The Interactive Play and a Persuasive God: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Re-envisioning Pastoral Care and Counseling.

The purpose of this article is to present a sketch of a new image of pastoral care and counseling, which reflects the psychoanalytic understanding of the interacting transference and countertransference matrix, along with a process view of God in a mutually influencing relationship with creatures. A more effective approach in pastoral care and counseling can be conceptualized as the interactive play in which pastoral caregivers and receivers co-create a therapeutic relationship with their own past experiences and their creative capabilities. The interactive play is a concept of describing the mutually influencing relationship in the transference and countertransference interchange. The article introduces the concept of a persuasive God as a new image of pastoral care and counseling which includes aspects of the mutually interacting process in play.