The Negative Self-Image of Korean Women and Pastoral Responses

The purpose of this thesis is to study Korean women’s negative self-image, to analyze it through different angles and to suggest a pastoral approach to help such women have a healthy self-image. There are two facts that inspired me to begin this thesis. One is that a mother’s role is still critical for child development in spite of rapid social change. The other is the need to develop a pastoral counseling model based on stories in the Bible to help mothers have a healthier self-image. This thesis will thus analyze Korean women’s self-image from cultural, psychological and theological viewpoints and suggest a pastoral model to help women develop a more positive self-image. There are many situations in Korean society that affect Korean women’s self-image negatively. This is critical, because a woman’s negative self-image can lead to her child also developing a negative self-image as a girl or woman. In addition, pastoral counseling faces many challenges. One is how pastoral counselors interpret social phenomena from theological viewpoint and the other is what pastoral model might be able to help them to fight the problems they are struggling. This is important because it is associated with finding the identity of pastoral counseling that differentiates it from other secular therapies. In order to answer these challenges, this study will analyze Korean women’s negative self-image from cultural, psychological, and theological points of view. Chapter one will deal with the definition of their negative self-image and consider Confucianism as a mega cultural source affecting development of a negative self-image in Korean woman. Chapter two will look at family influence on their negative self-image development from a psychological view. Chapter three will consider theological analysis of development of self-image. The last chapter will suggest a pastoral model based on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 5. This chapter will define this encounter as a moment of hope and will consider how Jesus changed that woman through three pastoral steps.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD