A Few Thoughts on Counseling and Christian Beliefs
When we’re dealing with counseling and Christian beliefs people often interpret things differently based on their own formation and experiences in life. In my experience I’ve seen too often Spiritual malpractice that’s done more harm than good for people in need of real help. Humans have a need to be understood. The real challenge for some pastors is seeing the patterns and knowing when and where to refer. I’ve been taught that this is good pastoral work.
As Christians in a relationship with God we are all constantly in need of growth and healing in life, both physical and spiritual. The growth process is created not only by quoting or reading the Bible, but also through the rendezvous of one human with others in which one moderates the reality of God for the other by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
We have to find a middle ground where the Bible does have a place therapeutically, and “we also consider the complex factors of chemical imbalances, neurological disorders, and psychical traumas that must be taken into account.”[1] A balanced approach to engaging persons in the growth process demands that there’s a context for addressing the totality of the person’s life, treating the individual as a unity to include the integration of factors such as: social, personal, sexual, psychical, and the Spiritual. Our burden of integration focuses on the role of the person being counseled as well as the person who does the counseling. We all need an adequate competence of our human condition and experience, and this involves offering more than a call to get our act together, and get off of our crutches.
You and I would both agree that we are all created in the image of God. This Biblical expression applies to the complete human self, soul and body, to include the social and environmental life of a person. Even if you healed someone's depression through a system of obedience to the Scriptures other systems will still not be functioning properly.
Spiritual wholeness and psychical health are related. All subsystems need to be moving toward the wholeness of the overall system in a purposeful way. If not, then there will only be limited health. Thus, the image of God is given to humans as an integrative whole that offers the potential of maturation into a complete sense of personhood. This wholeness oriented toward God is first social, then personal, sexual, psychical, and lastly spiritual making personhood the core of spirituality and health.
Not every problem of human behavior can be attributed to spiritual decay, just as all problems can’t be attributed to organic causes. This is why its important for Christians who offer counseling be open to the possibilities that the source of the problem may exist in the physical, social, or Spiritual sphere of the self. The truth of this statement requires that the proper therapeutic procedures be administered accordingly.
