Mental and Spiritual Needs of Women in Ministry

Examining Mental and Spiritual Trauma for Women in Ministry

We all want to think of the church as a place of comfort and healing. Unfortunately, as with any group of human beings, there is sin, there is injury, there is trauma. One of the groups bearing the brunt of much of that trauma is people in ministry, and especially women in ministry. Why do churches and denominations have difficulty responding to and minimizing this abuse? How does the failure of the church, and particularly the RCA, to listen to these ministers create further harm to women as individuals and the system as a whole?

Pamela Pater-Ennis, founder and CEO of Hudson River Care & Counseling, LLC, in Hoboken, New Jersey, a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multi-faith psychotherapy and coaching practice, has also founded My Sanctuary Healing in Teaneck New Jersey, committed to providing counseling, research, and prevention for victims of religious and spiritual abuse. Dr. Pater-Ennis is also an RCA minister of the Word and Sacrament and an adjunct instructor at NBTS. In her practice and ministry, she has done extensive ecclesial, educational, and clinical work around the issues of religious trauma syndrome and feels that women would have far less trauma symptoms if they had had the opportunity to both report their incidents of abuse and know they would be validated. She will share the insights she has gleaned so far and her progress toward creating a network of mental health clinicians trained in religious trauma syndrome in a Reformed Church Center program on “Mental and Spiritual Needs of Women in Ministry,” to be held on Wednesday, December 11, 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm on Zoom.

Registration

As with all Reformed Church Center programs, this discussion will be free for all participants, but registration is required.  Please click here to register.