Renewing Pastoral Practice: Trinitarian Perspectives on Pastoral Care and Counselling

This is the first comprehensive treatment of the relationship between the doctrine of the Trinity and pastoral care and counseling. Neil Pembroke contends that an in-depth reflection on the relational dynamics in the Godhead has the capacity to radically renew pastoral practice. Pembroke applies the notion of relational space to care in a parish setting. The life of the triune God is defined by both closeness and open space. Pembroke shows how this Trinitarian virtue is at the center of three key counseling dynamics: the counseling alliance, empathy, and mirroring.

Neil Pembroke is Lecturer in Pastoral Studies at the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, University of Queensland, Australia.