To the question about pastoral counseling in the parishes

The author discusses some examples spiritual damage of the human person, types and mutual influences of such damage, as well as relations between medicine, psychology and religion with regard to healing various types of this damage. Some existing definitions of pastoral counseling are presented, and another definition is developed and introduced, defined in terms of damage of the ontological constituent of the person and its healing. Also, pastoral counseling is considered as a well-formed area of scientific interest and an academic discipline that has its own fundamental specificity and is aimed at training future pastors; the author presents some data on a wide range of scientific interests in the area of pastoral counseling, and on various programs and levels of university training in pastoral counseling in the system of theological education in the West and in the East; emphasis is made on the need to introduce this discipline into the educational process of those theological educational institutions where it is not yet available, as well as on the need to train relevant specialists who are able to teach this discipline.