Pastoral Counseling at YCT Rabbinical School
Michelle E. Friedman, M.D

"Rabbi, this is hard to talk about but......."

....our daughter wants to bring her non-Jewish "friend" home for Pesach....

....my father had a stroke and is on life support. He told me he never wanted to live hooked up to machines."

From the moment young men announce their intention to study for the rabbinate, they are bombarded with questions regarding the most personal and far reaching aspects of life. Contemporary rabbis face the challenges of an increasingly porous and diverse society. YCT recognizes that rabbinic education must include psychological sensitivity and skills so that our graduates respond sensitively adn competently to the issues brought to them.

YCT pastoral counseling courses run throughout all four years of yeshiva. The program rests on a three-part foundation. 1) didactic instruction in the classroom 2) practical experience in hospitals, rabbinic internships and fieldwork and 3) individual awareness through special group work and supervision. Our goal is to prepare rabbis as first responders who listen rigorously, religiously and with compassion. They need tools to access, counsel and refer. Courses include basic pastoral interviewing, marital and family guidance, and areas of distress such as anxiety, depression and addiction. We devote a unit to chaplaincy, where students work with experienced clergy in hospital and other medical settings. Chaplaincy includes forums where students discuss and process the powerful experiences evoked by sitting by the bedsides of ill and dying patients. 

In addition to class and experience based learning, YCT incorporates a unique forum for personal development - the process group.  Every week, throughout the entire program, a mental health professional meets with each class of students and facilitates open and confidential discussions of topics that arise spontaneously.

Today's Jewish world desperately needs learned rabbis who can reach communities through self involvement in the day-to-day lives of congregants and students. Pastoral counseling at YCT prepares rabbis to meet that challenge.