Divine Healing in Pastoral Counseling: Pentecostal Practice and Ecumenical Accountability

Abstract

The global mental health crisis and the complexity of human suffering require pastoral counseling that does not reduce healing to either clinical intervention or spiritual explanation. This article frames divine healing as a pastoral counseling practice that integrates the experience of the Holy Spirit, pastoral accompaniment, ecumenical dialogue, and ethical responsibility. Using a qualitative-conceptual approach through an integrative literature review and theological-pastoral analysis, the study examines scholarship on divine healing, spirituality and mental health, Pentecostal ministry, and ecumenical documents. The findings show that divine healing should be understood as a holistic process involving body, emotion, relationship, identity, and spirituality, rather than merely instant physical cure. In Pentecostal ministry, the experience of God’s presence is mediated through body, affect, prayer, testimony, and community, yet it must be tested through pastoral discernment. Ecumenical dialogue functions as a corrective to exclusivism, spiritual manipulation, and anti-medical attitudes, while expanding healing as a pneumatological, interdisciplinary, and accountable ecclesial practice within contemporary Christian pastoral care globally.