine from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in London in 1922-23.

He taught at the University of Minneapolis, where he had created the first child guidance clinic
associated with a public school; then, in 1927, created a nursery school at Vassar College in
Poughkeepsie, New York. Two years later he moved to New York City, intending to practice
psychoanalysis. Through George Amsden, who was leaving to be analyzed by Sándor Ferenczi, he
replaced Clinton McCord, who had just finished his analysis with Freud.

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The first period of the analysis began on August 31, 1929, in Berchtesgaden, where Freud spent his
vacations. Blanton later described his first meeting with Freud: "A small, frail and graying man suddenly
appeared and moved toward me to greet me. Although he seemed older than in the photographs I was
familiar with, I recognized the silhouette that approached me to be that of Freud. Cigar in hand, he
spoke to me almost timidly."

Blanton took great care in recording Freud's remarks, which were frequent and lengthy; Freud also
provided numerous suggestions on analytic technique, avoided interpreting his patient's colitis, asked
him not to write down his dreams, and added, "For an analyst not to relate his dreams, now that's a sign
of serious resistance!" He would soon involve him in his research concerning Shakespeare's identity.

From September to the end of October, Blanton followed Freud to the Schloss Tegel clinic in Berlin, and
then resumed his analysis in Vienna. He was again forced to interrupt his analysis at the end of April
when Freud went to the Sanatorium Cottage of Vienna and then to Berlin for treatment of his heart
problems. At the end of Blanton's analysis, on May 30, Freud provided him with a letter of
recommendation to Ernest Jones: "I would like to introduce you to Dr. Smiley Blanton. He is a pleasant
man, especially interested in the orientation of children (Vassar College). He has undergone six months
of personal analysis with me; I think he will return home a sincere believer in PsA."

Five years later, in August 1935, Blanton had a further two weeks of analysis with Freud, who was then
at his vacation home in Grinzing. Freud accepted payments before the sessions began by saying, "I
accept them on account. If I happen to die before the fortnight is over, they will be returned to you!"
During the analysis Freud spoke about Ferenczi and technique—Blanton was now seeing patients of his
own—signed a copy of the Interpretation of Dreams for him, and, when Blanton left on August 17, after
expressing his wish to return the following year, responded, "I regret that I cannot promise I will be here
. . . ."

However, two years later, on August 1, 1937, Blanton was again in Grinzing with Freud. He described
him as "more alert and more dynamic than he was two years ago . . . His hearing remains poor, but no
more than it was two years ago." While planning a trip to London, their discussion turned to phenomena
that Freud was skeptical of, such as parapsychology, "with the exception of telepathy, whose existence
is possible and which deserves to be studied."

In London, on August 30, 1938, Blanton saw Freud for a final week of therapy that lasted until
September 7, the day before Freud was scheduled for a new operation. Blanton resumed his habit of
recording his dreams and investigating the resistance that occurred during their interpretation. As for
Freud, "he appeared to me as dynamic, alert, and lucid as ever." But, Freud confided to him, "At my age
it's natural that one thinks of death. Those who think about death and talk about it are those who are
not afraid, while those who are afraid neither think about it nor talk about it." Blanton added, on
September 5, 1938, "In reading these pages, it will become apparent that the professor spoke often to
me of death."

Later in his career, Blanton collaborated with Norman Vincent Peale in establishing the American
Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry. They opened the Religio-Psychiatric Clinic at the Marble
Collegiate Church on lower Fifth Avenue, where free assistance was offered to people suffering from
emotional disturbances such as anxiety and depression. The clinic also trained clergymen of all
denominations to help people deal with their emotional difficulties. Blanton and Peale wrote several
books together, most notably their first collaboration, Faith Is the Answer: A Pastor and a Psychiatrist
Discuss Your Problems.