Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Program

Patients heal best when they're treated as a whole person. That includes their spirit as well as their mind and body. If you're interested in working as a chaplain, you already understand the impact you can make in the hospital and in the community by serving others in this important way.

Our clinical pastoral education program is designed to give you the training and experience you need to be as effective as possible in your work as a chaplain. You will develop a better understanding of self by reflecting on personal perceptions, actions and reactions.

Our individualized group-training model for professional chaplains enables you to become a more effective and therapeutically fit sojourner to the afflicted in their pastoral functioning.

Since 2015, more than 50 students have graduated with CPE units from Adventist Health Portland.

Our CPE model and focus

Our approach is based on the clinical method to “experience, reflect to learn and integrate.” Every participant is an integral part of the training.

We focus on helping you embrace and develop in light of personal successes and failures, strengths and brokenness, hopes, and despairs as a work in progress. CPE training allows you to become the "primary tool" in pastoral functioning.

You'll become your own book to read, study and master, which in the lexicon of CPE is called the "living human document." It is a wonderful opportunity to have an encounter with yourself!

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