WHAT'S RIGHT WITH SECULAR COUNSELING AND WRONG WITH CHRISTIAN COUNSELING
Provocative title, can answer a) nothing, nothing b) something, something c) everything, everything
The aim: to show that not all secular c. is bad, and not all Chr. c. is good.
Show some bad Chr. c.
Show some good Sec. c.
distinguish structure and direction i.t. of good at and good for
Distinguish: what christians say is good counseling and what secular people say is good counseling
from
what christians say counseling is good for and secular people say counseling is good for.
structure and direction run through eachother in concrete reality. They can be distinquished but not separated.
Example:sec c. tells chr cl. to get rid of religion. She: that is all I can hang on to. Example of not good at or not good for?
Both. Therapist lacked sensitivity to where client is at, (structure/good at) but is because is secular direction/good for).
Other example: Hitler was not an animal, maniac, stupid, but very good at doing evil.
Other question: what is right with the sec. method of counseling and wrong with Chr. method of c.?
Some chr method of c are not very good
,, sec ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,,
WHAT'S RIGHT WITH SECULAR COUNSELING AND WRONG WITH CHRISTIAN COUNSELING?
1.Introduction: competency vs. religious direction
2.When Christian counseling is not safe: the case of nouthetic counseling
3.When secular counseling is not safe: the case of missing clinical sensitivity
4.The marks of a good counselor
4.1Solidarity with the client
4.2Genuineness
4.3Inner peace
4.4 Empathy
4.5 Respect for the client
4.6 Admiration for the client
5. The limits of psychological counseling
WHAT'S RIGHT WITH SECULAR COUNSELING AND WRONG WITH CHRISTIAN COUNSELING?
1.Introduction: competency vs. religious direction
Repeat title. Now, that is a provocative question. Can answer it by a)nothing, nothing, b) something, something, or c)everything, everything. I would probably choose b).
Not an academic question if you are in need of (entrusting your life to) a counselor. So, let's look at the title more closely.
The words 'right' and 'wrong' in the title do not refer to the same order goodness/badness.
Right or wrong as it refers to secular c. has to do with being good at, being competent counselors, and of secular c.s we usually believe they are good at what they do. What we fear is that because they are not Christians, they will lead Christians religiously astray.
With Chr.c.s it is the opposite, we have no fear that they, being Christians will lead us religiously astray, but we wonder sometimes whether they are competent counselors, whether they are any good at counseling and therefore whether they are able to help us with our problems. So, which would you choose, helpful counseling that may be unsafe, or safe counseling that may not be helpful?
Let's remove the issue from the counseling area, and talk about some other profession.
There is this town in which there are two garages right next to each other. Which one of these two garages would you take your car to? The one garage belongs to a devout Christian, a man who goes to church faithfully. As he works on you car he sings hymns all the time and he says a prayer before he starts and after he is done. He is completely trustworthy except that he is a lousy mechanic. It takes him a long time to diagnose what's wrong. After he's fixed you car you have to go back , several times for more repairs.
Next to him is a cracker jack mechanic, who knows right away what's wrong and fixes it expertly. But he's a surly fellow, he does good work but you can't trusts him not to overcharge you if he could get away with it. He never goes to church, drinks like a fish, swears like a trooper, plays pool and chases women in his spare time. But he is a good mechanic. If your car needs fixing, to which garage would you take your car?
This question stacks the deck. It implies that Christian mechanics are always incompetent and that competent mechanics are always non-Christian. Is that your general experience? Anyway, what you would like is to take your car to a competent mechanic who is also a Christian, or to a Christian mechanic who is also competent, especially if he charges less then the non-Christian.
How is this with counseling? Can we separate competency and religious direction as easily as we did with the mechanics?
Let me ask you: Is it generally safe for you as a Christian to go to a Christian counselor except that you might not get as much mileage out of the experience, i.e. it's harmless but not always effective? My answer is no, and I will describe a case to the contrary.
2.When Christian counseling is not safe: the case of nouthetic counseling
There is a form of c. called 'nouthetic c.' developed by Jay Adams of Westminister Theological Seminary. N.C. calls itself biblical c. to distinguish itself from psychological c., which it considers suspect. It claims that the bible has all the answers you need to be a good counselor. For this reason it holds that a seminary education is better prep. for becoming a good c. than a graduate ed. in clinical psych. Adams is a biblicist who believes the bible is a book of propositions, i.e. a book of rules and of wise sayings and that if we follow these rules we will live happy lives and that if we don't we get depressed. According to N.C. feelings follow behavior: if you do right, you feel good, if you don't, you don't. The style of N.C. is like a confessional: you confess your sins, to a counselor and you promise to repent, and you inevitably will feel better. Quotes Ps.32 re. this.
