¶ … Faith-Based Counseling
When contemplating using my faith to help people through counseling, it is impossible for me not to consider current events that might be relevant to the world of mental health. The current event right now that touches on faith-based counseling is the Duggar molestation scandal and the family's choice to put the offender in a possible faith-based counseling program rather than pursuing legal intervention or seeking counseling from a different type of provider. Lacking all of the information about the offenses, I am not prepared to speculate on whether their choice was the morally or legally correct one, or whether the program that they chose would have been sufficient to end the predatory behavior and protect the victims. I do not have the information that I think would be necessary to begin evaluating those issues. However, it has made me very aware of the fact that, as a faith-based counselor, I am going to encounter scenarios where my religious approach may vary dramatically from the approach that secular counselors would take. I may find myself confronted with a scenario, like this one, where Scripture seems to contain opposing directives to the counselor, because we are simultaneously directed to protect little children and to forgive people. I might find myself in a scenario where I have an ethical or moral duty to report certain behaviors, which may conflict with my legal obligations to a client or with rules dictated by my religious beliefs. Therefore, I realize that in order to prepare myself for faith-based counseling, I need to work to resolve these conflicts before they occur in my role as a counselor.
The first thing that I must do is identify areas where I believe conflict could exist. Clearly, it would be impossible to determine an exhaustive list of potential counseling scenarios where my faith-based approach might bring me into conflict with standard secular counseling approaches as well as with legal requirements. However, any time that a counseling client indicates that he or she has been or intends to harm others, it seems clear that a conflict exists in any counseling scenario because of the competing duty to the...
(Paul, 2005) In fact, the AAPC survey found that African-Americans, devout evangelicals, people without a college degree, the elderly and people age 18 to 29 are most likely to fear that a professional counselor won't take their religious beliefs into serious consideration when treating them. (Paul, 2005) People come to Christian counselors for two reasons," commented Randolph Sanders, executive director of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies, an association of
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Self-management is the goal of the client and the therapist works with the client to aid him or her in recognizing self-defeating thoughts or actions that will give negative results, and developing positive thoughts that will have positive results (Lazarus, 1997). The first tenet that is examined is the one Lazarus calls "Positive Thinking." Positive cognition is focusing on personal skills and strengths, on what is good in the world, believing
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Heart Disease A sense of futility and deep despondency are the primary drivers of the patient's approach to his self-care. These emotions are mirrored by his wife, and further complicated by the exhausting circumstances of being a primary caregiver to a depressed and declining patient. It is doubtful that either the patient or his wife are getting enough sleep, eating well -- within the dietary restrictions -- or following a healthy
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