An Exploration and Adaptation of Anton T. Boisen's Notion of the Psychiatric Chaplain in Responding to Current Issues in Clinical Chaplaincy

The author of this dissertation responds, within the context of pastoral theology, to clinical chaplaincy’s increasingly isolated and diminished place in contemporary North American health care delivery. The dissertation explores what is particular about clinical chaplaincy by focusing on its origin: that is, it analyzes the life and work of Anton T. Boisen (1876-1965), with specific attention to both Boisen’s mental health context and his explicitly pastoral and theological intentions. The author argues for a contemporary and adaptive retrieval of Boisen’s original innovation: the specific position of the clinical psychiatric chaplain. Literary research is used to analyse Boisen in critical dialogue first with the historical insight of clinical psychologist Paul Pruyser (1916-1987) that the innovation of the psychiatric clinical chaplain as a member of the multi-disciplinary team is rooted in Boisen’s fascination with his own life. Second, this author analyses the hitherto mostly archived, understudied, and largely unpublished doctoral efforts of Boisen’s seminal contribution to chaplaincy by pastoral theologian Henri Nouwen (1932-1996). Nouwen strategically recasts this contribution by linking it to Boisen’s experience of alienation, an effect of his mental illness. Third, the author engages the work of practical theologian John Swinton (b.1957) as a contemporary echo of Boisen’s commitment to an ecclesiological dimension for mental health care. Fourth, the author uses Charles Taylor’s (b.1931) recent philosophical work to suggest that Boisen’s pioneering contributions may continue to inform, in significant ways, the contemporary search for God among those living with mental health issues. The author concludes the dissertation by offering a conceptual framework which makes room for a religiously spiritual clinical chaplaincy within the multi-disciplinary team: the ‘re-membering God’ model, based on Nouwen’s insights into Boisen and on the anthropological work of Barbara Myerhoff (1935-1985). The dissertation applies these findings in the specific context of Catholic sponsored mental health care, suggesting that the ‘re-membering God’ model is not only significant for the future of chaplaincy as a professional discipline, but also has important pastoral implications for mental health care ministry.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD