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For a very long time healing and wholeness in caregiving and counselling were dominated by communication strategies and listening skills designed for psychotherapeutic strategies mostly based on personality theories, psychoanalyses and individualistic self-realisation . With developments in, for example, family therapy with the emphasis on a systems approach, the paradigmatic scenario started to change from pathological thinking to networking thinking. Due to this paradigm shift, three important perspectives become imperative to enhance and broaden the scope of caregiving in the pastoral ministry of the church, namely:
- the impact of dynamic interacting relationships embedded in ethical frameworks;
- the value of a dialogical approach within the ontic dynamics of humane encounters;
- the appeal of the other on human responsibility when one becomes aware that being present with other human beings in time and space, implies a metaphysical and transcendent horizon of unseen loyalties and needs. The complexity of healing and helping in, for example, family care, implies an intergenerational approach that impacts not only on the past but also on loyalty and responsibility to the future generation.
The authors of Appealing spaces provide sound theory formation within the field and practice of contextual therapy and pastoral caregiving by focussing on three influential thinkers in this regard - Ivan Boszormenyi- Nagy, Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas - and the impact of their theories on therapy, human well-being, the value of human encounters, and the understanding of dialogue and ethics within relational networking.
An essential book for everyone involved in pastoral care within the broader scope of the profession of helping and healing, encouraging them to rediscover the challenging position and appealing space of the other/Other;
the other/Other as disturbing countenance and conscience for authentic humane encounters.
