Soul Care #11: Towards a Model of Counseling

Towards a model of counseling...

Many good counselors have very different models. While admitting that no counseling session cleanly follows any "4 step plan," a good counselor should be able to clearly articulate where/how they leading you.

Here is Dr. C's model in the counseling room, which feels equally helpful for general conversation... I thought of breaking this up into 4 pieces since each one requires some thought. But I think it's helpful to see the whole thing laid out together...

Stage 1: Reactors
Most people enter the counseling conversation as reactors. They bring you a problem that bothers them that they do not understand. They simply respond to life as it comes to them without knowing why.

Positively, this person has begun to see that they do not see. You are there to help them see. To move them to the next stage of awareness, you must help them reflect on disaapointments and unmet longings in their situation, both present and past. These are the questions that help them see why they do the things they do.

Stage 2: Sinned against Sinners
As a person uncovers the major disappointments and unmet desires of their hearts, they begin to see where their patterns of behavior come from. There are logical reasons for the relational choices they have made, and you cannot bypass the hurts of their soul to uncover these.

Yet stopping here leaves a person wounded and self-absorped victim. The goal of your counseling is not so they will understand themselves better, but to love Christ and others better. Thus you must move them to identifying the ways that their relational strategies are harming others.

Stage 3: Independent Agents
Yes, we have been sinned against, but we are also responsible for our choices. In what ways is this person living out of their damage which is causing damage to others? Once the person understands the damage in their souls (stage 2), they are ready to make this change because they see how this happened. Change starts to take place where they understand and make choices to love differently by the power of the gospel.

Some people try to skip stage 2 and move straight into stage 3. This type of person who tries to "white knuckle" himself into better choices will still feel insane because they still don't understand their own soul.

As a person in stage 3 begins to see how they have experienced and perpetuated the effects of the Fall,
you draw the person to see how they damage others when they choose to live out of pain instead of hope.

Stage 4: Dependency upon Christ
As you attempt to move away from long-held unhealthy strategies, you realize how much you desperately need Him. Your only hope is a deeply rooted trust in the One who is changing you.

Secular counseling only takes a person up through Stage 2. Of course it is a positive thing to help people live better, but then comes the struggle of life afterwards. What difference does it make to a person once they are no longer addicted? There is still an empty and unfilled hunger for more. This is a great place to enter the gospel!

So when a person comes to you, or you are trying to evaluate your own difficulties, the model may help you evaluate where you are and what you may need to move forward in your struggle.