Pastoral counseling in the 21st century: the centrality of community

In this article, I argue that the notion of ecclesia or faith community is a central, existential anthropological premise that can shape how we understand facets of pastoral counseling such as diagnosis, process, and aims. Implicit here is the idea that the distinctiveness of pastoral counseling lies not simply in accountability and authority vis-à-vis community, but in its use of a communitarian anthropology to understand the importance of community for psychosocial development, resiliency, and healing. I argue further that in the 21st century the centrality of the notion of community is, and will continue to be, critical, because of political and economic forces that undermine community, giving rise to psychosocial alienation, depression, etc.