We're picking up where we left off last time in the same text.
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"...Even today, then, counseling, perhaps more provessionally structured and theologically oriented, is still the chaplain's stock-in-trade with all of his people.Have you ever known a person who has made a career of the military and maybe you know him or her in outside life? Or maybe you've seen a person or people change from pre-military to post -military days? Can you tell that certain military presence about a person that goes with him or her even when s/he is not in the military?
All this is not to say that the military chaplain abandons the teaching of scripture, preaching the word of the Lord, administering the sacraments of his church, or visiting the sick and imprisoned. Rather, counseling is what he does along with these functions. It becomes his more rabbinic style. It may be his more "securlar" work - even when he does it from his religious posture." (p. 441)
Well, do you think it would be too unusual to suggest that if military chaplains do this kind of thing as incorporated into all their ministry that it might also have gotten incorporated into ministry post military service (or, as in the case with the Vienna H.R. staff, concurrent with military service)? Because that is exactly what I would like to suggest here, that this kind of thing was brought into the Vienna mission service by the H.R. staff, at least by the director, as I didn't have interaction so much with the other staff to be able to tell so much about him. But for the director I think his dimeanor was like this a lot of the time, and not just with me either, I don't think. When I saw him in social situations even with others sometimes I thought he came across to me this way. It felt like it to me anyway.
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"Althought chaplains are able to refer individuals to such specialists where they are available, greater numbers of people are likely to see their chaplains first." (p. 441)What a hypocrite! I think we'll see more about this kind of thing, if I remember right. I never had any kind of counseling by him and it never even occurred to go to him for anything like that or to anyone else for that matter. What would have helped? Them cutting back on the stressors that they were putting out on purpose for some reason intentionally. Since I didn't know what the reason was, but I didn't like the possibilities I could think of, I wasn't about to fall square into their trap and come running to them about the difficulties.
So the thing is that the H.R. director somehow based on some kind of bogus reasoning decided I had culture shock. But I had never ever met with him before. I've discussed this in great detail already, but the thing is that I never complained ever about the Austrian culture. I never had any complaints about that at all; none. That was NOT the issue.
In considering my much-beloved logical fallacies, which I learned about in apologetics class and have since put to other use (as well as apologetics), as needed.
It could be said that chaplain used appeal to authority because he used the research article at that point in my life, although I felt pretty confident in a few areas, it was based on a combination of personal experience, knowledge gained from individuals on the front lines, and some research which would be more like research assistant work, work in a specialized library, etc. But I didn't have the advanced research skills to feel comfortable discussion of research articles and the like. By the time I was collecting these articles I'd almost completed my first Master's degree and had received good training in that regard so was a lot more comfortable in that sphere.
So basically, I think what he knew of me, and that would have been second hand, was that I was feeling a lot of stress. But he had not himself, as in this text, attempted to meet with me to discuss what I might be feeling. The possible reason for this was that the norm in the mission was, it seemed to me (at least for the secretaries) to have a sort of counseling-patient relationship between the secretary and her boss, especially during the socialization phase. At least that would be part of the complex relationship. So in that context, it would be improper for the H.R. director to step in and play that role. The thing was, though, that I don't remember ever really confiding to my boss anything. I never really felt comfortable enough with him in that way to do that. He was nice enough, but I never really wanted to develop a closer relationship with him, so I never wanted to confide anything to him. I've discussed that elsewhere too. So the stress issue would have come from the other secretaries because there were I think two other secretaries that I shared this with and they would have reported this back to their bosses as part of the process of socializing me, although one was still in the process of being socialized herself, but she was farther along than I was, having arrived earlier than I.
So the military chaplain/H.R. Director, on the basis of rumors that I was under stress (for some reason or the other) and on the say so of the research article that he brought to the meeting with me decided I had culture shock. With nothing else to go on, would you say that that is enough to want to send someone home for culture shock counseling?
Since all the stressors were coming from the mission (and not the culture as they would have everyone believe), and I was going along with everything, and this was totally unexpected (there was absolutely no indication prior to this that this was coming, honestly; I had no idea they were going to do this at all and there was no reason to think this was warranted and there was no indication from anyone else at any point ever at the mission confirming that they thought I might have had culture shock, and that includes the people who knew me but didn't work close to me).
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"He is never asked to abandon his religious convictions, those matters that are the focus of his specialty. He may only need to ask himself whether a religious intervention is appropriate and whether his religious view takes into account respect for his 'client's' convictions." (p. 442)This actually, when you think of it, isn't all that much different from a secular counsellors's perspective, because they also "take into account respect for his client's convictions." Many counsellors will encourage faith practices even if they themselves aren't religious or are of another religion. So it's not that much different. Is the chaplain counseling as a clear aspect of his religious duties - maybe on site of the chapel - or is it maybe in a more secular setting? In the Vienna mission it felt more secular, except that a scripture verse was used and they sent me to a Christian counseling center. How ironic that such a cloak of humanity should enshroud their treatment of me leading up to that time. Incidentally, the stressors from the mission prior to going to the USA eased up, for the most part at least. I'll get into that later though.
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"Every military person experiences an orientation phase, called 'boot camp,' 'recruitment trainig,' 'basic training,' indoctrination. For most men and women it is a limited time (four to eight weeks) of considerable stress and sudden changes in their sense of identity. It is a period in which physical and psychological limits are pushed out to their maximal borders of containment. Individuals are expected to adapt to highly structured routines. Group performances are rewarded; personal efforts are approved only insofar as they contribute to the success of the team." (p. 446)That sounds worse than "socialization," but that's the military's equivalent to socialization. My socialization didn't go well and it could be considered that because my socialization/bootcamp didn't go well I was sent to the brigs (counseling in the USA). Of course, that's a very unethical - if not illegal - use of counseling, but I wasn't the first person sent home to the U.S. for counseling so presumably however I was sent home at least 2 others were sent home for similar reasons, only they responded better than I did, evidently because they were in the USA for a much shorter time as I heard it told. The thing is, though, that the Vienna mission didn't have that many options available to them as to what to do if a person wasn't doing well in "boot camp". Having the person stick around with the possibility of him/her affecting other members would be totally out of the question, of course. And if they sent him/her home they had to have a guise/front or reason or reason for doing so, no? So counseling could provide a reason and also possibly help in the socialization process itself. And insurance would cover it, to boot! Such a deal! It was too good to be true!
The thing was that when people go into the military they pretty much know what to expect and they have every opportunity to find out, especially these days with the Internet. Even so, it can still be difficult to wrap your mind around the reality of what it's going to be like and you think that for sure you can do it and then when it comes down to it it's a lot harder than you think. But in the case of the Vienna mission you really had no way of knowing because they didn't want anyone to know what goes on inside other than the public P.R. image. Beyond that you had to just sort of piece things together from stories from different places and even missions and make an educated guess. Even I who should have, I think, had a little better idea, didn't (have a better idea) of what it was like.
Of course, in my case, it was a bad fit in the first place because if they were going to be testing me on being a team player which meant me being an all sold out secretary I should never ever have taken the position in the first place. But my mission gave me other information leading me to believe that it would be okay to work with Austrians, and I thought I was a team player. But they didn't like that I withheld my thoughts from them. Because I did that that made me less than a full team player, I think. But they're not God and I wasn't going to give them the place of God in my life. Once you opened up everything then they could play God in your life. It wasn't going to happen and it didn't. Sorry, Charlie. I'm a team player, but you're something short of God.
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That's it for this text. Have a nice day.