A Chaplain is a Spiritual Care professional who:
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- has a specific spiritual/humanist orientation, training, and practice
- offers a broad spectrum of emotional support and spiritual solace/ritual
- attends to patients/residents, their family members, and other professional caregivers
- works primarily in secular settings that are prone to trauma, life crisis, and existential human suffering such as a hospitals, prisons, the military, government, law enforcement, airports.
While many chaplains have a traditional religious orientation, some chaplains are “spiritual but not religious,” and are secular or humanist. All are trained in interfaith practice to offer emotional support, attuned compassionate care and solace, to individuals, their families, and employees, as well as prayer and ritual when that is sought. As interfaith practitioners, we are specifically trained to set our particular spiritual aside in order to meet people where they are, attuning and responding to what would best serve their needs.
In recent years, schools, mental health facilities, eldercare facilities, & nonprofit/social justice corporations also have in-house or on-call chaplains to offer compassionate and skillful emotional and spiritual care in the face of distress and trauma. There has been a notable trend in the rise of Zen Chaplaincy in the US, perhaps because Zen is a “spiritual but not religious” orientation that is primarily psychological and philosophical for the majority of its western practitioners. Most buddhists chaplains do not go to theological seminaries but attend programs expressly for buddhist chaplaincy.
Counseling and Chaplaincy
I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and a contemplative-based chaplain. If, when, and how I integrate these into my clinical work with clients depends on what best serves client’s needs. I’ve developed the ENSO Model of Embodied Relational Care and train a wide variety of professional caregivers (medical, educators, mental health, and social justice advocates). I have a clinical private practice where I see adolescents, adults, and couples in my office (2525 Wallingwood Drive, Building 9, Suite 901, near MoPac and Bee Caves Road), and I work at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center a couple of days/week.
As a zen practitioner, I did my two-year buddhist chaplaincy training at Upaya Zen Center in Sante Fe, NM under the guidance of Roshi Joan Halifax, rather than attend seminary. Like many western Buddhist practitioners, buddhism is a spiritual but secular psychological and philosophical orientation, and a daily practice in mindfulness, compassionate presence, service, and skillful means. I did my Clinical Pastoral Education training at Seton Hospital, in 2015-2016, and am a Chaplain at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center (2016 to present), where I work with patients, family members, and teach science-based mindfulness practice to medical professionals.