CONFIDENTIAL REPORT

Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc.

The Center for Chaplaincy and CPE
Care and Counseling Center of Georgia
Decatur, Georgia

Name: Diana Blosser

Supervisor: Rev.Patricia Symonette

Unit: 1 Unit, Summer, And 2015 Date: August 12, 2015

Final Self-Evaluation
Final Unit Evaluation Format
CPE Level 1 Intern

I Please list your learning goals for this unit and your assessment of your progress in
meeting them.
My first learning goal is to develop my pastoral care skills in order to feel comfortable in
all situations particularly with those from different cultures and religious belief. I have visited
many patients and families from the African American culture. After being with several families
where a loved one has died, I am now more aware of their ways of grieving which can be very
different from my own culture. I have seen people scream and yell, faint, run away, and fall on
the floor with grief. I have also spoken with 2 Muslims one a student and the other a
corrections officer. The student and I spoke for about 45 minutes on similarities in Christianity
and Muslim beliefs.
My second goal is that I want to build a good relationship with my team and supervisor. I
often have lunch with my peers where we discuss a multitude of subjects. This is helping me to
get to know them better. I am on time for group meeting and work schedules, and I am
intentional about leaving follow-up notes on patients.
My third goal concerns self-care and I am doing much better with this. I take mini
breaks to catch my breath and I am trying to eat healthier meals. I do a lot of stretching and
walking.
My last goal was to work on my computer skills. I am working on these by asking for
help from my peer and our two residents, T and P.

II. Please evaluate your educational process and pastoral functioning by addressing each of
the following educational outcomes for CPE Level I:
Pastoral Formation (the exploration and development of ones pastoral identity and
practice through integrating ones heritage, theology, and knowledge of behavioral and
social sciences).
311.1 Your ability to articulate the central themes of your religious heritage and the theological
understanding that informs your ministry.
My religious heritage includes: Presbyterian, Evangelical United Brethren, Methodist,
and Episcopalian denominations. I was raised as a Presbyterian by very strict Calvinists. I was
told by my parents many more shall nots than shalls. My father was the son of an
Evangelical United Brethren minister who had married a Presbyterian. My granddaddy was
much more evangelical than I was and I enjoyed listening to him preach and I loved the gospel
hymns! After graduating from a Presbyterian college (Agnes Scott) I married a Baptist. We
compromised and became Methodists (which drove me a bit crazy with all of their meetings!) I
had majored in organ and church music, so I soon started playing in a variety of churches. After
securing a job at the Episcopal Church, I knew I was home. I love the liturgy, openness to all,
and of course, the music. I became an Episcopalian in the mid 1970s and will remain so until I
head to heaven.
My ministry is Pastoral Care, and has been throughout the last 20 years or so. I am a
spiritual director, seminary student, care giver at my church, and a Chaplain Intern. I see the
image of a midwife when I think of spiritual directing and chaplaincy. A midwife walks with
her patients, helping them, but not doing the work of birthing. The same is true of chaplains. We
sit with patients and families in their hours of need, giving comfort, prayers, and presence. But,
the patients must learn to deal with their disease or accident and to give birth to their new
circumstances. Our work with the broken pottery was a good outward sign of the spiritual
grace in putting the pottery back together again even though the patient may not be the same.
311.2 Your ability to identify and discuss major life events, relationships and cultural contexts
that influence personal identity as expressed in pastoral functioning.
Many life experiences, jobs, and my family of origin have greatly influenced my identity
as a pastoral care provider. I grew up surrounded by medical doctors and nurses which has
helped me greatly this summer. I feel very comfortable around the hospital and with doctors,
nurses, and techs. I enjoy being part of the trauma team. Having had two different jobs with
welfare recipients has given me many insights into poverty and single motherhood. I ministered
to two different mothers in the Emergency Room one was pregnant with her fourth child and
had the other three with her she needed to apply for welfare and find housing. Another very
young woman was a survivor of the sex trafficking that goes on in Atlanta and her child was the
result of a rape. She was having lots of trouble getting her food stamps and welfare payments. I
was able to not only to show empathy, but also offer advice. I also worked with a trauma patient
who had lost her husband to the same accident that had injured her. She has two young children
and didnt know if she could manage them on her own. I have been a single mother a couple of
times which helped me minister to her.

I have worked at a variety of churches as an organist/choirmaster which means that I

