Summer 2013

This two week intensive hands-on training and supervision will prepare chaplains to provide basic counseling to individuals, couples, and families, with special attention to Muslim cases. The course will provide a framework for how to set up counseling sessions, effectively interact and establish a therapeutic relationship through an empathic interactional style, establish appropriate boundaries, screen and identify mental illness, offer basic interventions and refer people to the appropriate mental health professional. We will review some of the basic principles of transference-countertransference, cognitive-behavioral theory, Emotion-Focused Therapy, integrative behavioral couples therapy, rational emotive behavioral therapy, and the role of the spiritual healing in the Islamic tradition. Specific skills that will be taught include empathic listening, emotional reprocessing, facilitating introspection, mental health screening techniques, and how to deal and diffuse emotionally intense and/or volatile situations. This is an experiential course that will involve lecture, discussion, modeling/demonstrations of technique and role-play. While these are critical skills for Islamic chaplains to learn, chaplains from other faith traditions may benefit from learning how to counsel across cultures and faith traditions, using the Muslim tradition as a case example. Dr. Hamid will be aided in teaching this course by Hooman Keshavarzi. Prerequisite: AM-653 Mental Health: An Islamic Perspective or permission of the instructor.

This course will provide an orientation to the role of the chaplain and methods suitable to the contexts in which chaplains characteristically serve including: schools, colleges, and universities, prisons, health care facilities, fire and police departments, and the military. Students will be introduced to the 29 competencies expected of board-certified chaplains (and valuable to all chaplains) and practical information for service in spiritually and culturally diverse contexts.

This eight-day intensive training program offers a practical foundation for mutual understanding and cooperation among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Participants learn about the tenets and practices of the three faiths, study texts from their respective scriptures together, attend worship at a mosque, synagogue, and church, and acquire pastoral skills useful in interfaith ministry. Combining the academic and the experiential, the course includes ample time for socializing over meals and during breaks. Building on Hartford Seminary’s strengths as an interfaith, dialogical school of practical theology, this team-taught program is a resource for religious leaders who are grounded in their own traditions while open to the faith orientations of other communities. Due to the interfaith nature of this course, we aim for equal representation among each of the three Abrahamic traditions in admitting students to this course.