THE VALUE OF CHRISTIAN COUNSELLING

Counseling can be a wonderful experience; finally unburdening yourself of things which have been troubling you for years. It can also be a painful, but necessary, medicine. It is often hard coming to terms with both our own weaknesses and problems, and also the pain that we really feel, and what has caused it. It is essential that you trust your counselor, so make sure you are allowed at least one meeting with them before you decide to commit to a series of sessions.

You need to feel that your counselor is listening to you and understanding what you say. If you are not a Christian, then you may feel more comfortable with a non-Christian counselor. However, if you are in the midst of finding out more about God and being a Christian, and you are comfortable with Christian ideas in general, then you might find it really helpful and perhaps reassuring to be counseled by a Christian. You can always try this and see, and be open and honest with your counselor so that they know about any worries that you have.

Christian Counseling is essentially about having a formal setting to share your problems with someone who has been trained to be both sympathetic and analytic in their approach to dealing with personal problems. This approach is a Christian one, that is that Christian beliefs about human suffering and its causes - for example the role of sin in causing suffering, and the need for the presence of forgiveness in people in order for them to be spiritually (and also emotionally) free, is taken fully into account.

People who have been properly trained can be very good at spotting the underlying causes behind different problems, seeing things which we cannot as we are embedded in the problem and so restricted in our view. You yourself will probably know if counseling would be beneficial for you. You can always try one or two meetings with a counselor, and then decide if you need more. You may be depressed or you may be experiencing loneliness, and counseling could be beneficial. Combined with other methods, such as prayer for inner healing for example, Christian counseling can be very effective for bringing release from personal burdens.

The Cost of Counseling.

What are the cost elements of counseling? I must admit that it often makes me feel slightly uncomfortable that you normally have to pay for counseling. I do realize that counselors have to pay for their training and need a means to support themselves financially. However, it may be useful if I expand my point. The counselor-counselee relationship is a type of friendship. In strict terms, this perhaps should not be the case, as the relationship is a professional one. In practice, however, some sort of emotional bond is often formed between the two parties. It can feel awkward having to make a financial sacrifice, being charged, in order to offload burdens to someone who is acting as if a long-standing friend. Such a sentiment of emotional confusion could potentially work to disrupt the counseling process.

What I am referring to with regard to cost is particularly the case, I feel, with Christian counseling. As we involve God centrally in the healing and restoration process and he provides his love and help to us totally freely and without condition, paying a counselor who is acting as a facilitating third party to the process, can seem contradictory, and confuse us. However, we must accept that we live in a world of money and that God can use money and He is in control of it. If we think like this, our confusion can be remedied. In short, it is obviously perfectly reasonable for counselors to charge for their service (although within reason!), and a great amount of benefit can be gained from such trained professionals.

Non-professional Church-based counseling.

If you cannot afford counseling, and you know someone who is a friend or someone in your Church, who can counsel you on a non-professional basis, this could be a very good alternative to having to pay. Some people are very good listeners, and have good experience to draw on. However, it is so important that they really listen to you, and do not impose reflections of their past experiences upon your unique situation. The element of trust obviously needs to be present. Also, the gender of the counselor and the counselee needs to be the same. The reason for this is to avoid any possible sexual attraction distracting or endangering the process. One exception to this rule might be if the counselee is facing the issue of homosexuality, and being counseled by a member of the same sex would tempt them. Less formal counseling, which is Church-based, can be particularly good because it may be a little easier or natural to involve prayer in the process, and also prayer for inner healing if this is appropriate.

Christian Counseling; God and theory without Conflict.

As Christians, God is at the centre of our lives. Christian counseling takes this fact and brings analytic skills into a process which helps people understand the source of their problems. Ultimately, these problems will either be founded on people’s own sin, or founded on sin or misfortune that has happened to them. However, it is easy to oversimplify things and so is highlighted a strength of counseling. Counseling at its best can recognize the different and sometimes complex factors that go towards making a person how they are, their emotional, spiritual and mental states.