Líderes religiosos cristãos e a formação em psicologia: os significados da busca pela formação em psicologia e seus efeitos na prática eclesiástica

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Mérlinton Pastor de
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da PUC_SP
• Texto Completo: https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/14991
• topic: Religião; Prática clinica e eclesiástica; Psychology; Religion; clinical and ecclesiastic practice; CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA

The purpose of this thesis is to understand from a phenomenological perspective the reasons why Christian religious leaders such as priests and pastors enroll for postgraduate and graduate work on psychology, what this type of education means for them, and what contribution psychology can provide to their ecclesiastical practices. In order to reach this objective interviews were conducted with religious leaders who majored in psychology and remain active professionals in the religious work field. As a comparandum, a religious leader with no previous education in psychology was interviewed, and his perspective helped broaden the scope of this research as well as helped us understand the reasons why the other participants sought training in this area. The analysis of the interviews - which were planned and developed according to a phenomenological approach - was based on the assumptions of three kinds of scholars: those who work as psychologists, those who work as religious leaders, and those who work both as psychologists and as religious leaders. This investigation reached the following conclusions: although Christian religious leaders work on a daily basis providing care for human beings, their previous seminary training does not sufficiently enable them to handle many of the issues brought to them by their church members, since that previous training focused mainly upon a person´s spiritual dimensions; the wish to feel better prepared to accomplish their work has led many Christian religious leaders to seek training as professional psychologists; as far as it was ascertained, training in psychology does not hinder their performance as religious leaders; rather, psychology is seen as a partner able to make them more efficient; although there have been moments when psychology and spirituality were considered as antagonistic interests, the present relationship between psychology and religion is seen by religious leaders as important, necessary, and healthy, since both religion and psychology aim at helping people. Their understanding is that when psychologists and religious leaders work together the aid thus provided by them become much more effective