Spirituality in Christian Counseling

Reading for Discussion

Book: Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling

Author: Mark R. McMinn, PH.D. , new foreword by Gary R. Collins. PH. D.

McWinn Chapter 5 & 6

Chapter 5 Sin

Notes: One word can make a difference in how two different Counselors describe the relationship between sin and psychological disturbance (mental health disorders). Albert Ellis argues the concept of sin is the cause of virtually all psychopathology. Jay Adams argues that sin is the cause of virtually all psychopathology except that which is caused by organic factors. Both arguments appear the same but different. Ellis believes all we need to do to be healthy is to dismiss our silly ideas about right and wrong and live a life of responsible pleasure seeking. Adams leaves out the word concept, suggesting that sin itself is the problem. People are emotionally disturbed because they are sinners who have been damaged by other sinners and need to repent to live an obedient life. Ellis calls us to eliminate our sensitivity to sin. Adams calls us to heighten our sensitivity.

Foundations of Psychology

Are we sinners, or are we sick? Do we have moral problems or psychological problems? Our answers to these questions reflect our attributional style, and they shape the way we do counseling. By attributional style, psychologist mean the way people explain good and bad events in their lives and the lies of others.

Christian Theology

Sin is any lack of conformity, active or passive, to moral will of God. This may be a matter of act, of thought, or of inner disposition or state. Christian theology includes both a personal and an original concept of sin.

Spiritually

Entering deeply into the spiritual life requires us to abandon sin management and to seek inner transformation through the work of the Holy Spirit. Richard Foster puts it well: Our ordinary method of dealing with ingrained sin is to launch a frontal attack. We rely on our willpower and determination. We determine never to do it again; we pray against it, fight against it, set our will against it. But the struggle is all in vain, and we find ourselves once again morally bankrupt or, worse yet, so proud of our external righteousness that “whitened sepulchers’ is a mind description of our condition.

The discussion of sin leads to some important question for Christians counselors: Should I confront sin in my clients’ lives? Will confronting them help them experience greater psychological and spiritual health? Depending on personally style and theoretical orientation, some counselors routinely answer no to those questions and avoid confronting their clients.

In counseling, four approaches to confronting sin are appropriate in various situations: silence, pondering, questioning, and direct censure. However, there is an option of not confronting sin. Each approach must be carefully selected with regard to the particular client, the situation, and the nature of the therapeutic relationship.

Final Thoughts from McWinn

There is a day when I was quite critical of biblical counselors. I caricatured them as folks who worked like detectives, searching for sin in their clients’ lives and then convincing them to repent. It struck me as a bad approach to counseling. I now realize that these were gross misrepresentation of what biblical counselors actually do. The biblical counselors I respect most speak of “idols of the heart, “which refers to our propensity to put last things first and first things last. This, is turns out, is a very good understanding of sin and how it interferes with human flourishing. Sin ruptures relationship, causing us to wander away, sometimes far away from God’s sustaining will for our lives. We can wander as individuals, and we can wander as communities. Christian counseling, like good biblical counseling, helps people find their way back to the great commandment that Jesus taught and that is “Love God, and our neighbors as ourselves.

Chapter 6 Confessions

Foundations of Psychology

Two examples of these studies include testing the impressions – management effects of private confession.

Bernard Weiner and his colleagues reported five role playing studies to test the effects of public confession (not in a church setting). They found that public confession, especially confession that is not prompt by an accusation, makes observers less angry and caused them to judge the offender as less culpable than offenders who do not confess.

James Pennebaker and colleagues have investigated the psychological effects of disclosing personal and traumatic experiences. Among other measures, they used skin conductance as a measure of anxiety. Pennebaker’s studies showing that those who expressed grief after the loss of a spouse had fewer physical ailments than those who tried to deal with their grief privately.

Catholic priests have listen to confessions for centuries.

The Christian church has always been interested in confessions, but the means of confession has changed throughout the past two millennia. We know form Scripture (Acts 9) that a form of public confession as practice by the early church.

