13 Facts About Anton Boisen

Anton Theophilus Boisen was an American chaplain.

Anton Boisen was a leading figure in the hospital chaplaincy and clinical pastoral education movements.

Anton Boisen graduated from Indiana University in 1897 and taught French and German, first in high school then later as a tutor at the university.

Anton Boisen went on to work for the US Forest Service for several years before having a second psychotic episode.

Anton Boisen entered the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and graduated in 1911.

Anton Boisen moved from the Presbyterian to the Congregational Church, and worked for the next ten years in rural church survey work, in pastorates in both Kansas and Maine.

For two years during World War I, Anton Boisen worked with the YMCA in Europe.

In 1917, Anton Boisen returned from Europe and experienced another breakdown, but recovered to accept an offer to join the Interchurch World Movement.

In 1924 William Bryan of the Worcester State Hospital invited Anton Boisen to become a hospital chaplain, and the following year he began a program at the hospital for the clinical training of theological students.

Also during this period, Anton Boisen began a five-year stint lecturing each fall quarter to students in the social ethics department of Chicago Theological Seminary.

Anton Boisen explored the concept that mental illness represents a crisis brought about by the failure to grow into higher social loyalties, including loyalty to God.

In 1932 Anton Boisen became chaplain at Elgin State Hospital near Chicago to be closer to Chicago Theological Seminary and to Alice Batchelder, a love interest who worked in Chicago.

Anton Boisen believed that some mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, could be interpreted as one's attempts to solve "problems of the soul".