Empathy in Pastoral Counseling: Cultivating a Clinical Virtue of Christian Incarnation
Abstract
This article develops a model for training in the virtuous ability of empathy in pastoral care and counseling. It introduces empathy as a clinical practice of Christian incarnation and proposes a new meaning with implications for pastoral and practical theology. If empathy were defined as a virtue that canbe practiced and acquired by anyone rather than an innate ability that only certain people have, how could counselors be trained in this clinical virtue? How could counselors practice the ‘ability to step into the client’s shoes’ in an empathic way? It is particularly crucial to develop this empathy-ability because of the expectations that Koreans bring to any kind of counseling relationship.
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