(Philosophically Adams follows Hobert Mowrer, neo-Behaviorist, and a Moralist. I call him Freud-upside-down. Freud: feel bad bec. feel guilty, Mowrer feel bad bec. you are guilty. You have broken a societal rule and you must own up to and atone for your sin. Methodologically N.C. is one-dimensional: it uses the technique of confrontation only. In therapy there are many others: empathy, genuineness, listening, leading, focusing, concreteness, free association, interpretation, catharsis, cognitive structuring, summarizing, paradoxical intention, desensitization, crisis intervention, role playing, etc., etc. Thus it is a very crude therapy)
Some ministers accepted N.C. because it presents itself as biblical, began to practice it with parishioners. N.C. comes from nouthesia, Greek for 'to put in mind', 'face with reality', often translated as 'discipline'. N.C. seemed to work with some who needed to change their behavior. Does not work with depressed people. Ministers proceeded to tell D. parishioners to confess sins with the promise that they would feel better. D's complied readily. Quite willing to admit they are sinful, experts at putting self down. Trouble was, all this confessing did not make them feel better. Ministers: keep looking there must be some hidden sin you have not confessed. Then, D.s became depressed bec. could not think of any more sins ---> suicidal. Ministers ring me in a panic. I had to clean up their mess.
N.C. is an example of a counseling approach which calls itself Christian , but has potential of harming people. Is it Christian? No, N.C.'s counsel away from selves rather than declare solidarity with the client. Furthermore, its moralism, we are saved by clean living, good deeds philosophy harms Christians who suffer from D., could drive them to suicide.
3.When secular counseling is not safe: the case of missing clinical sensitivity
Next question. Is it generally safe to go to non-Chr. counselor provided she/he has the credentials/reputation of being competent? No, again. Another anecdote. When I was a full-time practicing psychotherapist in BC, Canada from 1977-1982, a woman came to see me with the following story:
She was Christian suffering from depression, had seen a secular psychiatrist for some time. He was, she said, a very good therapist who had helped her a great deal. She trusted him a lot. However, recently he had insisted that the reason she was depressed was because she 'had religion' and that if she would get rid of religion she would be cured. Sadly she felt that she would have to leave him because " he does not understand that my faith in God is the only thing I have to hang on to. It is the only positive, sure thing that still makes sense in my life. And now he is asking me to give that up too???!!!"
It was clear to me from the emotional turmoil that this woman expressed that this therapist not only threatened her faith but also her mental health. By insisting that this woman give up her faith this therapist demonstrated his clinical incompetence, because the first and last rule of therapy is to be sensitive to where your client is at, and this therapist obviously was not. He demonstrated a gross lack of clinical sensitivity at least on this issue. He let his own religious bias get in the way of his therapeutic effectiveness, to the detriment of his client.
4.The marks of a good counseler
So, what's a Christian to do when she is in need of a counselor? Let her look for someone with sensitivity, someone who she feels allows her to be herself as a Christian with emotional problems, someone who, she feels, can help her. The point is, when shop for the therapist, use your gut to decide, because you know: hey, this is helping me, or hey this is not. And that is what counts. A therapist who is sensitive to your needs as well as competent to help you... That may be a Christian therapist, but not always. Some Christian therapists are quite insensitive.
You don't know in advance. You just have to find out whether the person you are seeing is a good counselor. Make a contract for a couple of sessions. My own style is to agree to see someone for 4 sessions, and then to review. If by that time my client can't tell me how I am helping them I terminate the counseling and advise them to see someone else.
So, let's go back to the original issue: I believe it is more important to go to a good, sensitive counselor than to go to a Christian counselor. What makes for a good counselor besides clinical sensitivity?
I have a whole wash list of marks of a good counselor that I think you should look for when you go therapist shopping. No doubt my list is biased, but these are the things I strive to be in therapy in order to help my clients, and I believe every good therapist should aim at demonstrating these qualities.
4.1Solidarity with the client
Some therapists counsel away from themselves. They view themselves as normal, and they think that clients are abnormal and they think that their clients come to them to be helped because they (as therapist) are normal. I learned very early in my career that I am not normal, that I am a little crazy. (tell story). (Also get into the dif. between holiness vs. wholeness.) Look for a therapist who does not make you feel abnormal.
4.2Genuineness
I also learned early in my career the importance of being genuinely myself, being real, being authentic, not to pretend in therapy. My students and my clients tell me that I am real and I prize that quality in me. For example, I have learned that being a Christian is not a matter of what I say, or even of what I do, but a matter of who I am. (tell story) Look for a therapist who is real.
