Ask Mr. Religion
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I maintain a very small counseling practice. I have to be persuaded that the couple or individual is really in need of the type of counseling I provide. How I go about doing that is not based upon a rigid algorithm or questionnaire. I generally have to know the potential client reasonably enough to have already speculated about some of the reasons for which they are specifically seeking me out. I am always forming opinions about others in my social and personal circles, doing "counseling in my mind", as it were, so when I am approached the decision to engage (or not) is usually self-evident.
I am not certified by any of the usual counseling organizations, but do maintain liability insurance coverage, thankfully never needed in the many years I have worked with folks. I am just an old, happily married man with lots of personal experience that leverages formal/informal training on topics related to caring for the souls of others.
Over the years it has been my experience that counseling needs, after exclusion of physiological issues by a healthcare provider, fall into one or more of the following categories:
* Lack of a foundation in Christ
* Lack of clarity
* Poor spiritual balance between the mind, heart, and will
* Inability to receive forgiveness for all their sins
* Inability to move beyond past failures
* Fear of the future
* Placing too much confidence in emotions
* Faulty love of oneself and a general contempt for others
* Lack of faith
* Seeing only bad and not good
* Bondage to dead legalism
* Failing to recognize false teachings
* Weariness
* Lack of discipline
* Failure to handle trials appropriately
* Failure to respond correctly to chastening
* Bitterness
These are really no great secrets known only to the counselor, and once I start probing one or more emerges as first-order issues that need to be driven to ground in my sessions.
My counseling revolves around the following seven core principles:
1. God is at the center of counseling.
God is sovereign, active, speaking, merciful, commanding, and powerful. The Bible is authoritative, relevant, and comprehensively sufficient for counseling. God has spoken truly to every basic issue of human nature and to the problems in living.
2. Commitment to God has epistemological consequences.
First, other sources of knowledge must be submitted to the authority of Scripture. The sciences, personal experience, literature, and so forth may be useful, but may not play a constitutive role in counseling.
3. Sin, in all its dimensions (motives, behaviors, acts done, acts received), are the consequences of the Fall and our own actions.
Sin includes wrong behavior, distorted thinking, an orientation to follow personal desires, and bad attitudes. Sin is habitual and deceptive, and much of the difficult in counseling consists in bringing specific sin to awareness and breaking its hold.
4. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer.
Forgiveness of sin and the power to conform into His image.
5. The biblical change process which counseling must aim at is progressive sanctification.
Change is metaphorically, not actually, healing. The metaphor captures ongoing repentance, renewal of the mind to Biblical truths, and obedience in the power of the Holy Spirit.
6. The situational difficulties people face are not the random cause of problems in living. These difficulties operate within the sovereign design of God.
They are contexts in which hearts are revealed and faith and obedience are purified through the battle of the Spirit and the flesh.
7. Counseling is fundamentally a pastoral activity and must be church-based.
Counseling is "soul work" and therefore it must be regulated under the authority of God's appointed church leaders charged with the care of its souls.
That last item is vitally important. I do not work outside the client's local church, but come along side it as but one of the church's servants of the care for the flock. If someone seeks me out that is not church attending, they are advised to first covenant themselves with a visible vestige of Our Lord's Bride so that he or she may avail themselves of the ordinary means of grace from the hearing of the Word and access to Sacrament (the Lord's Table). More often than not, the problems for these specific folk usually begin being manageable or may even evaporate. Thanks be to God!
Like most counselors, I have also leveraged a few well-worn aphorisms that I find working themselves into my sessions:
A identify and empathize with the AFFECT (feelings)
B identify and acknowledge the BEHAVIOR involved
C identify and acknowledge the COGNITION or what the person thinks about it
E identify the main EVENT (with the above 3 components)
A good counselor, even a person counseling oneself for that matter, will possess the following core skills: attending, accurate empathy, probes, concrete self-disclosure, challenging skills, accurate advanced empathy, confrontation, self-confrontation, immediacy. While you may not recognize these core skills as so stated, one often need not look further than their own Mother or Father for evidence of them at work.
If you or someone you care about is in need of counseling I recommend you use the content above as a help in identifying counselors that could be prevailed upon for your personal needs. Ask the man about these matters, pray over their answers, discuss things with your loved ones, and then do not hesitate to seek help when you feel provoked by the Spirit that it is needed.
AMR
I am not certified by any of the usual counseling organizations, but do maintain liability insurance coverage, thankfully never needed in the many years I have worked with folks. I am just an old, happily married man with lots of personal experience that leverages formal/informal training on topics related to caring for the souls of others.
