Rev. Dr. Raymond J. Lawrence is the Founder, with Perry N. Miller, & currently the General Secretary (Chief Executive Officer) of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy (CPSP) since 1990.

Previous positions

1990s – 2000s

  • Publisher and Editor of the ACPE Underground Report and its successor, Contra Mundum, published from 1988 until 2006, a printed journal of criticism of culture and religion.

  • Director of Chaplains, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University, 1991-2007

1980s

  • Chaplain Supervisor, Roanoke Valley Mental Health Center, 1988-1991

  • Chaplain Supervisor, Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, 1983-1988

1970s

  • Chaplain, Harris County (Houston) Jail, 1978-1980

  • Chaplain Training Director, St Joseph Hospital, Houston, 1975-1978

  • Certified Clinical Pastoral Supervisor, Association for Clinical Pastoral Education.

  • Chaplaincy Training Director, St. Luke’s Episcopal, Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, 1967-1975.

1960s

  • Clinical Pastoral training at Central State Hospital, Miledgeville, GA, under supervision of Chappel Wilson and Don Cabaniss.

  • Clinical Chaplain - under supervision of Armen D. Jorjorian

  • Trainee at the Urban Training Center in Chicago, Saul Alinsky & alia 1966-67

  • Pastor of Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, TN.

  • Episcopal cleric at St. Andrews Church, in Newport News, VA.

1950s

  • Methodist pastor in Chesterfield, VA - Pastor of Hopewell Methodist Church and Trinity Methodist Church at Chesterfield Courthouse.

Publications

Harry Stack Sullivan & Anton T. Boisen: Comrades & Revolutionaries in Psychotherapy

This monograph is the revelation of a profound, and until now forgotten relationship between Harry Stack Sullivan and Anton T. Boisen. The implications for both religion and psychiatry are monumental. The reasons that it was forgotten and hidden are a matter of some speculation. However, the impact of the almost universal public amnesia is a matter that begs examination for the good of psychiatry, pastoral work and the culture at large.

Bursting the Bubble: The Tortured Life & Untimely Death of David Vetter

This monograph consists of Mary Murphy’s account of her decade-long relationship with the so-called Bubble Boy, who in his twelve-and-a-half year life was imprisoned in a sterile chamber, except during his last dying days. Raymond Lawrence was for a brief period of time David Vetter’s Chaplain. In the Introduction, he offers an extended ethical and humane perspective to the case in the extended Preface.

Recovery of Soul: A History & Memoir of the Clinical Pastoral Movement

An insider’s history of the century-old clinical pastoral training movement.

This movement purports to train pastors to become authentic clinicians, wise in the discipline of pastoral psychotherapy. But in fact, after a century of history the movement is in gross disarray, divided by radically conflicting philosophies. As we might expect among human beings, the most shallow, pedestrian philosophies currently dominate. This monograph lays out that history in all its idiosyncrasies. Popular opinion holds that this book is much fun to read.

Nine Clinical Cases: The Soul of Pastoral Care & Counseling

These two short monographs — above, and below — represent a rejoinder to George Fitchett’s two monographs elucidating his philosophy of pastoral care, each commenting on nine specific cases. Fitchett’s chaplains for the most part seek to pray over patients. The counter argument is that the chaplain’s proper role is as a pastoral psychotherapist. The monographs set in stark contrast the discrepant roles of the chaplain. And they elucidate the widespread deterioration of Boisen’s Clinical Pastoral Training Movement.

Nine More Clinical Cases: Case Studies in Clinical Pastoral Care, Counseling, and Psychotherapy

The Poisoning of Eros: Sexual Values In Conflict

A survey of the changing posture of Christianity in its many iterations. Rooted in its beginning in Hebraic sexual valorization it soon abandoned the positive posture toward sexual pleasure, and adopted the Roman Imperial negative assessment of it. In Christian history, only Martin Luther got it right, but it wasn’t long before later Lutherans reverted to the same old negativity. This book won the World Congress on Sexuality Book Award at its 1989 meeting in Caracas, Venezuela.

Sexual Liberation: The Scandal of Christendom

A popular, less scholarly rendition of the Poisoning of Eros: Sexual Values in Conflict, with new material on the subject.

Sexualität Und Christentum: Geschichte der Irrwege und Ansätze zur Befreiung

This monograph is the German translation of Sexual Liberation: The Scandal of Christendom.

Other publications of note:

  • “The Affair as a Redemptive Experience,” and “Guidlines for a Flexible Monogamy,” in Adventures in Loving, Robert H. Rimmer, Ed., New American Library, 1973

  • “Toward a More Flexible Monogamy,” in The Future of Sexual Relations, Robert T. & Anna K. Francoeur, eds., Prentice-Hall, 1974

  • Contributor to The New Dictionary of Pastoral Studies, Wesley Carr, editor, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, 2002 Journal articles

  • “Toward a More Flexible Monogamy,” Christianity and Crisis, 1975

  • “David, the Bubble Boy and the Boundaries of the Human.” The Journal of the American Medical Society (JAMA), Jan 4, 1985

  • “The Fish: A Lost Symbol of Sexual Liberation.” Journal of Religion and Health, Winter, 1991

  • “Response: Not Gender but Economics,” Second Opinion, A publication of the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics, 1993

  • “The Witches’ Brew of Spirituality and Medicine.” The Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Winter 2002

  • Opinion pieces in New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, St. Louis Post Dispatch, San Francisco Examiner, and other papers.

Get in Touch →

raymondlawrence@gmail.com | 917.887.4057 | www.cpsp.org