본 소고에서 연구자는 카톨릭과 개신교도 모두의 존경의 대상인 헨리 나우엔의 실천적 생애와 그의 저서들을 통해 목회상담자가 얻을 수 있는 지혜를 고찰하고자 하였다. 그는 사제 서품을 받은 후에 심리학을 전공했으며, 메닝거 클리닉에서 임상 경험을 통해 신학과 심리학을 통합할 수 있는 안목을 갖게 되었다. 이에 대한 한 예로 그의 가장 대표적인 저서인 ‘상처입은 치유자’에서 인간에게 있어서 상처는 공통적이고 보편적임을 강조하였다. 그리고 교회 공동체에서 사역자들은 상담의 현장에서 자신의 상처를 치료의 가능한 자원으로 사용할 것을 제안한다. 자신의 고난과 상처에 대한 올바른 인식이야 말로 돌봄 목회 사역의 출발점이 된다.
나우엔에게서 상담의 목적은 인간의 죄책감, 억눌림, 상처로부터의 해방과 인간의 욕망을 정리하는 것이다. 그 상담의 과정은 인간 내면의 세계가 영적으로 한 단계 도약하는 것을 의미하며, 상담의 기술적인 면에서 상담자는 내담자의 안전한 장소 역할을 우선적으로 해야 함을 주장한다. 오늘날 목회 상담자들이 그에게서 배울 수 있는 지혜는 하나님과의 관계를 중심으로 한 영성과 심리학을 바탕으로 한 인간에 이해라고 할 수 있는데, 이것이 바로 나우엔이 많은 이에게 보여준 견고한 균형성이며, 외로움으로 인해 고통을 당하는 자들에게 사랑받는 이유이기도 하다.
This article deals with Henry Nouwen’s contribution to pastoral care and healing ministry. While pastors view their involvement in faith communities in which they live and work as guiding people toward a life of wholeness and integrity, they realized that they are not well-prepared enough or equipped as pastoral counselors. This paper investigates how pastors can get some helpful wisdom and knowledge from Henry Nouwen. As a Catholic theologian, Henry Nouwen has gained much popularity and respect in Christian circles. Nouwen combined a strong devotion to God with a comforting yet distinctly intellectual style that strikes a strong and sympathetic cord. Many pastors, professors, and lay people are attracted to his deep thinking and insightful healing approach for those who live in post-modern society. This paper explores Henri Nouwen's four representative books among more than fifty published books, 'Wounded healer', 'Reaching out', 'Bread for the journey', and 'Adam' to discover the lessons and insights for helping professionals, especially pastoral counselors.
Born in Nijkerk, Holland, Nouwen felt called to the priesthood at a very young age due to his family environment. After ordination as a diocesan priest he studied psychology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. And then he moved to the United States to study at the Menninger Clinic, in which he equipped himself as professional counselor. He went on to teach at the University of Notre Dame, and the Divinity Schools of Yale and Harvard. For several months during his sabbatical years, Nouwen lived and worked with the Trappist monks in the Abbey of the Genesee, and he had experienced genuine intimacy with God. After realizing his calling from God, he joined L’Arche in France, the first of over 100 communities founded by Jean Vanier where people with developmental disabilities live with assistants. A year later Nouwen came to make his home at L’Arche Daybreak near Toronto, Canada.
The above mentioned literatures provide the necessary and essential insights for pastoral counseling in faith community. He describes what he calls the "nuclear man", characterized by historical dislocation, fragmented ideology and the search for immortality. This concept comes close to the common concept of the individualistic, post-modern, social constructionist man. He describes 'tomorrow's generation' as inward, fatherless and convulsive. From that, he derives 'tomorrow's leader', 'minister' or 'healer' as an articulator of inner events (through articulating his own experiences, one can understand and help others recognize the work of God in themselves), a man of compassion (as a base of his authority) and a contemplative man - a man of deep prayer.
Weaving keen cultural analysis with his psychological and religious insights, Nouwen has come up with a balanced and creative theology of service that begins with the realization of fundamental wounds in human nature. Emphasizing that which is in humanity common to both minister and believer, this wound can serve as a source of strength and healing when counseling others.
It is his contention that ministers are called to recognize the sufferings of their time in their own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of their service. For Nouwen, ministers must be willing to go beyond their professional role and leave themselves open as fellow human beings with the same wounds and suffering -- in the image of Christ. In other words, we heal from our own wounds. For Nouwen, the purpose of pastoral counseling is to deal with guilty feeling, oppression, liberation from wounds and desire that human beings possess. After coming to a concise understanding of the characteristics of a his view of human being, Christian healer, and pastoral counselor, this article suggests two wisdom for the pastoral counselors: spiritually well-equipped pastoral counselor, and concrete understanding of human being.