Pastoral counseling is distinguished from secular counseling by “limit experiences.” These are experiences that disclose the fullness of self-transcendence—for Christians, a personal relationship with God. But the radical drive of the human spirit for self-transcendence unifies every dimension of the developing person. This drive thus forms the basis of a fundamental continuity between pastoral...
AbstractThis essay explicates a contribution of developmental moral psychology to religious ethics in the task of interpreting the relationship between religion and morality. It argues that a criterion of self-transcendence is implicit in the developmental perspectives of major psychological theorists, and from this that the same drive for self-transcendence which grounds religious experience...