A Psychiatrist Looks at Troubled Pastors
An interview with Dr. Louis McBurney
Paul D. Robbins and Harold L. Myra
April 1, 1980
Pastors who feel discouraged and depressed, even suicidal. Pastors leaving the ministry. Pastors who cannot understand why they have oppressive feelings of failure. Such reports two years ago from our board members were part of the stimuli that encouraged us to create LEADERSHIP. True, there are many happy, productive pastors, but there are also many going through deep struggles. Who could speak to such matters? Fred Smith, subject of our first issue's interview, told us with great enthusiasm about the work of Dr. Louis McBurney, a psychiatrist who has devoted his career to counseling ministers and missionaries in crisis. Dr. McBurney was named Outstanding Student in Psychiatry upon completion of his M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. After finishing his psychiatric specialty training at the Mayo Clinic, he was selected by Mayo and the American Psychiatric Association to receive a Faulk Fellowship-a program assigning psychiatrists in training to serve on committees of the APA and served on the Committee for Psychiatry and Religion. While at Mayo, Dr. McBurney spent much of his time counseling with Christian ministers and their families, and it was there that he and wife Melissa first realized that God was leading them to establish a retreat and therapy center. That leading became Marble Retreat (Marble, Colorado, 81623), where pastors, missionaries, church staff members, and other church professionals come seeking new directions and new beginnings. Editor Paul Robbins and publisher Harold Myra met with Dr. McBurney in San Antonio and taped a five-hour interview. Louis McBurney is, for all his credentials, as relaxed and unpretentious a man as you'll find Yet his observations are compellingly relevant, set within his own very ...
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