The Art of Spiritual Midwifery: Dialogos and Dialectic in the Classical Tradition

What comes after reflective listening? What comes after the ministry of presence? Spiritual midwifery is a powerful framework for offering pastoral care in todays fast-paced environment. Midwifery offers ways of thinking about those who are served the work itself and what it means to be a clinical caregiver within the tradition of the care of souls. Spiritual midwifery has philosophical and spiritual roots that stem from the earliest seeds of Western thought even back to Jesus and Socrates. Readers will find an inductive approach toward a conceptual model that offers insight for richer assessments and outcome-oriented goals of care. Part One sets out the metaphors of the midwife and the dialogue. Part Two unpacks the methodology behind the mechanics. Part Three looks at creative applications of midwifery and is followed by a Symposium patterned after Platos own Symposium. A rigorous theory remains at the center of the work but the tone is poetically balanced enough to invite the transformation of the spiritual caregiver. From the philosophy of Heraclitus to the theology of Kierkegaard to the spiritual direction of Guenther The Art of Spiritual Midwifery brings forth a comprehensive conception of pastoral care and its delivery. This amazing book . . . gives voice to articles of faith that belong to all positive transformative endeavors related to humans: spiritual educational parental aesthetic imaginative ethical societal and more. Fallers conceptualization of midwifery goes deep without invoking a transfer of knowledge but rather the skillful facilitation of the individuals own journey toward embracing meaning. --Charla Hayden Vice President A. K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems Portland OR Stephen Fallers new book . . . introduces us to the practice of spiritual midwifery in a way that restores it to its proper place not as an historical spiritual activity that has had its day but as an important and fascinating spiritual practice that has much relevance for how we seek to birth contemporary Christian spirituality. . . . In opening up this fascinating aspect of the care of souls Faller provides deep and captivating insights that have real potential for contemporary pastoral care. --John Swinton Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies University of Aberdeen Stephen Faller is a board certified chaplain and a Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor as a Diplomate of the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy in Hopewell New Jersey. He is ordained in the United Methodist Church. He is the author of Beyond the Matrix (2004) and Reality TV (2009). He has a master of divinity from Duke Divinity School and a master of theology from Princeton Theological Seminary.