Association for Clinical Pastoral Education. Northeast Region. Records, 1926-2012.

The clinical pastoral education movement (CPE) started in the mid-1920s when the Rev. Anton T. Boisen, a Presbyterian minister and former mental patient, became the hospital chaplain at the Worcester State Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts. Boisen believed that certain types of schizophrenia could be understood as attempts to solve problems of the soul, and he felt called to "break down the dividing wall between religion and medicine." He believed it was important to give theological students hands-on training within a hospital setting to learn how to minister to patients who were experiencing a crisis in their lives. He developed a method of training that became known as the case study method, and this remains the standard method employed in CPE training. The first clinical pastoral education program was created at Worcester State Hospital, where Boisen was employed as chaplain, with the support of Richard Cabot, MD, a medical reformer with an interest in clinical and humanistic ethics. The program led to the formations of the Council of Clinical Training for Theological Students (1938), under the direction of Boisen and Helen Dunbar Flanders, a former student of Boisen's; and the Institute of Pastoral Care (1944) under the leadership of Cabot, Austin Philip Guiles, and Russell Dicks.

The Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) was formed in 1967 through the merging of the Institute of Pastoral Care, Council of Clinical Training (formerly known as the Council for Clinical Training of Theological Students), the Association of Clinical Pastoral Educators (formerly known as the Southern Baptist Association for Clinical Pastoral Education) and the Department of Institutional Chaplaincy and Clinical Pastoral Education - Lutheran Council. The present-day Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc., describes itself as "a multicultural, multifaith organization devoted to providing education and improving the quality of ministry and pastoral care offered by spiritual caregivers of all faiths through the clinical educational methods of Clinical Pastoral Education." One of nine regions, the Northeast Region includes Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Each region is managed by the Board of Representatives, and regional and national conferences are held annually.