352 - The Supervision of Pastoral Care

The Supervision of Pastoral Care
By David A. Steere, ed
Louisville, Westminster/John Knox, 1989. 287 pp. $19.95.

Seward Hiltner, one of the fathers of the CPE movement, and certainly the most published, would have been pleased with this book. When Seward was a patient in our hospital, one of his refrains put to me directly was, "Why don't you CPE supervisors do more writing?" Well, Seward, David Steere and a band of writers who know what they are talking about, have produced the first of its kind-a book about "the supervision of pastoral care," deeply rooted in the CPE tradition and yet up to date.

A CPE-type review of this book, however, must begin with a pointed critique-lifting up both weaknesses and strengths. Like our evaluations of our students, such a critique springs from our supervisor-type perceptions that there is usually a close relationship between weakness and strength in a given person or document.

This book's strength lies in its completeness. It is really more of a library on pastoral supervision than a coherent treatise on supervision. Perhaps Seward Hiltner would have suggested calling it "A Preface to Pastoral Supervision." But this suggestion points to the weakness. Because it is an edited book, there is here a disjointed and somewhat relative-quality-in writing. To my mind, the book is better written than it is edited. The editor's four chapters are carefully documented and reflect his experience and idiosyncratic style. But his editing should have assisted the reader with an outline, and perhaps a renumbering of the various chapters. He does this in his preface, so prospective readers are advised to check this carefully as few will give equal attention to each part or each chapter.

As a clinical supervisor working in a general hospital, I found Steere's opening three chapters the strongest in the book. His final chapter on supervision for training supervisors in field education was equally strong; field education departments, and "teaching church" arrangements will want to digest this material. Chapters 4-7 are excellent nuts-and-bolts assists for supervision from both sides of the supervisory dyad. Chapters 8-11 look at the process from different perspectives, and Darryl Tiller's "The Self As Instrument" was as good a single article on supervision as I have seen. Pastors, working with teachers, and volunteers will be guided by clear thinking in chapters 15 and 16. But the material on transference, gender issues, and passivity (chapters 12-14), while well presented, is largely introductory, and should be considered such.

Every accredited CPE center should own this book, and selected chapters will be valuable for use with students. Supervisors will be pleased to see that such "old timers" as David Steere and George Bennett (to whom the book is posthumously dedicated) are balanced with the new blood of folk like Kathleen Ogden Davis and Barbara Sheehan. It would have been a fatal mistake to fall back too heavily on the "old boys" network.

Finally, I note a deficit in references to "The Journal of Supervision and Training in Ministry" (published annually by the North Central Region of A.C.P.E. and The Central Region of A.A.P.C.). This eleven-year-old journal, like the book being reviewed, makes a start at giving creative, systematic, and learned statements on the supervision of pastoral care, but readers of Steere's book should have been directed to the journal. Lest there be any doubt on the subjectthis is an excellent piece of work. The most personal comment I can make is that I wish I had edited/written it!

Daniel C. DeArment
Presbyterian Medical Center of Philadelphia