Counselor Counseling Quotes

Self-talk reflects your innermost feelings.

The counselor says that with more time and more surgeries, I will begin to feel normal again. She says this with a mouth that can still smile. It’s so easy to be reassuring when you have lips.

I have never seen a client make a serious effort to confront his abusiveness unless somebody required him to do the work. The abuser who truly enters counseling voluntarily, with no one holding anything over his head, quits within a few sessions, unless he finds a counselor he can manipulate.

The actions and emotional responses of others are not your responsibility. You cannot rescue people from themselves. This is for them to do. — André Chevalier

After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the couch, he remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him [as a career counselor] was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited--long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms--what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true 'calling.

Being divorced does not necessarily make one’s advice on marriage useless … or useful.

By instinct, habit, and enculturation, all of us tend to think of counseling as a human-with-human interaction. But in fact a human-with-Savior interaction must come first. When I as a counselor don’t get that straight, I inevitably offer others some sort of saviorette.

Angeline, distraught over her son's obsession and afraid of the effects of the past year on Artemis's mind, signed her thirteen-year-old up for treatment with the school counselor. You have to feel sorry for him. The counselor, that is.

There’s a reason why many people feel most loved and cared for in the therapists’s or counselor’s office: few people ask us questions as well as they do, with the interest that they do. We should consider deprofessionalizing that task, though, and restore it to the context of friendship and mentorship where it originally belonged.

Deanna's job (as counselor) is to keep us from deluding ourselves.

Counseling is ultimately not about the counselee or the counselor, but about the Divine Counselor.

Some people would have killed themselves and/or someone else if they were single; and some people would not have done that.

A good coach can be a caring parent, a wise teacher, an exemplary pastor, a passionate friend or a devoted mentor. Keep in touch with all of them especially at the time they are needed.

Sure you’re all right?” The nurse. Maybe she was some kind of counselor, Chip thought, with some special kind of training, who gets sent around to deal with it when they find people staring out of windows.

They've started to say "life-limiting" instead now. "Children and young people with life-limiting conditions..." The nurse says it gently as she explains that the hospital has started to offer a counseling service for young patients whose conditions are "terminal." She falters, flushing red. "Sorry, I meant life-limiting." Would I like to sign up? I could have the counselor come to my bed, or I could go to the special counseling room for teenagers. They have a TV in there now. The options seem endless, but the term is not new to me. I have spent many days at the airport. Years. And still, I have not flown away.

The word grace has several meanings in the Bible, one of which is help. The Holy Spirit gives help when His people read His Word and then step out by faith to do as He says. He does not promise to strengthen unless they do so; the power often comes in the doing.

When I consider the men (like my father) I have treated in psychotherapy, I recognize the challenge I face as a counselor. These men are in counseling due to an insistent wife, troubled child or their own addiction. They suffer a lack of connection with the people they say they love most. Chronically accused of being over controlling or emotionally absent, they feel at sea when their wives and children claim to be lonely in their presence. How can these people feel “un-loved” when (from his perspective) he has dedicated his life to their welfare? Some of these men will express their lack of vitality and emotional engagement though endless service. They are hyperaware of the moods, needs and prefer-ences of loved ones, yet their self-neglect can be profound. This text examines how a lack of secure early attachment with caregivers can result in the tendency to self-abandon while managing connections with significant others. Their anxiety and distrust of the connection of others will manifest in anxious monitoring, over-giving, passive aggressive approaches to anger and chronic worry. For them, failure to anticipate and meet the needs of others equals abandonment.

Use fear as a counselor not a captor.

The role of biblical counselors is facilitate the discovery of a greater God awareness through spiritual eyes that look at life through scriptural lenses.

The biblical counselor must always remember that the ROOT problem is deeper than skin; it is sin. The ultimate cure is not culture, but Christ.

Every change that God promises is possible. Every quality that God requires in His redeemed children can be attained. Every resource that is needed God has supplied.

A great fool is any counselor, serving a Lord of high honor, who dares presume, or even think, that his counsel should surpass his Lord’s wit.

Feelings are up and down, they have peaks and troughs. Often, feelings generated by other causes get tangled up with a decision and color one’s vision. Nothing short of commandment living (often in spite of feelings) can keep life stable. The peaks and troughs grow larger as they are allowed to become the life motivating force;7 however, on the other hand, they tend to flatten out as life becomes commandment oriented.

Counselors must recognize that too many Christians give up. They want the change too soon. What they really want is change without the daily struggle. Sometimes they give up when they are on the very threshold of success. They stop before receiving. It usually takes at least three weeks of proper daily effort for one to feel comfortable in performing a new practice. And it takes about three more weeks to make the practice part of oneself. Yet, many Christians do not continue even for three days. If they do not receive instant success, they get discouraged. They want what they want now, and if they don’t get it now, they quit.