4.3Inner peace
A cardinal rule about being an effective therapist is that it must be quiet inside. As a therapist you must be free from anxiety about your own performance. You cannot be preoccupied with your own problems because, quite obviously, this would keep you from attending to your client's problems. In therapy a therapist must be free from anxiety. A therapist obtains that inner peace through education, training, internship, supervised experience, and through having been in therapy yourself. As a result of all of these you grow in self confidence. In addition therapists obtain this inner peace through taking on a receptive attitude.
As a Christian I obtain this inner peace through prayer. At times, when I am stuck in therapy that means I have a running conversation with God: this is not working what do I do now, please? etc. At other times it means taking on the attitude of prayer that manifests itself in the posture of prayer. When I pray, I am on my knees, my eyes are closed, hands locked into each other as if they are handcuffed, Face open and raised upward. The whole posture says: I am open to you, receptive, I have nothing to offer, I need, please help me. The attitude of prayer is an open, receptive attitude.
This is waiting for God. It is appropriate for me as a Christian therapist to take that stance, because I know that in myself I am not wise, the insight I have I have to receive from God, I am merely the conduit of God's wisdom, I am God's ears for healing my clients. Christian counseling is pipeline activity. (Look up 1 Cor.1:3,4)
My waiting for God gives me inner peace. But all, ALL counselors, Chr. or not, must have inner peace to be effective. One of my clients told me one time: Harry, when I talk with you, you feel like a comfortable, old pair of slippers. Look for that quality, when you go shopping for a counselor.
4.4Empathy
People come to counseling when they have personal problems, problems of their person, they are a problem to themselves, they feel stuck with themselves, have to resolve themselves, have to undo and redo themselves. They do that when they look at, review, think about, talk about themselves in therapy. Before therapy they are in their problems, can't seem to get out. By thinking and talking about their problems, they move themselves outside their problems. They create room for themselves. Their problems are now over there to be looked at. By thinking and talking about themselves they can get a handle on themselves and feel better about themselves. Trouble is we can't seem to do this by ourselves. We need to do all this with someone who demonstrates empathy for us.
Empathy is the most effective ingredient of counseling. If you haven't got it you are a lousy therapist. Therapists are able to demonstrate empathy only after they have learned to be quiet inside. You show empathy toward your client when you are able to listen what he says and how, with what emotion, he is saying it. You show empathy when as a result of listening to him you can understand him cognitively and emotionally, when you know what it feels like to be him, when you know him from the inside out.
AND, you demonstrate this empathy when you can communicate your understanding to him in such a way that your client can say: "Yeah, that is exactly how it is with me. This therapist really understands me, knows what I am going through." Look for a therapist who demonstrates empathy.
Why is it that people with personal problems only seem to be able to resolve when they talk about them to an empathic therapist? It is because they are human beings. In distinction from other creatures, human beings are creatures who have something to say. It belongs to the essence of our humanity that we express ourselves, that we speak. This has to do with our neighbourliness. People need to express themselves to others, they need to be able to address others and they need to be heard by others. It is important that all of us show empathy to our neighbours. By not listening to another human being, to our neighbour, by ignoring her/him, we violate her/his humanity.
(That is why women flock to counselors in N.A., they are not heard in our culture.)
People in pain have an even greater need to talk to others They need to be able to talk to others about their pain, they need to express their pain. And to tell another human being that you are hurting helps, heals, provided the other listens, hears, and shows empathy.
I also believe that a therapist because he is a witness to the client's pain must also be an advocate for that client. The job of a counselor is to listen to the pain, to hear the pain, to acknowledge the pain to feel the pain, and to bear witness to the pain. To be a good therapist is to be with the client in her pain and to say to the client: I feel your pain. I know you hurt. But it is also to stand next to the client and to yell at the top of your voice to others: SHE HURTS LIKE HELL!! DO YOU HEAR? SHE HURTS LIKE HELL!!
Look for a therapist who is willing to stand next to you in your pain and be your mouth piece to others.
4.5Respect for the client
Quite obviously, not all the people who come to me for help are Christians. How do I counsel them? It belongs to my approach in therapy that I respect my clients as persons. I will not manipulate them. I will treat them as subjects, i.e. as people who have worth, who have their own individuality, their own outlook on life, their own religion or ideology. I especially consider it important to respect my clients' religion/ideology.
This is because I believe that to be religious, to have some sort of conviction about life is basic to human life. We all have a need to believe in someone or something. It is hard to live without believing in Someone or something, or without living for Someone or something. A therapist has no right to rob another human being of his or her religious conviction, even if the therapist disagrees totally with that conviction. It is not the job of Christian therapy to evangelize, to convert, to proselyte, but to heal. It is not my job as a Christian therapist to make my clients into Christians, but to be a Christian for them.