How do you find a pastoral counselor and what credentials matter?

The question is practical on its surface, but it carries a soul-logic underneath it — the assumption that the right credential will deliver the right care, that if you find the properly certified person, suffering will be adequately addressed. That assumption deserves examination before the directory advice, because it shapes what you are actually looking for.

Pastoral counseling sits at the intersection of theological formation and psychological training, and the credential question is genuinely complicated. In the United States, the primary credentialing body is the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC), which offers tiered certification — Member, Fellow, and Diplomate — based on supervised clinical hours, theological education, and ongoing peer consultation. A Fellow or Diplomate designation means the person has completed graduate theological training (typically an M.Div. or equivalent), a clinical mental health degree or equivalent supervised hours, and has submitted to peer review. The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) certifies chaplains and supervisors in institutional settings — hospitals, hospices, prisons — where the work is more crisis-oriented and less ongoing therapeutic. These are not interchangeable: an ACPE-certified chaplain is trained for acute accompaniment; an AAPC Fellow is trained for longer-term depth work.

Beyond these bodies, many pastoral counselors hold licensure as Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC), Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW), or Marriage and Family Therapists (MFT) in addition to their theological formation. This dual credentialing matters practically: it means the work may be covered by insurance, and it means the person has been held to a secular clinical standard alongside their religious one. Hillman, writing in Insearch (1967), noted that genuine therapeutic encounter requires a particular quality of receptive consciousness — "the ear is the feminine part of the head; it is consciousness offering maximum attention with a minimum of intention" — and no credential guarantees that quality. But dual credentialing at least signals that the person has been evaluated by more than one community of practice.

The non-medical psychotherapist and analyst should not primarily aim at bringing the patient to health; his responsibility is for the "salvation" of the psyche. Just as the ego and the self are sometimes opposed and do not always pursue the same goals — so goes the argument — general health and "salvation of the soul" are not always identical.

Guggenbuhl-Craig's framing is useful here: the question is not only whether the counselor is credentialed, but whether they understand the difference between psychological adjustment and soul-work. A pastoral counselor who treats spiritual distress as a symptom to be resolved — who moves too quickly toward comfort, resolution, or what Peterson (2024) calls the pneumatic ratio, the "if I am spiritual enough, I will not suffer" logic — may be credentialed and still miss the actual work. The credential tells you the person has been trained; it does not tell you whether they can sit with what does not resolve.

Practically: begin with the AAPC's online directory (aapc.net), filter by Fellow or Diplomate, and look for someone whose stated orientation includes depth psychology, Jungian thought, or explicitly names the tension between spiritual and psychological work rather than collapsing them. Thomas Moore's observation in Care of the Soul (1992) that "pathology can be a route to soulful religion" — that suffering initiates rather than interrupts spiritual life — is a useful litmus: does the counselor's language suggest they can hold that paradox, or does their framing promise relief?

Geography matters less than it once did; most pastoral counselors now offer telehealth. A brief consultation call before committing to ongoing work is standard and appropriate. Ask directly: how do you understand the relationship between psychological suffering and spiritual life? The answer will tell you more than the credential.

  • James Hillman — portrait of the depth psychologist whose work on soul and psyche shapes the site's orientation
  • Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig — portrait of the Jungian analyst who examined power dynamics in the helping professions
  • Shadow — glossary entry on the Jungian concept central to depth-oriented pastoral work
  • Find a depth-oriented practitioner — curated directory of Jungian and depth-psychology practitioners

Sources Cited

  • Hillman, James, 1967, Insearch: Psychology and Religion
  • Guggenbuhl-Craig, Adolf, 1971, Power in the Helping Professions
  • Moore, Thomas, 1992, Care of the Soul
  • Peterson, Cody, 2024, The Shadow of a Figure of Light