Christians never should fear change. They must believe in change so long as the change is oriented toward godliness. The Christian life is a life of continual change. In the Scriptures it is called a “walk,” not a rest. They never may say (in this life), “I have finally made it.” They must not think, “There is nothing more to learn from God’s Word, nothing more to put into practice tomorrow, no more skills to develop, no more sins to be dealt with.

Hope in the Scriptures always is a confident expectation; the word hope never carries even the connotation of uncertainty that adheres to our English term (as when we say cautiously, “I hope so”). There is no “hope so” about the biblical concept.

When Christ said, “take up your cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23), He put an end to all such thinking. He represented the Christian life as a daily struggle to change. The counselee can change if the Spirit of God dwells within him. Of course, if He does not, there is no such hope.

Love, therefore, may be commanded (Luke 6:27 ff.; Ephesians 5:25) and taught (Titus 2:3-4). Love does not come naturally, it must be learned.21 But since it is the fruit of the Spirit, Christians may be sure that it will take the work of God’s Spirit in their lives to learn to love. The Spirit works through prayerful obedience to the Scriptures.

Are you committed to a life of continual counseling, growth, and education? Are you committed to a life of consistently receiving truth, of renewing your mind? From what sources do you receive your counseling? Are you reading books by authors who speak wisdom? Are you listening to music and watching movies that have redemptive and edifying themes? Are you involved in a small group or community of people that can offer you support, guidance, and encouragement, and in which you give back that which you have been given? Do you know of professional counselors you can see when needed? Are you asking God for wisdom about life on a regular basis? (He says if you will ask, He will provide [see James 1:5–8].)

God’s Word changes people, changes their thinking, changes their decisions, and changes their behavior. Change is an important matter to nouthetic counselors. The Scriptures everywhere anticipate change. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of change. His activity is everywhere represented as the dynamic and power behind the personality changes in God’s people.

Corresponding to the two basic philosophies of life, then, hedonism and biblical theism, are two views of love. Everyone, of course, is for love. The hippies are for love, the situation ethicists are for love, the followers of Hari Krishna are for love, Christians are for love. But it is true of love, as it is of heaven, that “everybody talks about it ain’t got it.

The scriptural admonition to “prove all things” (1st Thessalonians 5:21) has no meaning when an institutional view may not be questioned. “Through a multitude of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14; 24:6) has no meaning when an authority figure provides the only acceptable answer. There is no need for a multitude when the only allowed counsel comes from an institutional authority figure.

True love is always under control. It is commanded. Christ commands, “Love your enemies.” You can’t sit around whomping up a good feeling for your enemies. It doesn’t come that way. But if you give an enemy something to eat or give him something to drink, soon something begins to happen to your feelings. When you invest yourself in another, you begin to feel differently toward him. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Surprisingly, once she started working with professional counselors and advocates, Natasha’s opinion about the desirability of reporting rapes to the police changed. Her colleagues pointed out that for some victims of sexual assault, engaging with the criminal justice system could traumatize them severely all over again, so the staff at SFTS didn’t necessarily recommend it. Her colleagues definitely urged every victim to get counseling, however.

With a taproot sunk deeply in the unchangeable Christ, one can learn to live a relatively rootless life here with joy. Change is what the Christian ought to expect, ought to demand of himself, and ought to learn to live with. He knows that there is “no continuing city”26 here; his “citizenship is in heaven.”27 Counselors with this hope can undertake the task of counseling with joy and expectation. By the grace of God, there is every hope of change!

Paul is clear about what it is. Love is giving—giving of oneself to another. It is not getting, as the world says today. It is not feeling and desire; it is not something over which one has no control. It is something that one does for another. No one loves in the abstract. Love is an attitude that issues forth in something that actually, tangibly happens. Notice Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her (Ephesians 5:25). John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

Week after week, counselors encounter one outstanding failure among Christians: a lack of what the Bible calls “endurance.” Perhaps endurance is the key to godliness through discipline. No one learns to ice skate, to use a yo-yo, to button shirts, or to drive an automobile unless he persists long enough to do so. He learns by enduring in spite of failures, through the embarrassments, until the desired behavior becomes a part of him. He trains himself by practice to do what he wants to learn to do. God says the same is true about godliness.

Blameshifting is so easy; after all, it has such a long history—it goes back to the Garden. A person’s personal relationship to the counselee is discussed publicly without any knowledge of the fact on his part and without any opportunity for him to straighten out misunderstandings or balance off unfair judgments. His name and his actions are being discussed in an intimate way by a group of people who know nothing about him and have no right to know anything about him. Often the discussion is instigated by a bitter, resentful person who, according to Matthew 18, should have gone directly to the husband or parent or pastor to seek reconciliation if he felt that way.

I also became familiar with an entirely new category of people: the unhappily married person. They are everywhere, and they are ten thousand times more depressing than a divorced person. My friend Tim, whose name I've changed, obviously, has gotten more and more depressing since he married his girlfriend of seven years. Tim is the kind of guy who corners you at a party to tell you, vehemently, that marriage is work And that you have to work on it constantly. And that going to couples' therapy is not only normal but something that everyone needs to do. Tim has a kind of manic, cult-y look in his eye from paying thousands of dollars to a marriage counselor. He is convinced that his daily work on his marriage, and his acknowledgement that it is basically a living hell, is modern. The result is that he has helped to relieve me of any romantic notions I had about marriage.

