Pastoral Counsellor, Specialist - What is it?

One of my designations is that I am a Specialist, Pastoral Counsellor. In Canada what was CAPPE is now CASC. In other words to make Pastoral Counselling more understandable to the changing culture and more inclusive for spirituality, the name has been changed to psycho-spiritual therapist. I will be resisting the new title. I have found that clients and others understand exactly what pastoral means but it appears that the meaning has been lost in hospitals, though that has never been my experience. In Ontario the only requirement is to be registered to one of the colleges. I am a Registered Psychotherapist and it is quite a rigid mandate. The college is there to help the public. In the past, anyone could have said that they were a therapist and nothing was really done to make sure that people were qualified. There is no doubt that this caused damage to people who thought they were being cared for by qualified people. It is about time that our government has taken steps to protect the public. With Pastoral or Spiritual care mostly in hospital it is not mandated that they be registered as therapists, however, crossing that line into therapy can lead to trouble for them or anyone. Since I have three designations to my name, I encorporate whatever is most applicable to the client. When I indicate that I am a Registered Therapist, a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist and a Specialist Pastoral Counsellor, the client may wave away the Pastoral part, or even feel disturbed by the designation. On the other hand some will say that the Pastoral portion is very important to them. It is important for me to understand the different religions people believe in or have been betrayed by due to an abuse. At times one needs to understand or come to grips with a particular religion. At other times, a person's faith is extrememly important to them and they wish to speak about it or their spirituality. I could never ignore one aspect of a person, the whole person and that includes their faith, their spirituality or lack of. It is the client who decides what area they want to work on. Sometimes a client who is very religious is married to someone who hates religion. How do they compromise? Sometimes someone is mocked for their faith. How do they deal with that? Some have been raped and inprisoned for being Christian and not denying their faith and changing religion. How do they come to terms with the horrors they faced. I am amazed at the devotion and suffering some have sustained in other countries. We open our doors in Canada to the world and what we take for granted is considered disdain in other countries. Though I may drop my designation if I am forced to take another name which I am not comfortable using, my Masters in Ministry and Spirituality from the University of Toronto will always remain intact. However, that is my own bias.