OASIS PASTORAL CARE AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE

Budapest – HUNGARY OASIS – where you are listened to

The OASISwhere you are listened to, Pastoral Care and Mental Health Service is a supported institution by the Hungarian Province of Society of Jesus. OASIS has been providing a place in the heart of Budapest for 9 years where anyone can get supportive listening, hope and strength. This is also a cooperation of other religious orders and civil professionals.

In our secularized culture, many people who seek help find support from esoteric helpers, rather than from communities of our Church, such as Christian professionals who would help them find the meaning of their lives in Jesus Christ. However, Hungarian clerics have slowly opened up to using the methods and means of Christian psychology. Today people need special help in finding ways back to the Church, in trusting its ‘representatives of God’. Pastoral care is the most important help for those who are hurt, who are lonely, who are searching for spirituality. We are the first contact to church in (pre-) evangelization.

 

Our mission is to be present as qualified professional help for young adults, single individuals and families who come to us. To listen and accompany them through pastoral counselling so that they can recognize the love and acceptance of God, their own values and strengths, and help them live with these findings.

Since its start, Oasis has been the only low-threshold pastoral-care service in Hungary, which provides individual pastoral care and information about other therapeutic utilities, or spiritual guidance.

We welcome our clients with professional pastoral psychological and spiritual care/ knowledge based on our monastic tradition and with information relevant to their lives, expertise in pastoral-psychology and spiritual direction based on our religious order traditions and with information relevant to their lives. Our activity serves the deepest need of our era as being listened, being unconditionally accepted, being valued, and being loved. In a way we are also a “gate of the Church”.

Our service is available for free, anonymously, regardless of background, religion, denomination, ideology or nationality. We are open 27 hours/week, with no registration or waiting list. Delegated professionals by orders and civil experts make up our team which is also a “gate and a face” to the Church.

 

Our main values

highly prepared, qualified professional team; “low-threshold” service; preventive impact; no waiting list; professionalism in theological and spiritual issues; answering the needs of those who have relationship problems; networking of national and international pastoral services; relevant and up-to-date information about other therapeutic utilities and experts; spirituality and pre-evangelization; self-knowledge groups, being a model for other initiations, sharing “best practice” experiences and setting up a collaborative network in Hungary.

 

The OASIS Team – Sign and Form

Cooperating with about 23 professional volunteers has a meaningful impact on the Mobilization of Society. Our colleagues represent many different helping backgrounds (pastoral counsellors, mental health caregivers, psychologists, psychiatrist, supervisors, psychodrama leaders, grief counsellors, counsellors specialized in family life, MFM or disability issues, family therapists, logo-therapists.) We model our mission through our good teamwork, and effective networking. Our employees are also trained individually, so several people participate in psychodrama, art therapy, monodrama, or spiritual training.

Many of our clients admitted that at Oasis they the found opportunity to share something so specific that they had never dared to share before. We experienced indeed that through our service people had gained strength and hope to continue on their ways.

 

We provide pastoral counselling in English, German, French as well, for this service ask an appointment at oazis@jezsuita.hu.