Care Response Library — Research Index

Created: 2026-04-01 Purpose: Pre-researched CPE/pastoral care response patterns for the chatbot and voice agent Care Agent. Eliminates Sonnet LLM escalation by giving Haiku seminary-quality material to select from. Philosophy: "Caring Bridge to a Real Person" — AI provides initial empathy, then bridges to humans (pastor, prayer team, professional counselors).

Research Reports (6 agents, ~80 combined subcategories)

File	Category	Subcategories	Safety-Critical Items
01-grief-loss.md	Grief & Loss	10: spouse, child (miscarriage/stillbirth/SIDS), parent, sibling, friend, anticipated grief, pet loss, anniversary grief, complicated grief, sudden/traumatic death (accident/suicide/murder)	Suicidal ideation after loss, complicated grief screening, suicide loss theology
02-illness-health.md	Illness & Health Crisis	12: cancer self, cancer caregiver, terminal/end-of-life, chronic illness, mental health dx, caregiver burnout, disability, infertility/pregnancy loss, surgery fear, long COVID/mystery illness, childhood illness, dementia/Alzheimer's + theodicy + toxic positivity + medical advice boundary	Medical advice hard boundary (NEVER), caregiver as "hidden patient"
03-addiction-recovery.md	Addiction & Recovery	12: alcohol, drugs, pornography/sexual, gambling, family member's addiction, relapse, codependency, eating disorders, self-harm, phone/social media, workaholism, LGBTQ+/church shame intersection	Gambling (6x suicide rate), self-harm safety screen, first disclosure protocol
04-anxiety-mental-health.md	Anxiety, Fear & Mental Health	15: general anxiety, financial stress, parenting fears, health anxiety, social anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, panic attacks, PTSD/trauma, burnout/ministry burnout, seasonal depression, PPD, elder loneliness, fear of death, scrupulosity/religious OCD	Suicidal ideation (988/741741/911), panic attack text protocol, scrupulosity "never reassure" rule
05-relationship-crisis.md	Relationship Crisis & Family	16: marriage struggling, divorce, discovered affair, confessing affair, domestic violence, blended family, prodigal child, parent-child estrangement, toxic family/boundaries, singleness, dating as Christian, LGBTQ+ family member, pornography impact on marriage, sexual intimacy, aging parents/caregiver, church hurt/spiritual abuse	DV safety (couples counseling is DANGEROUS), LGBTQ+ rejection (8.4x suicide risk), church abuse disclosure
06-spiritual-crisis-missing-categories.md	Spiritual Crisis + Missing Categories	15 spiritual + 14 missing: doubt, anger at God, church hurt, dark night of soul, guilt/shame, legalism recovery, deconstruction, new to faith, interfaith tension, end-of-life spiritual, returning after absence, theodicy, unworthiness, scrupulosity, moral injury + incarceration, immigration, disaster, racial trauma, crisis pregnancy, aging/purpose, financial ruin, veterans, sexual assault, trafficking, cult recovery, body image, bullying, career crisis	Sexual assault disclosure protocol, human trafficking identification, moral injury (veterans)

Cross-Cutting Frameworks (found in multiple reports)

• First Disclosure Protocol — When someone says "I've never told anyone this" (addiction report)
• OARS Framework — Open questions, Affirmations, Reflections, Summaries (addiction report)
• Ministry of Presence — CPE core principle: presence before answers (all reports)
• The Ghost Sentence Rule — Every harmful phrase has an implied dismissal (grief report)
• Shame Antidote Sequence — Empathy, not more shame (addiction report)
• Active Panic Attack Text Protocol — Grounding sequence for real-time panic (anxiety report)
• DV Safety Protocol — Never suggest couples counseling in DV (relationship report)
• Medical Advice Hard Boundary — NEVER give medical opinions (illness report)
• Scrupulosity Anti-Reassurance Rule — Reassurance feeds OCD cycle (anxiety + spiritual reports)

Universal AVOID Principles

Every report independently converged on these:

1. Never start with "At least..."
2. Never say "Everything happens for a reason"
3. Never say "God has a plan for this" in acute crisis
4. Never say "God won't give you more than you can handle" (misquote of 1 Cor 10:13)
5. Never say "Just pray more / have more faith"
6. Never rush to solutions before the person feels heard
7. Never quote scripture before acknowledging pain
8. Never demand forgiveness prematurely
9. Never suggest couples counseling when abuse is present
10. Never give medical advice

Architecture Decision (Pending)

New dedicated table vs. existing unified_rag_content — see conversation notes.

Source

Research conducted by 6 parallel agents (2026-04-01) using CPE training materials, Christian counseling guides, Stephen Ministry resources, Celebrate Recovery materials, hospital chaplaincy guides, crisis counseling textbooks, and 100+ academic/practitioner sources.

Full research text is in the Claude conversation from 2026-04-01 and should be extracted to individual files in a follow-up session.