an exploration and adaptation of anton t. boisen's notion of the psychiatric chaplain in responding

291 Pages·2012·1.54 MB·English

AN EXPLORATION AND ADAPTATION OF
ANTON T. BOISEN’S NOTION OF THE PSYCHIATRIC CHAPLAIN
IN RESPONDING TO CURRENT ISSUES IN CLINICAL CHAPLAINCY

by
Christopher E. De Bono

A Thesis submitted to the
Faculty of Theology of the University of St. Michael’s College
and the Pastoral Department of the Toronto School of Theology
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Theology
Awarded by the University of St. Michael’s College

© Christopher E. De Bono, 2012
An Exploration and Adaptation of
Anton T. Boisen’s Notion of the Psychiatric Chaplain
in Responding to Current Issues in Clinical Chaplaincy

Christopher E. De Bono
Doctor of Philosophy in Theology
The University of St. Michael’s College
and The Pastoral Department of the Toronto School of Theology
2012

Abstract
The author of this dissertation responds, within the context of pastoral theology, to
clinical chaplaincy’s increasingly isolated and diminished place in contemporary North
American health care delivery. The dissertation explores what is particular about clinical
chaplaincy by focusing on its origin: that is, it analyzes the life and work of Anton T. Boisen
(1876-1965), with specific attention to both Boisen’s mental health context and his explicitly
pastoral and theological intentions. The author argues for a contemporary and adaptive retrieval
of Boisen’s original innovation: the specific position of the clinical psychiatric chaplain.
Literary research is used to analyse Boisen in critical dialogue first with the historical
insight of clinical psychologist Paul Pruyser (1916-1987) that the innovation of the psychiatric
clinical chaplain as a member of the multi-disciplinary team is rooted in Boisen’s fascination
with his own life. Second, this author analyses the hitherto mostly archived, understudied, and
largely unpublished doctoral efforts of Boisen’s seminal contribution to chaplaincy by pastoral
theologian Henri Nouwen (1932-1996). Nouwen strategically recasts this contribution by linking
it to Boisen’s experience of alienation, an effect of his mental illness. Third, the author engages
the work of practical theologian John Swinton (b.1957) as a contemporary echo of Boisen’s
commitment to an ecclesiological dimension for mental health care. Fourth, the author uses
Charles Taylor’s (b. 1931) recent philosophical work to suggest that Boisen’s pioneering
contributions may continue to inform, in significant ways, the contemporary search for God
among those living with mental health issues.
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The author concludes the dissertation by offering a conceptual framework which makes
room for a religiously spiritual clinical chaplaincy within the multi-disciplinary team: the ‘re-
membering God’ model, based on Nouwen’s insights into Boisen and on the anthropological
work of Barbara Myerhoff (1935-1985). The dissertation applies these findings in the specific
context of Catholic sponsored mental health care, suggesting that the ‘re-membering God’ model
is not only significant for the future of chaplaincy as a professional discipline, but also has
important pastoral implications for mental health care ministry.

