Narrative Therapy, Postcolonial and Transcultural Pastoral Care and Counseling: Perspectives on the Experience of Korean Clergy Women

This research explores the application of Narrative Therapy theory, as well as postcolonial and poststructural theory, to help explain the complexity of the psychological experiences of being both a Samo (a pastor's wife) in Korean immigrant churches and a Moksa (a pastor) in cross-cultural and cross-racial appointments in The United Methodist Church in the United States.;The hermeneutic research method of intuitive inquiry through qualitative case study research was used for sharing the experiences of five interviewees (O, H, J, M and S). The researcher began by using self-reflection, feminist and womanist research, and a literature review to articulate her preliminary understandings. The research of personal experiences was then looked at through the philosophical, theoretical, and practical foundations of poststructural discourse with Narrative Therapy theory in relation to Postcolonial theory. Through critical analysis of the sociological, cultural, and psychological aspects of the interviews, the theological reflection of being MoksaSamoi can be analyzed according to the experience of Jesus on the cross as an incarnational practice with hybridity in a third space.;Findings include the summaries and application of the interviewees' narratives. The narratives of being a Moksa and/or Samo invited examination of the dual struggles in which they find their calling and to the worldview they belong. Their narratives disclose a personal psychological wrestling with ambiguous and hybrid identities of "in-between-ness" and dislocation. The interviewees' struggles of being named a Moksa and/or Samo disclose the problem of the bifurcated privileging of one against another. The privileging was usually the Western feminist assumptions and normativities under the patriarchal and kyriarchal social structures, institutional expectations, and colonial oppression. This often became clear in the physical, psychological, and spiritual problems of their individual lives and relational experiences with others and their communities.;The significant goal of living in the complexity and ambiguity of being a MoksaSamo is for these Korean clergywomen to re-author and identify themselves with a sense of agency. They negotiate the various possibilities of living in transnational and transgenerational worlds and the overlap of daily experiences in which cultures and practices are constantly formed and transformed. The creation of the agentive storying of self and community in postcolonial and transcultural counseling can empower the "unique" and "different" narratives of the MoksaSamo in living in-between two or more cultures and sets of expectations. The researcher concludes that postcolonial and transcultural pastoral care and counseling is not only a therapeutic technique or skill, but also a philosophical framework and political commitment for transformation and social justice.