At the Vanguard of Spiritual Care in a Changing World.
The Soul Group
soulgroup.net
Training for
Chaplains
For more than a decade, members of The Soul Group have helped clinical chaplains raise the bar on the quality and depth of their work. Working in the Group Relations /Tavistock tradition, the team includes professionals from clinical psychology, mediation, neuropsychology, nonprofit leadership, organizational consulting, and chaplaincy. David Roth, founder of Clinical Chaplaincy, is a member.
The Soul Group develops chaplains’ capacity to see, understand, and work with unconscious dynamics in care—and to more effectively navigate role, authority, and boundaries in real time. Through online trainings and multi-day residential intensives, chaplains learn to read the room, locate their proper role, hold complexity, and act with courage and clarity in high-stakes clinical and institutional environments.
Save
the
Date!
February 20-22, 2026
Spirit in the Desert
Retreat Center
Carefree, Arizona
IN PERSON ...
A three-day, residential group-relations intensive for chaplains. Program details and registration coming soon.
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UPCOMING online
Introduction to Systems Psychodynamics for Chaplains
Saturday, October 11, 2025
12:00–3:00 pm Eastern
9:00 am–12:00 pm Pacific
Chaplains stand at the crossroads of deep human experience—often holding the patient’s suffering and hopes alongside the unspoken emotions of families, medical teams, and the institution itself. A systems psychodynamic lens helps make sense of unseen forces: anxieties stirred by serious illness, staff defenses that keep people “in role,” and seemingly irrational responses under stress. Learning to recognize and contain these dynamics strengthens the holding environment and steadies care for everyone present.
In this 3-hour gathering, participants will:
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Trace key roots of psychodynamic approaches to clinical spiritual care.
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Learn how Group Relations (BART: Boundaries, Authority, Role, Task) illuminates chaplaincy encounters.
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Explore how chaplains embody containment, offering calm and meaning amid system anxiety.
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Engage clinical dialogue around de-identified case material.
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Leave with practical tools for expanding awareness of the social and emotional systems chaplains encounter daily.
Chaplaincy, Institutions, and the Unconscious Life of Groups
Saturday, October 25, 2025
12:00–3:00 pm Eastern
9:00 am–12:00 pm Pacific
Chaplains serve within living systems—hospitals, hospices, congregations, and teams—that have an unconscious life: anxieties, defenses, and unspoken rules shaping how spiritual care is offered and received. Using Open Systems Theory as a doorway, we view organizations as dynamic, interdependent, and constantly
exchanging energy and meaning with their environments—while acknowledging the mystery, transcendence, and deep interconnectivity that exceed structure alone.
We also explore small-group dynamics, where creativity and effectiveness emerge alongside defensive patterns that resist change. Chaplains who perceive and work with these currents more faithfully support both patients and colleagues.
In this 3-hour gathering, participants will:
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Review psychodynamic foundations of clinical spiritual care.
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Discuss case material through Open Systems and group-relations lenses.
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Explore how chaplains both participate in and shape the systems they serve.
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Strengthen the chaplain’s role as one who brings meaning, containment, and hope to the systems they inhabit.
Equipping Chaplains.
Strengthening Institutions.
Transforming Care.™