Exploring the systematic immigrant harms contributing negatively to the wellbeing of undocumented African immigrants in the USA, this paper engages the holistic conceptualization of healing in Exodus to argue for an inclusive pastoral care approach that takes seriously critical social therapeutic models for caring for the spiritual, emotional, and material needs of clients in North American contexts. Specifically, this paper will examine the liberative interpretation of healing in the book of Exodus for pastoral care and counselling to undocumented African immigrants in the USA who are plagued with emotional and spiritual distress because of their traumatic migration experiences. This paper assumes that because the factors that contribute to the distressing mental health outcomes of African immigrants include systematic oppressions, the existing bio-medical and individualistic pastoral psychology models can be improved with social therapeutic methods as discovered in the book of Exodus.
The outline of this paper is: (I), firstly, to use Lisa M. Bowens’ receptive interpretation in African American Readings of Paul to argue for the resistance and the reclaiming as redemptive sacred texts the existing pathologized narratives of African undocumented persons in the USA. This will be done by exploring Exodus historical biblical account of the Hebrews’ deliverance from Egypt as also a metaphoric story of liberation works similar to African migrants’ stories of resistance and transformation, (II) secondly, to use Kenneth N. Ngwa’s Africana reading of exodus in Let My People Live, to examine the meaning of “bitter soul” in Exodus as symbolic of the triple conscious of systematic immigration harms of erasure, marginalization, and singularity that contribute to the distressing spiritual and mental health outcomes of African immigrants in the USA, and (III) thirdly, to use Emmanuel Lartey’s liberative psychosocial praxis for pastoral care and counselling in In Living Color, as an interpretative lens for examining the holistic conceptualization of healing in Exodus as a modeling for caring for undocumented African immigrants in the USA experiencing distressing spiritual encounters and challenging mental health outcomes. This paper seeks to initiate a conversation on how liberation theology intersects with psychosocial counselling and African interpretation of Exodus to contribute to a better understanding of how Africana holistic conceptualization of healing can enhance pastoral counselling and mental health care in North America.
Exploring the systematic immigrant harms contributing negatively to the wellbeing of undocumented African immigrants in the USA, this paper engages the holistic conceptualization of healing in Exodus to argue for an inclusive pastoral care approach that takes seriously critical social therapeutic models for caring for the spiritual, emotional, and material needs of clients in North American contexts. Specifically, this paper will examine the liberative and holistic conceptualization of healing in the book of Exodus for pastoral care and counselling to undocumented African immigrants in the USA who are plagued with emotional and spiritual distress because of their traumatic migration experiences. This paper assumes that because the factors that contribute to the distressing mental health outcomes of African immigrants include systematic oppressions, the existing bio-medical and individualistic pastoral psychology models can be improved with intercultural psychosocial therapeutic methods as argued by Emmanuel Y. Lartey and discovered in the book of Exodus.