have worked with a lot of priests and ministers most with very different personalities. This has
taught me how to work alongside many different individuals which has helped me with not only
working with my group but with the many others that I have met this summer. I am at ease with
authoritarian people.
I grew up in the church and with the church. My grandfather and a great grandfather
were ministers. My brother is a UCC minister and I am in seminary. Most of the women in my
family are, or have been, very active church leaders. I am very comfortable talking about my
faith. One of my patients was a Baptist minister; I was able to talk with him about theology and
found both common ground between us as well as the differences.
One of the churches that I worked in for almost 5 years was a Black Episcopalian Church
which gave me some insights into Black Culture that were new to me. These insights have
greatly helped me in dealing with my African American patients.
311.3 Your ability to initiate peer group and supervisory consultation and receive critique about
ones ministry practice. Describe your relationship with your supervisor and how you have
utilized supervision and/or consultation.
My peer group was a very interesting combination of personalities. There were five of
us: 2 women and three men, 2 whites, 2 African Americans, and 1 African. I am one of two who
are liberal and liturgical persons. The other woman and I are the senior members of the group
with lots of life experiences to help us do our jobs. The white male is a student at Columbia as I
am, but we do things very differently at least on the surface. The young African American man
is undergoing a real transformation in his theology and has a marvelous sense of humor. Our
man from Nigeria is a Messianic Jew and a Nazarite. We all have learned a lot from his beliefs.
He is quite the Biblical Scholar.
As one can imagine, we have had interesting discussions and consultations. I have had
difficulty in receiving criticism of the way I am in the group. This is due to the fact that I have
always handled criticism, especially from parents, siblings, and husbands poorly. I grew up in a
highly critical atmosphere and never felt quite good enough. I am prone to show my feelings (by
crying) easily.
My relationship with my supervisor has been very good. She is very intuitive and seems
to know exactly where I am coming from. She pushes me when needed, but has always been
extremely encouraging. We are both also musicians and share a love for pastoral care and
education. I believe that I have really found my voice this summer and a lot of it is because
of her.
Pastoral Competence (the discovery and use of skills necessary for the intensive and extensive
practice of ministry)
311.4 Your ability to risk offering appropriate and timely critique. Describe your relationship
with each peer, including your feedback for them, and what you have learned from them.
This has been one of my cutting edges in the CPE program. I have often been uneasy in
offering appropriate and timely critique. My supervisor has been very helpful to me in this

regard. I am learning to say what I believe to be true about what one of my peers has said or
done that has given me questions or made me feel uneasy. She has told me that it is right for me
to say what I believe. It is not my responsibility to worry about how the person will take my
comments. My relationship with my peers has turned out to be very good. We have learned to
respect each others beliefs and the way we each do our job. We have a total of 5 in our group. G
is the other woman and we are almost the same age. I feel close to her in many ways we share
a love of education and also both of us have been very active in our churches. We have different
cultural backgrounds but that hasnt gotten in our way. She has been educated in Social Work and
I have learned some things in dealing with patients from her. S and I have known each other for
about 2 years since we attend the same seminary have been in some the same classes. However I
discovered a different person in CPE. I believe that we have worked through some of our
differences over this unit of CPE and we are doing fine as I write this. B. is a young man that is
finding his voice in Pastoral Care and he has a fantastic sense of humor. When I am in need of
cheering up he is always there with a good comment of a good joke. Yet, he has an excellent
grasp of theology and I have learned much from him. P., the Nigerian remains a mystery to me
in many ways. I do not agree with many of his beliefs he follows dietary laws from the Old
Testament, believes in the literal interpretation of the Bible, and he inserts scripture into just
about anything he is saying - which feels a bit like manipulation to me. He moves at a different
speed than I do. We do share in our love of music both playing and singing.
311.5 Your ability to recognize relational dynamics within group contexts. What do you
understand about the group process? What is my role/function in the group?
It takes time to recognize relational dynamics in a group and I feel we each were handpicked to fulfill our individual roles. Over the almost three months that we have been together
we have learned our quirks and foibles and how to use these as we work together. We also of
course know our strengths and weaknesses. G and I have tons of experience in working with
different groups of people and in different jobs. We both have life experiences that have shaped
us and we draw upon are experiences to help us in our work with patients, group, staff, and
administrative people at AMC. We are of the old guard wise in our years. Both S and B are
younger and reflect different experiences. They are very good with technical stuff and work
together well they can talk for hours about theology or making videos. P lies in the middle as
far as age an experience are concerned. He is the most conservative of all of and I am one of the
most liberal. We are on different ends of the spectrum. This became most evident in putting
together our Interfaith Offering. I wanted to use prayers and symbols from a variety of other
faiths and I know this was hard for him. We ended up doing some of what we all wanted.
I feel that we all learned to give and take from each other and that each of us will take
what we learned with us as we leave. I think the group process is good when each member does
what is expected of him/her, focusses on the tasks at hand, and lets go of each others
idiosyncrasies.
When I was interviewed for CPE my soon to be supervisor P, asked me whether I liked to
lead or to be a follower. I feel that my skills and experiences have made me more of a leader. I
am learning to find my voice and feel comfortable in it and feel very comfortable in my work as
a Chaplain.