Over the years it has been my experience that counseling needs, after exclusion of physiological issues by a healthcare provider, fall into one or more of the following categories:
* Lack of a foundation in Christ
* Lack of clarity
* Poor spiritual balance between the mind, heart, and will
* Inability to receive forgiveness for all their sins
* Inability to move beyond past failures
* Fear of the future
* Placing too much confidence in emotions
* Faulty love of oneself and a general contempt for others
* Lack of faith
* Seeing only bad and not good
* Bondage to dead legalism
* Failing to recognize false teachings
* Weariness
* Lack of discipline
* Failure to handle trials appropriately
* Failure to respond correctly to chastening
* Bitterness
These are really no great secrets known only to the counselor, and once I start probing one or more emerges as first-order issues that need to be driven to ground in my sessions.
My counseling revolves around the following seven core principles:
1. God is at the center of counseling.
God is sovereign, active, speaking, merciful, commanding, and powerful. The Bible is authoritative, relevant, and comprehensively sufficient for counseling. God has spoken truly to every basic issue of human nature and to the problems in living.
2. Commitment to God has epistemological consequences.
First, other sources of knowledge must be submitted to the authority of Scripture. The sciences, personal experience, literature, and so forth may be useful, but may not play a constitutive role in counseling.
3. Sin, in all its dimensions (motives, behaviors, acts done, acts received), are the consequences of the Fall and our own actions.
Sin includes wrong behavior, distorted thinking, an orientation to follow personal desires, and bad attitudes. Sin is habitual and deceptive, and much of the difficult in counseling consists in bringing specific sin to awareness and breaking its hold.
4. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer.
Forgiveness of sin and the power to conform into His image.
5. The biblical change process which counseling must aim at is progressive sanctification.
Change is metaphorically, not actually, healing. The metaphor captures ongoing repentance, renewal of the mind to Biblical truths, and obedience in the power of the Holy Spirit.
6. The situational difficulties people face are not the random cause of problems in living. These difficulties operate within the sovereign design of God.
They are contexts in which hearts are revealed and faith and obedience are purified through the battle of the Spirit and the flesh.
7. Counseling is fundamentally a pastoral activity and must be church-based.
Counseling is "soul work" and therefore it must be regulated under the authority of God's appointed church leaders charged with the care of its souls.
That last item is vitally important. I do not work outside the client's local church, but come along side it as but one of the church's servants of the care for the flock. If someone seeks me out that is not church attending, they are advised to first covenant themselves with a visible vestige of Our Lord's Bride so that he or she may avail themselves of the ordinary means of grace from the hearing of the Word and access to Sacrament (the Lord's Table). More often than not, the problems for these specific folk usually begin being manageable or may even evaporate. Thanks be to God!
Like most counselors, I have also leveraged a few well-worn aphorisms that I find working themselves into my sessions:
- Knowledge comes from experience; experience comes from being wrong.
- He who angers you, conquers you.
- Recreation = re-creation.
- Life is not static; nearly all decisions can be reversed or adjusted.
- Discipline reflects a conditioned mind. Discipline is mental muscle that needs to be worked so when you need it you are strong.
- Your looks fuel your ego. A low self-image often translates into a sense of diminished physical presence.
- Learn to loosen the grip of the past on you.
- Reluctance to set goals and plan for the future relieves you of the burden to achieve.
- Anger is but one letter removed from Danger.
- Enjoying anger is usually the result of:
- powerful emotions serving to mask other feelings one would rather not experience and acknowledge;
- emotional voids into which anger makes one feel alive;
- a sense of identity, anger giving one something to believe in;
- an impetus to take action; and
- a feeling that this is the only way one feels others will listen to them. - A feeling that one needs to be in control all the time usually masks feelings of inadequacy as one seeks respect.
- A person who often finds themselves in unhealthy relationships needs to review what they really want and not what they are used to.
- Everything we do is consistent with our self-image.
- Guilt is the anger you feel towards yourself.
A identify and empathize with the AFFECT (feelings)
B identify and acknowledge the BEHAVIOR involved
C identify and acknowledge the COGNITION or what the person thinks about it
E identify the main EVENT (with the above 3 components)
A good counselor, even a person counseling oneself for that matter, will possess the following core skills: attending, accurate empathy, probes, concrete self-disclosure, challenging skills, accurate advanced empathy, confrontation, self-confrontation, immediacy. While you may not recognize these core skills as so stated, one often need not look further than their own Mother or Father for evidence of them at work.
If you or someone you care about is in need of counseling I recommend you use the content above as a help in identifying counselors that could be prevailed upon for your personal needs. Ask the man about these matters, pray over their answers, discuss things with your loved ones, and then do not hesitate to seek help when you feel provoked by the Spirit that it is needed.
AMR