Preachers and counselors can spend their energy exhorting people to change their behavior. But the human will is not a free entity. It is bound to a person’s understanding. People will do what they believe. Rather than making a concerted effort to influence choices, preachers first need to be influencing minds. When a person understands who Christ is, on what basis he is worthwhile, and what life is all about, he has the formulation necessary for any sustained change in lifestyle. Christians who try to “live right” without correcting a wrong understanding about how to meet personal needs will always labor and struggle with Christianity, grinding out their responsible duty in a joyless, strained fashion. Christ taught that when we know the truth, we can be set free. We now are free to choose the life of obedience because we understand that in Christ we now are worthwhile persons. We are free to express our gratitude in the worship and service of the One who has met our needs.

Back in counseling when we got home, the topic was our trip. His narrative: We had gone to the beach with our kids, and I never played in the waves. My perspective: Never was hyperbole. Rarely is true. What I said: “I didn’t want to be near him. I was too sad.” What I didn’t say: I thought about dying all the time. Or, not dying, but disappearing. Poof. I didn’t want to die, not really, but I wanted relief. I wanted to stop feeling what I was feeling. I carried all of that with me to the coast, and I didn’t know what to do with it there. The sticking point: I wrote poems at the ocean and didn’t play in the waves. The marriage counselor said, “It isn’t about the waves.” What I said: “He knows I’ve never liked being in the ocean much. Even before we had kids, I mostly sat in my beach chair and read or wrote.” What I didn’t say: The thing about the ocean is I don’t feel safe in it, because I can’t see what’s in there with me. I know I’m not alone in the water, but I don’t know what’s there.

Brandi and I struggled with our marriage, but it was obvious we were falling apart as a couple. That was probably clear to me even from as far away as Iraq, but I did try to make it better. One day I suggested marriage counseling. Initially Brandi agreed. I took advantage of the fact that the military has a program called Military OneSource. It’s basically one-stop shopping for all the help you could need from moving, to retirement, to marriage counseling, as it turns out. So I called one day and asked to be set up with a marriage counselor. The morning of our appointment Brandi decided she didn’t want to go. She didn’t give much detail other than to say, “I’m not going.” Annoyed, I said, “Well shit. I’m going.” I arrived and sat down in a chair across the counselor. He looked at the empty chair next to me and started flipping through the paperwork on his clipboard. Finally he looked up and asked, “I have down that you’re here for marriage counseling?” “Yes, sir, I am,” I answered matter-of-factly. Again he looked at the empty seat next to me and then back at me. And then, in a really deadpan tone, he said, “Huh. Seems like things are going well.

What a contrast between the course of Isaac and that pursued by the youth of our time, even among professed Christians! Young people too often feel that the bestowal of their affections is a matter in which self alone should be consulted—a matter that neither God nor their parents should in any wise control. Long before they have reached manhood or womanhood they think themselves competent to make their own choice, without the aid of their parents. A few years of married life are usually sufficient to show them their error, but often too late to prevent its baleful results. For the same lack of wisdom and self-control that dictated the hasty choice is permitted to aggravate the evil, until the marriage relation becomes a galling yoke. Many have thus wrecked their happiness in this life and their hope of the life to come. If there is any subject which should be carefully considered and in which the counsel of older and more experienced persons should be sought, it is the subject of marriage; if ever the Bible was needed as a counselor, if ever divine guidance should be sought in prayer, it is before taking a step that binds persons together for life.

One of the most difficult things for modern men to understand is how they are responsible for their wives. Men come into a marriage pastoral counseling session with the assumption that “She has her problems,” and “I have mine,” and the counselor is here to help us split the difference. But the husband is responsible for all the problems. This is the case for no other reason than that he is the husband. This does not mean that the wife has no personal responsibilities as an individual before God. She certainly does, just as her husband has individual responsibility. They are both private persons who stand before God. But he remains the head, and just as Christ as the head assumed all the responsibility for all the sins of all His people, so the husband is to assume covenant responsibility for the state of his marriage. If a husband says that he objects to this because it is not fair for him to be held responsible for the failings of another, he is really saying that he objects to the gospel. It was not “fair” for Christ to assume responsibility for our sins either. But while it may not have been fair as we define it, it was nevertheless just and merciful.