Scriptures describes two common uses of confession. The first is the confession of faith, publicly declaring our allegiance to God. Jesus cautioned the disciples that they would be scorned and rejected, noting. Second, confessions of sin is described throughout Scriptures in the Bible. When we sin, we are instructed to confess in various ways depending on the circumstances involved. We must freely confess our sin to God. While reflecting on the goodness of God’s forgiveness.

Confession requires humility, and humility is not easy. Often one’s initial exposure to spiritual disciplines makes confession more difficult because we become so enthralled by the spiritual life that we mistakenly assume spirituality is a path to happiness rather than humility.

Final Thoughts from McWinn

Counseling is about vision, about seeing where each of us is in the context of a larger metanarrative. Christian counselors are moral philosophers, helping people see themselves in the context of creation, fall and redemption. Effect counseling is not so much a matter of getting people to admit their sin as it is to see themselves as beloved sinners in an enduring relationship with God and others. This may be the essence of confession; feeling safe to tell the truth.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Book: The New Christian Counselor, A Fresh Biblical & Transformational Approach

Author: Dr. Ron Hawkins, Dr. Tim Clinton

Hawkins & Clinton Chapters 7 & 8

Chapter 7 Atmosphere and Alignment

Communication, as we know, is far more than the words people say. Studies show that only 7% of meaning is found in the actual verbiage. The remaining 93% of meaning in verbal communication is found in the tone of voice, gestures, and body language. In our counseling office some of our clients are so emotionally numb, they don’t pick up on social cues from the counselor. Most desperately want to know they are loved, and they matter to someone.

Christian counseling is a powerful partnership that facilities genuine change and encourages clients to explain and explore their needs.

Common conditions:

The client is coming from a very hurting place

The client is coming from a very unsafe place

The client is coming form a place of brokenness, of impotence and failure. They will likely feel ashamed and reluctant to admit their failure to change or grow.

The counselor must build a positive therapeutic atmosphere to build trust.

Success is forming a collaborative engagement directed toward the achievement of goals that will be perceived as beneficial to the client depends on the counselor’s ability to create a particular kind of environment or atmosphere. The environment is characterized by serval valuable elements, including a commitment to positive presence and successful alignment with client preferences. We use the word atmosphere to describe the all-encompassing environment in which the interaction between the counselor and the client takes place. It is the sum of the counseling processes as they unfold and in which the counselor client relationship dynamics are contained.

An atmosphere includes visible, physical aspects, such as the counseling office setting, and nonvisible aspects such as the intellectual, spiritual, relational, and emotional content and tone of the counseling sessions.

Illustration 2

Elements Contributing to the Defining and Shaping of the Soul and Resources Unique to the Christian Counseling Experience.

· The resource of God’s commitment to ministering grace at the point of human need and calling his disciples to a ministry of grace.

· The resource of God’s wisdom, revelation, and truth in Scripture, in the incarnated Christ. And in creation.

· The resource of God’s love and passion for connection.

· The resource of the Holy Spirit generating wisdom, patience, power for change, and shalom in the core self. The Holy Spirit contributes to the restoration of the image of God in the core self and makes Christ visible in the words and works of the disciple.

Empathy that facilitates client change contains three essential forms of being.

· Being in. This is the ability to get into the client’s world, to understand it emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally, and to clearly communicate that understanding back to the client.

· Being with. This connotes the ability to understand your client at a deeper emotional level while also maintaining your perspective as a therapist. This level of empathy involves being intimate with your client and clear boundaries and without client enmeshment.

· Bing for. Like the value of love, this refers to the ability to communicate to the client that you are unconditionally for that person even when you are challenging sin and misperceptions in their life. This is the ability to give grace to the client and is useful in communicating your respect and validation of the person.

Chapter 8 Analysis and Assessment

Clinical Analysis the process we call counseling.

There are many words that take on special significance for the Christian counselor during the initial phase of the counseling process. Words like listening, connecting, encouraging, empathizing, modeling, self-disclosing, aligning, teaching, and a host of others are important.