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Acknowledgements

Although my name appears as the author, and indeed I am ultimately responsible for its
success and failures, this dissertation is more than just mine. I am especially indebted, as Anton
T. Boisen would say, to the “living human documents” who shared with me their journey into
that not so faraway “little-known country” of mental illness. It was by listening to the spiritual
lives of psychiatric patients, especially while I worked at the Mental Health Centre
Penetanguishene (now Waypoint), that I first began to ponder the uncertain status quo of
clinical chaplaincy.
I thank foremost my doctoral director, psychologist Joseph Schner SJ, of Regis College,
who critically guided the ideas you read here. Special thanks to Anne Anderson CSJ, President
of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto, who served on my dissertation
committee. Joining these two scholars, the following academics assembled for the defence of
this dissertation: the Rev. Dr. Pam McCarroll, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology and
Director of Theological Field Education at Knox College; Gilles M. Mongeau, SJ, Associate
Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Master in Divinty Program, Regis
College; and Dr. Michael W. Higgins, Vice President for Mission and Catholic Identity, Sacred
Heart University (USA). These experts were exactly what I needed in the cross-disciplinary
work before you: a work in pastoral theology which connects the practice of psychiatric
chaplaincy with Catholic sponsored mental health care.
Writing the dissertation also made me grateful for the many academic and mental health
care colleagues I have met along the way. Each of them has been critically important with
inspiration and/or feedback: I thank Ron Mercier SJ, the first person I remember explicitly
encouraging me to become a theologian. This invitation made sense I think, thanks to the early
influence of Professors Janine and the late Thomas Langan, who guided my undergraduate work
in Christianity and Culture/Philosophy. I thank the late Joan Whelan GSIC and the Reverend
Bob Sinclair, who first introduced me to clinical health care ministry, and Jim Hannah and Jan
Kraus, for their passionate CPE supervision.
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I am also indebted to Mary Rowell CSJ, Blair Henry, Jim Huth, Trustee and Literary
Executrix of the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust Sue Mosteller CSJ, Henri Nouwen archivist
Gabrielle Earnshaw, Assistant Archivist Jessica Barr, Michael Stoeber, George Webster, Steve
Abdool, JJ and Anna Schocking, Frank Morrissey OMI, Carol Lambie, Alison Vallance, Kate
Storey, Ruth Cameron, my MHCP spiritual care team (Glenn Robitaille, Pat Mannion, John
Rice, and the late Ted Vellenga), Mort Menuck, Debbie Collins, Jimmy Zammit OFM, Jack
Costello SJ, Nancy Bol, Marvin Shank, Greg Beath, David Pereyra, Doug Longstaffe, John
McLaughlin, Cicily Tang, Emil Iruthayathas, and Carmen Cachia along with the entire Kelly
Library staff.
Special thanks to the late Digby Wolfe, writer, who died mere weeks before this
dissertation’s submission. He always reminded me that the moral challenge of writing is to
courageously place one’s ideas up for public critique. I wish to express a very particular thanks
to my editor Kevin Burns. His thorough editing corrected the weaknesses in my style. He was a
thoughtful listener in between revisions.
Generous financial support came from a variety of sources through my studies: The
Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene (now Waypoint), The Redemptorist Scholarship Fund
for doctoral work in ethics and health care, The Ontario Government Scholarship program, The
Catholic Health Association of Ontario’s Bishop Tonnos Award, and Regis College’s Lupina
Fellowship. A variety of travel scholarships including those from the Advanced Degree
Students’ Association and the Canadian Theological Society permitted me to test my ideas at a
number of conferences. Special thanks to my father-in-law William Johnson and his wife Carol
Bream for their longstanding financial and personal commitment. This funding helped me
concentrate on the one thing: the completion of this work.
I owe a deep debt to my family. I thank my brothers Angelo and David for their genuine
and at times amusing curiosity about what I had been thinking about all these years. I recognize
my brother Reno’s example of being the first in our extended Maltese immigrant family to study
for the PhD. The fact that all my brothers pursued higher education owes much to my parents’
determination their children might have what was denied them. My father, Francis, a skilled
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electrician, left Malta for Canada in 1952 at the age of 22 with the dream of a better future. My
mother, Rena, followed in 1961. My father saw only the beginning stages of this dissertation,
having died in 2007. I remember fondly how, even in the midst of advanced Parkinson’s, he
read my early course work papers. Both of my parents have shown me that with disciplined
human effort, God’s grace, and time, something new and beautiful is possible.
Finally, this dissertation would have been impossible without my wife, Susannah
Johnson. She has been with me every step of the way. My need for quiet study has taken me
away from her for longer periods than I would have preferred. I especially thank her for
reminding me when the inevitable doubts surfaced during the long loneliness of doctoral work,
why I started out on this re-creative writing pilgrimage in the first place: A dissertation must
reflect one’s deepest passion. What follows is certainly mine.