The Contributions of Korean Christian Churches Korean Christians have unique contributions to make to our understanding of pastoral theology and counseling. Pastoral counselors and theologians from the United States should look to the South Korean Christian churches and other Asian churches for conversation partners about the nature of care and healing in today’s world.

clergy, and church leaders, teaching and travel in Korea, and study of Korean religion and culture. HeeSun Kim is a Korean who has done academic work and ministry in Korea and the United States. From our experiences we believe there are life-giving perspectives in Korea that need to be shared with United States and Korean religious leaders who are searching for God’s spirit at work for healing, liberation, and reconciliation. What Is Pastoral Theology? Christian pastoral theologians and counselors in the United States have produced some of the most creative ideas about the nature of human suffering and hope in the contemporary world. Experiments in new forms of Christian pastoral counseling started in the 1920s with Anton Boisen and Russell Dicks, who understood the promise of the new psychologies in dialogue with Christian theology and practices. In almost one hundred years these theologies and practices of care have spread over the world. Students from Asia, South America, Africa, Europe, and Australia have studied in the United

The book explains – and, perhaps more importantly, photographically illustrates – death of human beings by all sorts of means. Gunshot, knife, bludgeon, stomping, strangulation, automobile collisions and auto-pedestrian strikes, death by fire, and more are thoroughly covered. When opposing counsel says of your opponent, “He only had a knife (or stick, or bottle)”… “He was unarmed!”… ”He was just driving his car!”…”He was only standing there with an ordinary can of gasoline and an ordinary Zippo lighter!”… …I would like you to be able to honestly say, “Counselor, in that moment I knew what he could do to me. My mind flashed back to pictures I had seen of someone stabbed/clubbed/stomped/run over/burned to death. I pictured my mother or my spouse having to identify me looking like that on a slab in the morgue, and I knew I had to stop him.” There

To shorten what otherwise might become a long list of possible points of failure, it is sufficient to say that counselors may fail in exactly the same ways that their counselees have failed. Consequently, it is important for counselors to examine their own lives and their counseling practices in the light of every failure they detect in others. Counselees become strong reminders of human error and sin and, in that sense, are among the counselor’s most valuable teachers.

Sometimes when counselees are cornered and forced to acknowledge that their behavior is irresponsible, they attempt to dodge the issue by replying: “Well, I guess that’s just the way I am.” They say this in a resigned manner and expect to leave the whole matter right there. They speak as though there were no possibility for genuine personality change. Such a view of man is decidedly unscriptural. Human beings in one way might be described more accurately as human becomings. Personality can be changed. God, throughout history, has turned Jacobs into Israels, Simons into Peters and Sauls into Pauls. Today’s personality is based on yesterday. What one is today is but the composite of his past. At birth, God gave to each of us a basic deposit of inherited stuff which Scripture calls phusis (nature). This is a matter of gene makeup. 1 But that is not personality. How one uses the phusis in responding to life’s problems and life’s challenges determines the personality. Those response patterns may become deeply etched over a period of time. At length, they may seem to be, as we say, “second nature,” i.e., almost as “given” as the original phusis. Though habit patterns are hard to change, change is not impossible. Nouthetic counselors regularly see patterns of 30-40 years’ duration altered. What was learned can be unlearned.

Thus, assigning of homework from the first session on enables a counselor to discover quickly (1) who is willing and able to do God’s will, (2) who is willing but unable to do so (and what impediments stand in the way), and (3) who is unwilling.

The story of Elijah in I Kings 19 is illustrative of the destructiveness of self-pity. Elijah was bold as long as his mind was centered on God, but not when he began to focus his attention upon himself (cf. I Kings 19:4, 10, 14). Because he refused to turn from this self-orientation, his prophetic ministry was taken away and given to Elisha. Self-pity, envy, and brooding can lead to other serious results, as David warns (Psalm 37:8). The case of Amnon shows how through such brooding “he made himself ill” (II Samuel 13:2-4). This continual brooding led, at length, to disastrous consequences.

we are motivated to meet our needs for significance and security in ways we unconsciously believe will work.

Prayer is like a standing counseling session, 24/7, no appointment necessary. Just walk in. And expect to find your Counselor—which is one of the ways Jesus described the Holy Spirit (John 16:7)—always fully understanding your situation and ready to impart timely wisdom.

But because they (wrongly) use the title "Christian counselors" they deceive many -often including themselves. It is not a matter of their motives, but it is a matter of their commitment to biblical counseling.

Rework Your Network As you advance in your career, the advice you need changes. Preparing yourself for a new role calls for proactively restructuring your advice-and-counsel network. Early in your career, there is a premium on cultivating good technical advisers—experts in certain aspects of marketing or finance, for instance, who can help you get your work done. As you move to higher levels, however, it becomes increasingly important to get good political counsel and personal advice. Political counselors help you understand the politics of the organization, an understanding that is especially important when you plan to implement change. Personal advisers help you keep perspective and equilibrium in times of stress. Transforming your advice-and-counsel network is never easy; your current advisers may be close friends, and you may feel comfortable with technical advisers whose domains you know well. But it is essential to step back and recognize where you need to build your networks to compensate for blind spots and gaps in your own expertise or experience.

In the spirit of disclosure, I am a professional counselor, but I have often spent considerable time on the couch myself. Because counseling helped me, I now help others. Helped people help people.