311.6 Your ability to demonstrate integration of conceptual understandings presented in the

curriculum into pastoral practice. What have you learned from didactics, verbatim group, PR,
individual supervision and being in the pastoral care department and hospital setting that has
enabled your ability to integrate theory and the practice of pastoral care?
I enjoyed most of the didactics, but found some a review of what I already knew. Two in
particular stand out as most helpful: The day that we did Kitskugi with the pottery we had
painted taught me more about brokenness, both in ourselves and our patients. Traumas and
illness break peoples bodies and souls apart and we are in Pastoral Care to help them with the
healing of their brokenness and the putting together their changed forever lives. The other
didactic that spoke to me was the one on Images of Pastoral Care. This helped me hone in on
my theology and image of myself as a Pastoral Care Provider. The image of a Midwife is the
way I now think of myself - walking beside someone, not doing the work for them, but guiding
and just being present.
The verbatim group was very hard for me in the beginning again the criticism piece. I
learned from each one I did and it is much easier for me to present them now. I still have much
to learn from doing them.
The IPR group was a very interesting experience for me. During the 2nd one S. tried to
explain a problem he was having with me and I did not understand what he meant at all. I was
able to tell him this at the next IPR group. I was not used to saying to someone that what they
did or said was hurtful or bothering to me.
Individual supervision was wonderful. I learned so much from P. Sometimes it was like
the most fantastic therapy session I could ever imagine. I will miss our time together.
I feel that everything we have done during our educational time together has had bearing
on my clinical work. As I said above, some of what was presented was review of my classes at
Columbia and a review of what I have learned through life experiences. But, I have also learned
the value of Self Care its very hard to take care of others unless you know how to do selfcare. I am much better at it now then in June.
311.7 Your ability to initiate helping relationships within and across diverse populations. Assess
your work as a pastoral care provider on your clinical units with patients, families, and staff.
I believe that I have done a good job in initiating helping relationships among the people
that I interact with on a daily basis. I am the chaplain for two of the ICU units surgical and
neuro, I also do rounds in the Emergency Department, and Im on the Trauma Team when I am
the Duty Chaplain. The first people that I got to know well were the others on the Trauma
Teams. My first day on call I had 2 very serious traumas a husband and wife who had been
severely injured. The husband said that four of his children had been with them and could I help
by finding out where they were. I was not at all sure of what to do when I heard a voice saying:
Come over here I will help you find them. It was one of the ED doctors. He showed me who
to call and how to find out which hospital had each child (they were at 3 different locations!)
What a help he was that morning I told him that he was my angel that day. I also talk with the
nurses on each unit and they are used to my being with their patients. I like working with the
family it helps so much in the care of the patient to learn of their history from a family

member. Everyone seems to respect what I do and thank me for doing it. Growing up in a
medical family has allowed me to feel comfortable with nurses and doctors and comfortable
being in a hospital setting. I learned a lot about African American Cultures way of dealing with
a death on my first day at south campus. P., the resident gave me a heads up that there might be
lots of screaming, fainting, even family fights. He was very correct and I was glad to have been
forewarned.
Pastoral Reflection (the process of increasing awareness and understanding of, and the ability to
articulate, the meaning and purpose of ones experience in ministry)
311.8 Your ability to use the clinical methods of learning to achieve your educational goals. The
clinical methods of learning that have to do with the action/reflection/action model of learning
through verbatims, didactics, reflection journals, supervision, group experience and clinical work
I have made use of this model in most of what I have been doing. I have told peers how I
have handled interactions with patients they may comment and add something and I reflect and
try to do things a bit differently the next time. P has given me comments on verbatims that have
helped me reflect and perhaps change some of what I say, or how I say it. As far as clinical work
is concerned, the nurses have helped me a lot. One on the nurses in the Trauma Bay showed me
a better place to stand so I could talk the patient from the side of the bed instead of the head of
the bed. I now try to find space nearer the patient where he/she can both hear and see me, if
possible.
311.9 Your ability to formulate clear and specific goals for continuing pastoral formation with
reference to personal strengths and weaknesses. What strengths and weaknesses are you
discovering as a pastoral care provider and how are these helping /hindering you pastoral
formation. How have you utilized this CPE unit for your learning and growth?
Specific goal setting has not been one of my strengths in the past. P. helped me to form
clear and specific goals and tell how I would accomplish them. My tendency has been to set
too many difficult goals and to want to accomplish things very quickly. I have learned to be
more patient with myself. I have discovered that I have a lot of strengths in my pastoral care. I
am a good listener, good at just being a presence with patient and/or family, I am a very
empathetic person, very much in touch with my feelings, I used to see my being in touch with
my feelings as a weakness, but P. has convinced me that it is a strength. Some of my weaknesses
are: trouble setting good boundaries, and lack of self-care. I have learned so much from CPE
about myself, how I relate to others, and that I feel very comfortable doing my job. I wish I had
started this process many years ago but I wasnt where I needed to be, and now I am.
III. Describe your plans and goals for continuing personal and professional development in your
next unit of CPE? What are your learning goals for your next unit of CPE and how do you plan
to accomplish them.
My plans and goals include finishing my MAPT degree at Columbia Seminary in May of
2016, applying for a Residency position starting in August/September ,2016 ( hopefully at Grady
as I am really interested in Trauma chaplaincy), and then applying for certification as a lay
chaplain in the Episcopal Church. My next goal after the above is to find a job. My bishop told
me that the church would help me find employment. I hope to hone my skills that I have learned

this summer as I pursue a residency, while learning new and different ways of being at a larger
hospital. I plan to work on my growing edges and not being afraid to take risks or make
mistakes.