Modalities in the vertical column with a brief explanation of each:

· Spiritual core, containing the human spirit, the image of God and the Holy Spirit in the regenerated soul

· Thinking in multiple dimensions, such as imagination, metacognitions, conscience as ally or enemy, and conscious thought

· Decisioning – human will its freedom to choose positive action

· Feeling as indicators and motivators for health or un health

· Sin as ally in constructing behaviors damaging the self and relationships

· Body- appetites residing in the body managed well or out of control

· Temporal systems- relational patterns in life contributing to our detracting from overall physical, social, or spiritual health

· Supernatural systems – relationship with God and supernatural evil contributing to or detracting from overall well being

McWinn Lecture: Liberty University, Prayer and Christian Counseling

COUN 506 (LUO)

Week Six, Lecture One

· Prayer and Christian Counseling

· Definition of Prayer

· The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray

· They didn’t ask Jesus to teach them how to do miracles but they felt the power was in prayer

· True whole prayer is nothing but love – St. Augustine

· There is a difference between the practice of prayer in the name of Jesus and human prayerfulness

· Prayer is a gift we receive, and all Christians are required to do and teach others

· Waiting on God

· Listening attitude

· Seek and you shall find. Knock and the doors will be open for you

· Should counselors pray with clients?

· How should be draw our clients in

· Which forms of prayer should we use with certain clients and situations

· Do we pray for non-believers?

· Prayer and Core Self Change

· Outside in change with inside out change

· Long term transformation change with redemption

· Inside out process is key, this is not intended to dismiss or do away with the importance of therapeutic techniques that work from outside in.

· Outside in change people often go through what therapist refer to as dislocation experiences such as death of a loved one or a terrible tragedy.

· The counselor hopes to sue the dislocating experience to create a moment in which a person might be teachable, to use it as away to break through the numbness in their life or to break habits that are causing problems

· Another way people may go through “outside in” change is the idea of hitting bottom. You hear this term used in addiction circles such as the belief that an alcoholic will finally go to rehab because they can go no lower

· Rock bottom varies with each person

· Interventions can be helpful helping the client to hit rock bottom

· Change therapies are method that actively in involve helping people like family members or friends

· The idea that is an internal balance that al of us have. We will continue to do things until they become painful that the cost is too high to keep doing and they are willing to pay the cost of change

· Acting your way into feeling and thinking can be powerful outside in type of change showing the clients they can achieve the things they need by helping them change their behavior.

· Nine dimensions of human functioning on the METAMOPH grid is action or behavior of a person.

· Start with their actions (Cognitive Therapy)

· Condemnation engineering – we make sure we don’t condemn our clients. Pray for them to have a nonjudgmental attitude.

· If you feel you can’t work with a client it’s okay to refer them to another counselor.

· If we misread our client’s motivation our efforts can come across as forceful

· Be careful not to be more motivated than the client because the client needs to work hard at their own healing

· True conviction must flow from the inside out. People must feel like the conviction is coming from them

· Never demand or force healing upon a client it must be something they are willing to do for themselves.

Prayer for Pscychological and Spiritual Health

COUN 506m(LUO)

Week Six Lecture Two

Therapeutic uses of prayer for psychological and spiritual health

· All Christian counselors are praying people

· There is a belief in a Trinitarian relationship in Christian Counseling. This is the powerful truth that God is always the third party in what we do. It is God who provides all healing and who speaks through our prayers to connect with the Client.

· All healing comes from God

· Prayer can also be used for discernment

· The greatest certainty is faith in God

· As we develop intimacy with God we develop intimacy with people

· Prayer helps us to see we need to depend on God

· Our goal is help the clients to become dependent on God

· When ready it’s best to have the client to pray to avoid dependency

· We have to realize our brokenness to heal

· For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

· Avoid magical thinking: we must connect with God

· Prayer helps us to change our attitudes that are upward toward God, Attitudes that are outward toward others, and attitudes that are inward towards ourselves.

· Focus of prayer should always fall of God and not the Counselor

· Forms of prayer ; intercession, discernment, compassion, concentration, empowerment, centering, use of silence

· Meditation outside session: (Homework) helps with anxiety, despair, compulsive thoughts and relaxation

· Helps with forgiveness

· Build confidence in praying scriptures

· Intercessory prayer is praying for your client’s healing

· Dr. Hawkins stating when you pray you believe that God cares

· It is God that will bring healing into our client’s lives