First, for many people the Bible functions within a narrow scope. It gives a religious formula to “get people saved” and then tells them what to do morally: doctrine, conversion experience, and moral values. From that perspective, all a biblical counselor might say to people is, “Here’s how to accept Christ so that you’ll go to heaven. Now, until that day, here are the rules.” But such moralizing and spiritualizing flies against the Bible’s real call. God never tacks willpower and self-effort onto grace. His words are about all of life, not some religious sector.

HOW DO WE DEVELOP PERSEVERANCE IN OUR LIVES? It has been said that “A thousand-mile journey starts with the first step,” and as Christian Counselors, we should encourage people to follow Jesus each step of the way, in every situation, moment by moment, one day at a time. We must allow Jesus to lead us and guide our hearts and minds in order to experience a true transformation of our souls. Perseverance is obeying God and submitting to the will even when things do not seem to make sense or produce results as we expect. The Bible teaches the principle of obedience as seen in the scenario found in Joshua 6:1-20 when God instructs Joshua to overtake the city of Jericho and commands him and his army to march around Jericho once each day for six days. Conventional wisdom says in order for us to defeat our enemies, we should prepare for battle and pray for God to protect and guide our efforts, as would be the ordinary course of action. However, in the case of Jericho God had other plans in which Joshua was required to persevere in the Lord, follow His instructions, and blow the trumpets as the Hebrew army marched around the walls of the city in order to experience victory. This required three things to take place on Joshua’s part, 1. Rather than rely upon conventional wisdom Joshua obeyed God (Obedience) 2. Joshua trusted God that His decision was correct despite any concern he may have had at the time (Trust) 3. Joshua understood that whatever the outcome of events, God was in control (God is in control)

160 items on the CPCE or 200 items on the NCE. The good news, nevertheless, is that as a perfectionist, you can keep in mind that you could conceivably miss 40 items on the NCE and still receive a perfect score. Counselors say to me: “I’m so upset. I bet I missed 40 or 50 questions on the exam” and I reply with something like, “that’s terrific, it’s possible you achieved one of the highest scores ever posted on the exam!” Well, are you breathing any easier yet?

You can do a lot to compensate for your vulnerabilities. Three basic tools are self-discipline, team building, and advice and counsel. You need to discipline yourself to devote time to critical activities that you do not enjoy and that may not come naturally. Beyond that, actively search out people in your organization whose skills are sharp in these areas, so that they can serve as a backstop for you and you can learn from them. A network of advisers and counselors can also help you move beyond your comfort zone.

Folly is the only soup cooked by a multitude of counselors.

As a general guide to help the counselor make a distinction, if the experiences somehow benefit, enrich, or improve the client’s life they are NOT psychotic. However if the experiences tend to disorganize, profoundly disturb, incapacitate, or make the client dysfunctional in some way, then they are very likely psychotic.

spirits.   The reason for this is because the first source of sin is error in the understanding, which is the natural guide and counselor of the will. Consequently, the chief endeavor of the devil is to darken the understanding, and thus draw the will into the same error. Thus he clothes evil with the appearance of good, and presents vice under the mask of virtue, that we may regard it as a counsel of reason rather than a temptation of the enemy. When we are tempted to pride, anger, ambition, or revenge, he strives to make us believe that our desire is just, and that not to follow it is to act against the dictates of reason. Man, therefore, must have eyes to perceive the perfidious hook which is concealed beneath the tempting bait, that he may not be misled by vain appearances.

The Sovereign of the universe was not alone in his work of beneficence. He had an associate—a co-worker who could appreciate his purposes, and could share his joy in giving happiness to created beings. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” John 1:1, 2. Christ, the Word, the only begotten of God, was one with the eternal Father—one in nature, in character, in purpose—the only being that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God. “his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6. His “goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” Micah 5:2. And the Son of God declares concerning himself: “The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting.... When he appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.” Proverbs 8:22-30.

Can there be any positives for an addicted child? It’s hard to believe that there could be. But there’s a lot to be learned from a drug addict or alcoholic. The experience of being a drug addict or alcoholic can definitely serve humankind. As it turns out, some of the only people qualified to call themselves authorities on the subject of substance abuse are former substance abusers themselves. Only the former addict can tell you how the mind of a drug addict works. That’s because he or she has been there. And we haven’t. Nor have many of the so-called expert psychologists and counselors. As in any trade, it’s best to have some degree of education. Former addicts got their education from the substances they abused. As the escalation of drug-use hits an all time high worldwide, there will be an increasing need for these former addicts who’ve actually been “in the field” and can counsel the steady flow of younger addicts. Counselors who have been addicts are usually better able to detect the manipulations or scams devised so cleverly by practicing addicts. As these counselors will testify, they probably know every move an addict is making or is planning to make. Didn’t they do the same? So perhaps there is a positive to your child being an addict. Perhaps your child is being trained to counsel others. Maybe the streets and the alleys are his or her classroom. On staff at practically every rehab in every city across this country, there will be at least several people who’ve gained an education living the life of a junkie or a drunk. These are invaluable personnel, people who’ve walked into the darkness and have walked out again. Could be this is where your addicted child is headed? How about you? Can you help others? There are many child-psychology experts out there making valuable contributions to our culture. But unless they’ve taken the same roller-coaster ride that the parent of an addict has taken, they can’t speak from experience on this topic. Experience doesn’t always count for everything. But once the parent of an addict has passed a certain stage, the “letting-go stage,” he or she can relate to other parents in trouble and offer help. After all, who knows better the pain and sorrow of seeing a child in such distress than the parent? It’s not that I don’t have the greatest respect for professionals or feel that there isn’t a huge need for them: It’s just that there’s a big difference in “living it” and “learning it.” Not long ago, I attended a three-hour seminar given by a noted child psychologist. His subject was how to deal with teenagers so that they wouldn’t fall into the clutches of drugs and alcohol. I was curious about his methods—which consist mainly of “talking” to young addicts and “talking’ to them some more. Then he mentioned that his own children were two and three years old. Listening to him, I wondered just how much his methods in dealing with young people would change over the years, especially after his children reached puberty. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say in a decade or two.