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Statement Regarding the Use of Inclusive/Unbiased Language

All of the original writing contained in this dissertation reflects the policy of The Toronto
School of Theology and The University of Toronto regarding inclusive and unbiased language.
Nevertheless, most of the primary sources for this literary research were written before inclusive
language became the academic norm for scholarship. In order to respect the integrity of works as
cited, I have chosen to reproduce the original texts as they were written, refraining from the use
of “[sic]”. Of course, in my critical reflections on them I follow the contemporary norm.
An additional complicating factor in terms of language is the fact that Henri J.M.
Nouwen’s archived manuscript material (which forms the core of chapter 2) was written
primarily in English by a Dutch-born man. These unedited manuscripts are, in places, replete
with errors in grammar and spelling, as well as the crossing out of texts with inserted rewrites.
Except for obvious grammatical or spelling corrections, I have cited Nouwen as he appears in the
original texts. As will be argued in that chapter, this record of Nouwen’s struggle to find the best
English word is often helpful for better understanding his contribution to scholarship.
Finally, it needs to be acknowledged that attention to unbiased language reflects a core
feature of this dissertation: it intentionally reframes Anton T. Boisen’s critical writings about
mental illness and religious experience, uncovering how historical trends marginalised his
reported experience of living with mental health problems. Boisen, for his part, was well aware
of the historical bias, writing in his 1960s autobiography, “as long as I remain a patient, I am by
that very fact discredited.”* This dissertation proposes that Boisen’s critical texts—and his
original voice— require a contemporary and unbiased hearing.

* Anton T. Boisen, Out of the Depths: An Autobiographical Study of Mental Disorder and
Religious Experience, 1st ed. (New York: Harper, 1960), 136.

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As chaplain in an institution for the insane, the writer is dealing constantly with the
mentally ill. He is seeking to interpret the experiences of his patients not merely
from the standpoint of current psychiatry but also from the standpoint of the student
of religion.
—Anton T. Boisen, “The Psychiatric Approach to the Study of Religion.”

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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
STATEMENT REGARDING THE USE OF INCLUSIVE/UNBIASED LANGUAGE vii
INTRODUCTION 1
Current Issues in Contemporary Clinical Chaplaincy 3
Purpose and Methodology of this Dissertation 18
An Auto-Ethnographic and Clinically Inspired Inquiry 19
Delimitations 24
Anton T. Boisen and the Mental Health Care Context 24
Roman Catholic Board Sponsorship 27
Key Terms 32
Organization of the Dissertation 34

CHAPTER ONE:
ANTON T. BOISEN – LOST AND FOUND 38
Boisen’s Move to the Periphery in CPE’s Early History: 1922-1965 39
Boisen as a Psychiatric Chaplain in 1924: Sources 41
Boisen’s Central Thesis and the Distinctive Role of the Minister 46
Problems with Boisen’s Central Thesis 51
Seminal Beginnings, Divisive Endings: 1922-1942 53
Boisen’s Lonely but Productive Retirement 1942-1965 63
A Future Marginalisation: CPE and Corporate Religious Mission 67
Preliminary Conclusions 68
Paul Pruyser: Reclaiming Anton T. Boisen’s Innovation of the
Psychiatric Chaplain 69
Pruyser’s Essential Writings in Regard to Boisen 70
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Pruyser’s View of Boisen’s Breakthrough as “Perspectival” 73
Pruyser’s Portrait of Boisen as a Diagnosing and Organizing Minister 77
CPE’s Early Complications with Boisen’s Diagnostic Perspective 83
Boisen’s Religiously Corporate Perspective at Risk 87
Pruyser’s Portrait of Boisen in Pastoral Care’s Search for its Own Identity 91
Conclusion 101

CHAPTER TWO:
ANTON T. BOISEN AND HENRI J.M. NOUWEN 103
Boisen in Existing Studies of Nouwen 104
Boisen in Material Published by Nouwen (1968 to 1977) 113
Boisen in the Henri J.M. Nouwen Archives and Research Collection 127
A Revealing Letter 129
Two Key Unpublished Documents 131
1. “Anton T. Boisen and the Study of Theology through
“Living Human Documents” 131
2. Pastoral Supervision in Historical Perspective 135
Doctoral Outlines and Related Documentation 142
1. Documentation referring to Doctoral Outline #1 142
2. Documentation referring to Doctoral Outline #2 146
The Boisen Interview: A “Basic Suffering” 155
Conclusion: Nouwen’s Essential Portrait of Boisen 164

CHAPTER THREE:
CHAPLAIN AS FRIEND: IMPORTANCE,
VULNERABILITY, AND RELEVANCE 171
John Swinton’s Pioneering Work on the Friendship Model 173
On Being Human: Made in the Image of God 173
On Defining Mental Health 176
A Role for the Church in Mental Health Care 178
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