If I understand accountability, but not acceptability, I will live under pressure to behave well in order to be accepted. If I understand acceptability, but not accountability, I may become casually indifferent to sinful living. When I understand first my acceptability and then my accountability, I will be constrained to please the One who died for me, fearful that I might grieve Him, not wanting to, because I love Him.

We should be concerned about the thousands of hours of formal counseling that are not based on God’s Word. But we should also be concerned about the far greater amount of counseling that goes on every day between people who do not know what they are doing and people who do not know how much they are being influenced. If you are alive on this planet, you are a counselor! You are interpreting life, and sharing those interpretations with others. You are a person of influence, and you are also being influenced.

counselors, often confuses stages, states, and lines. He mentioned that clients could move through all four stages (sensorimotor to formal operations) in a single counseling session. People do not actually develop through four (or even two) stages in a day. Rather, different lines of development may be differentially developed, so that a client may appear to exhibit very rudimentary development in one aspect (for example, morality) and advanced development in another (scientific or mathematical thinking). Similar phenomena (clients’ appearing to exhibit the qualities of different stages of development) can be accounted for by distinguishing between stages and states of consciousness. For example, a client may have a developmental center of gravity that hovers around the formal-reflexive mind but experience a state of panic or intense depression during which he resorts to the type of illogical and contrary-to-evidence thinking that characterize preoperational thinking. There are a few places where Ivey seems to distinguish between stages and states, as when he is describing a concrete operational client with whom the counselor finds various deletions, distortions, overgeneralizations, and other errors of thinking or behaving that “represent preoperational states” (1986, p. 163, italics added). This is an important point. The basic structures are not completely stable; otherwise, they would endure even under extreme stress. Hence, developmental waves are conceived of as relatively stable and enduring—far more stable and enduring than states of consciousness, but also far from rigidly permanent structures. Levels and Lines of Development Ivey also wrote of how clients cycle through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development: Each person who continues on to higher levels of development is also, paradoxically, forced to return to basic sensori-motor and pre-operational experience… . the skilled individual who decides to learn a foreign language … must enter language training at the lowest level and work through sensori-motor, preoperational, and concrete experience before being able to engage in formal operations with the new language. (Ivey, 1986, p. 161) People do not revert from the capacity for formal operational thinking to sensorimotor, except perhaps because of a brain injury or organic disorders of the nervous system. Piaget was very emphatic that cognitive development occurs in invariant stages, meaning that everyone progresses through the stages in the same order. At the same time, it is true that just because an individual exhibits formal operational thinking (a stage or level of cognitive development) in chemistry and mathematics does not mean that she automatically can perform at mastery levels in any domain, such as, in this case, a foreign language. This is another example of the utility of Wilber’s (2000e) distinguishing the sundry lines

After the Accuser trumpeted his philosophical dilemma of an unloving or unjust God, Enoch was about to respond when the entrance of another counselor to his team interrupted him. He came from the right hand of the throne of the Ancient of Days and whispered to Enoch. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. But when he whispered, it was a still small voice heard only by his listener. It was the Son of Man, the “second power in heaven.” The first one he spoke to was Uriel. The Son of Man whispered something to him and Uriel immediately excused himself from the throne room. Then the Son of Man walked to Enoch and gave him counsel. Enoch could see the Accuser visibly shaken by the presence of this glorious being. It was as if he knew his case was instantly lost. Enoch had seen this “Son of Man” in his dreams when he was on earth, but after ascending into heaven, he came to know him. There he learned that this Son of Man was also a Son of Elohim, but not like all the other heavenly host. He was the Firstborn, a species-unique, uncreated Son of God. And now, he had joined the defense. Everything would change. After receiving counsel, Enoch spoke, “There is a third way, not addressed by the Accuser’s dilemma. And that is substitutionary atonement.

Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being His counselor hath taught him? With whom took He counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?” (Isa 40:13-14). God

When my husband and I went into the bayou between New Orleans and Baton Rouge for a week of intensive marriage counseling after I started burning myself. My parents paid for it and kept the baby. It didn't work but we did have anal sex and the woman counselor gave me a recipe for oatmeal blueberry pancakes that I still make.

One critical factor in this dilemma is the fact that ministers are profoundly pressed to conform to acceptable contemporary standards. The person who comes to the minister for counsel is not always looking for guidance from a transcendent God, but rather for permission to do what he or she wants-a license to sin. The Christian counselor is vulnerable to sophisticated forms of manipulation coming from the very people who seek his advice. The minister is placed in that difficult pressure point of acquiescing to the desires of the people or being considered unloving and fun-squelching. Add to this the cultural emphasis that there is something dehumanizing in the discipline and moral restraints God imposes on us. Thus, to stand with God is often to stand against men and to face the fiery trials that go with Christian convictions.

There is a perfect marriage. Any marriage counselor can tell you that.

I open the door, expecting to find another feeble human whom I have to appease, but my jaw pops open when I see who is sitting behind the desk in the counselor’s room. “So, honey, how was your first day of school?” he asks. “What are you doing here?” I ask as I quickly shut the door behind me. “I thought you’d be happier to see your new guidance counselor,” Dax says. He’s wearing a light yellow sweater with brown patches on the elbows and sucking on the end of a . . . “Is that a pipe?” He nods. “Not lit, of course. No smoking allowed on campus. I thought it made me look older. What do you think?” “I think you’re addled. What are you doing here? What if this Mr. Drol comes back?” “I am Mr. Drol,” he says, raising his eyebrows and biting the end of his pipe. “I am too old to pose as a student like you and Garrick, but I didn’t want to dump you here all on your own, so Simon got me a job instead. His powers of persuasion were quite effective on the administration.” I nod. “But the part I didn’t tell him is that this arrangement will give us better opportunities to talk in private. I think I might be recommending twice-weekly counseling sessions for you.” He smiles around the stem of his pipe. “You’re looking quite emotionally disturbed.” “I feel emotionally disturbed,” I say, sinking into the seat across the desk from him. “You were right; this place is torturous.” “So what’s this about you picking fights? Do I need to suspend you?

Church leaders, especially those who serve as the “main minister” or “pastor,” have difficult jobs. In many contexts they are expected to wear the multiple hats of social coordinator, superb orator (several times a week), sensitive and insightful counselor, administrator, motivator, teacher, evangelist, mender of relationships, “marryer,” and “buryer”—all the while cultivating an exemplary personal, spiritual, and family life. The pressure to spend hours in study, hours in the community, hours in visiting prospects, hours in counseling, hours in training the staff, and hours in prayer all add up to unrealistic expectations on the part of the church. The effect can be overwhelming.

During my fourth counseling session my counselor encouraged me to challenge just one small act of tyranny he placed upon the family. He knew that if I expressed a disagreement to a bully concerning a mundane issue then he would be willing to discuss the matter. A bully might balk initially but he would soon back down and resolve the issue. An abuser, by contrast, would rage, threaten injury or divorce, and intimidate his target back into total compliance.

The personal costs of counseling also remind us why it is so necessary for a counselor to experience continuous renewal through Scripture, prayer, and the sacraments. Only when one’s own spiritual batteries are being continuously recharged can one hope to have something to give to others. And only in one’s own personal walk with the Lord can one find the strength to bear not only one’s own burdens but also those of others.

Who we are is not a question we can ask without seeking to understand the context in which we live. Biblical counselors seek to understand the influences that shape the responses of the human heart.

Ed Welch says that all counseling is a variation on a single theme: knowing and praying for the counselee. Of all the questions the counselor might ask, then, the central guiding question in the counselor's mind is, "How can I pray for you?

Facing one’s past can be a perilous activity. For the client, joy must exceed misery. Personal successes must far outweigh losses. Pleasure must exceed pain. Always. Always. To do otherwise is a failure of the counselor.— André Chevalier

However, if you do not believe your clients, they may sense your doubt and never fully trust you. As Bruce Goderez (1986), director of a PTSD inpatient unit says, "It is important for the clinician and counselor to be willing to be made a fool." In other words, it is better that you believe a client who is lying or distorting the truth than to disbelieve a hurting trauma survivor who may never seek help again if your attitude is one of disbelief or disdain. Even if that client were to continue in therapy, they would never fully trust you.

Spiritual mentors or peers who are mature in their relationship with God and whose present walk with God we trust can seek God with us and provide us with a sort of “safety net.” If we feel the Spirit is leading us to do something but recognize that much is at stake if we are wrong, we may do well to talk the matter over with other mature Christians. Proverbs advised rulers that wisdom rests in a multitude of counselors, and that advice remains valid for us as well. In the end, we may not always settle on the counsel others give us—like us, they too are fallible—but if they are diligent students of the Scriptures and persons of prayer, we should humbly consider their counsel.

Want me to come?” Tod ran his hand up my back, over my shirt. “If you keep her busy, I could convert the filing system from ‘alphabetical’ to ‘most deserving of psychiatric help.’” He leaned closer, and I knew no one else would hear whatever came out of his mouth next. “I’ve been meaning to make some special notations in Nash’s file anyway. Imagine the level of help he could receive if they knew the root of his recent academic decline was a deep-seated fear of the letter Q.” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. And though everyone else at the table looked curious, no one asked what Tod had said. They were finally starting to learn. “Thanks, but it’s hard enough to take grief counseling seriously without you singing ‘Living Dead Girl’ at the top of your lungs behind the counselor’s back.

If your marriage is hanging by a thread or already heading for a divorce, then you need to stop everything and pursue solid counseling as quickly as possible. Call a pastor, a Bible-believing counselor, or a marriage ministry today. As awkward as it may initially be to open up your life to a stranger, your marriage is worth every second spent and every sacrifice you will make for it. Even if your marriage is fairly stable, you’re in no less need of honest, open mentors—people who can put wind in your sails and make your marriage even better.

Typical Counselee Remarks Typical Counselor Responses That May Be Used

Distinguishing between the emotion and the conviction or judgment that triggers it is often fundamental to the solution to one’s problem.

When counselors take clients seriously, they usually respond quickly, pouring out problems, failures and sins. Others who minimize such comments frequently succeed only in pushing material back down inside the client again. Clients understandably do not want to reveal themselves to someone who won’t take them seriously. Many clients receive some help almost immediately from the fact that someone at last has taken them seriously. Taking people seriously about their sins is an important way to give them hope.

Instead of these mild, oblique approaches, we must learn, in such cases, to be irenically direct.

If a new relationship based upon biblical change and help is not established, then it is likely that one or more of the parties will revert to his old ways again. If so, again an unreconciled condition will develop. This failure frequently results in a kiss-and-make-up pattern.

When help in changing is not sought and the old ways and the old relationships are allowed to continue, the parties set themselves up for a reoccurrence of the offense. Mutual effort to discover and solve issues God’s way must be encouraged by the counselor. The only way to cement a new relationship that will enable both parties to forgive and forget past offenses and to avoid and/or handle future failures as well is by means of such effort.

One of these norms says that Christians must not talk negatively to other people about those who are not in the group. Instead, they are instructed to speak privately about their differences to these individuals themselves. Matthew 18:15-17 is quite clear on the point.33

Often counselors find it necessary to spell out for clients methods for getting things done. They teach them first to plan their long-range goals. Then they show them how to plan the short-range goals which must be reached along the way to attaining long-range objectives. Thirdly, all of the goals are then scheduled as accurately as possible. Fourthly, the planning must be followed by doing. The scheduled goals become (1) incentives: it is easier to shoot for short-term goals; (2) milestones: goals performance may be checked.

The options given to them are the same options that one faces now. They reflect two distinct moralities, two antithetical religions, and two discrete manners of life. The one says: “I shall live according to feeling”; the other: “I shall live as God says.

It is a clever “wile” of Satan to tempt men to think that they cannot do what God requires because they do not feel like doing it, or that they must do what they feel like doing and cannot help themselves.

Thus the first important fact is that counselees need meaning, and the second is similar to it: counselees need hope. Every counselor must keep these two facts in mind, especially at the beginning of a sequence of counseling sessions.

The authority is God’s. Although mediated through various styles, the fundamental authority of God in counseling must be evident in all biblical counseling. Any personality traits that interfere with, rather than mediate the message must be altered. That is why the Lord changed the apostle Peter from a weak, vacillating, fearful disciple to the bold fearless disciple who told the authorities, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is at work, one of the discernible evidences of His presence is changed personalities. Men can and do change. Peter and Paul did; so can you. Sanctification (personality change toward holiness) is the work of the Spirit through His Word.

Based upon the fundamental Christian conviction that men can change as the Spirit works within them, we must insist upon the idea that every man who has been called by God into the ministry has been given the basic gifts for the pastoral ministry and, therefore, can do nouthetic counseling. The gifts required for biblical counseling are precisely those that God requires for the pastorate. A number of changes may be necessary in order for him to achieve proficiency in counseling, but these changes can be made. After all, the Christian counselor is engaged in the very work of effecting God’s change in the lives of His children; if he does not believe that it is possible for change to occur in his own life, how can he expect to see change in others?

If no Christian faces unique tests in life, and if Paul can say to the church at Corinth (living in an entirely different age and culture) that what happened to the Israelites is pertinent also to them (cf. vss. 6, 11), the counselor may be assured that he will face no truly unique problems in counseling. There are just so many basic common themes of sin and no more.

Just as the Christian counselor knows that there is no unique problem that has not been mentioned plainly in the Scriptures, so also he knows that there is a biblical solution to every problem.6 He knows, too, that Jesus was tested “in all points as we are” and that He successfully met every test “without sin.”7 Since Jesus has faced and solved all of life’s basic problems, the counselor knows that in His work and words as recorded in the Scriptures he may discover the needed solutions.8