Counselling in the Light of the Christian Gospel (3)

(*Acknowledgement below.)

A way of understanding the bond between counsellee and counsellor which I believe is fruitful is by using the notion of the caregiver-child attachment style.

According to attachment therapy, a therapy deriving from the work of John Bowlby, that style established in the family influences other important relationships as the child grows up.

More especially these styles or patterns of relating affect our adult relationships for weal or woe.

Attachment relationship styles have been classed as 'secure', 'anxious–preoccupied', 'dismissive–avoidant', and 'fearful–avoidant'. These attachment styles develop between between care-givers and children for a number of reasons. Temperament of child and caregiver will be at least one factor but others include past history of mother and physical health of mother and child.

What I find interesting is that these styles will emerge in relationships with God and also in relationships with counsellors. (Of course, they show up in romantic relationships so knowledge about these styles can be invaluable in suggesting possible ways to go in counselling married and unmarried couples.)

Importantly, we need to keep mind that God, the Lover of our souls continuously seeks our companionship through His Son the Lord Jesus, inviting us to believe 'into' Him. That's right! Not just to believe 'in' Him but to believe into Him which expresses more eloquently the full commitment that is asked of all Christ-followers.

No theory of relationship of relationship can adequately portray the full essence of relationship. (Theories are limited to generalisations about samples and don't have the ability to describe any specific relationship.) However, relationships are a vital factor in all counselling and various ways of describing and studying them deepens our knowledge of what counselling involves.

(*With kind acknowledgement for the graphic above to http://4.bp.blogspot.com/ )

Counselling in the Light of the Christian Gospel (2)

• A Rogerian Model for Counselling Others

According to Carl Rogers (1902-1987), the father of the 20th century counselling movement, counsellors should ensure that they provide the basic quality conditions of empathy, respect (towards counsellees) and 'congruence' (genuineness) in counselling sessions to ensure counselling effectiveness.

Rogers believed these three conditions to be both necessary and sufficient for effective counselling. If any one of these conditions is not provided then counselling will suffer but provided they are offered by the counsellor then they will be effective without the addition of any techniques.

Rogers' method grew out of his assumption that any person's true self is usually in conflict with the ideal self he is forced to be in public. The 'incongruence' or disparity between these two is reflected in tension between the true and the ideal self.

Rogers therefore understood people to be first and foremost individuals, autonomous individuals who Rousseau-like were forced to compromise their true selves in order to live at peace in family, school and society at large. However, this compromise led to neuroses because such a compromise entails tension at the core of the person.

At the religious level, Rogers' views cannot be accepted by orthodox Christians because people are not autonomous in Rogers' sense that each person has his own law within himself. That is blatant humanism and Rogers was well aware that it was.

One important criticism of the Rogerian therapeutic offered conditions model at the practical level is that it did not take into account how those counsellor offered conditions were received by the counsellee.

• A Pan-theoretical View of the Therapeutic Relationship: The Alliance in Therapy

Other models did arise to challenge Rogers' formulation. But the finding that comparisons among actual counselling informed by different theoretical models did not show any significant differences among the competing theory-practice models led researchers/theorists to look for a model that is not dependent on one theoretical framework.

From the fact about the non-significant differences among different theory orientations emerged the idea that common factors were operative under different terminology in all types of counselling.

Although the 'alliance' idea originally emerged from psycho-dynamic theory it was lifted out of that background in the 1970s and connected with the 'common factors' movement. (Note: the 'alliance' concept is also known by other names such as 'working alliance', 'therapeutic alliance' and 'helping alliance'.)

This 'freeing' of the alliance concept from a particular body of counselling theory has led to ways of trying to understand what this atheoreticising process means.

Adam Horvath, a major contributor to alliance studies, has developed the image of the 'psychological commons' as a lexical space for ideas to hang out for which we do not have strict definitions but rather descriptions. (To be continued.)

Counselling in the Light of the Christian Gospel (1)

What is often missing in the counselling of those in trouble is an understanding of the larger context in which all counselling takes places. Deep realities revealed in the Christian Scriptures are at work whenever helping is undertaken.

These realities are more than doctrine--although doctrine is important and has its place; more than narrative--a common reduction of today--even though narrative has its place too. 

These realities of which I speak can only be understood as: the things that God has done, His mighty acts as Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer. God, the holy Trinity, made the creation and continues to sustain it by his mighty word of power.

Moreover, when our parents defied Him and were unfaithful to Him, He set about to rescue them, to save them from the penalty of sin that they had brought upon themselves.

He raised up a people to be a light to the nations and from that people He brought forth His unique Son, Jesus of Nazareth to be the saviour of the world. His death paid the penalty for our sin and his resurrection assured us that we have a future with Him in the new heavens and new earth.

All these mighty acts are revealed in the holy Scriptures and are witnessed to by the ecumenical creeds.

Moreover, these acts of God directly affect how we do counselling.

(For the counselling graphic above I acknowledge http://passionforpreaching.net ) 

Needs and Psychotherapy

It's fascinating the large part that the concept of 'need' plays in the psychological world these days along with the accompanying concepts of 'addiction' and 'recovery'.

'Need' has got completely out of hand so that we have about as many needs as once was said we had instincts. In fact, 'instincts' and 'needs' seem to be similar explanatory ideas from different eras.

All persons are said nowadays to have a set of universal needs -- shared by everyone else -- but the needs' lists themselves vary among themselves.

One authority says, 'Needs are more than the things we can't live without. They represent our values, wants, desires and preferences for a happier and/or more meaningful experience as a human'. According to this view, all humans have a common core of needs: when these needs are met, then positive feelings follow; when these are unmet, then negative feelings are experienced.

This understanding does not seem to reckon with the fact that some people's needs are not proper or legitimate. 

The 'need' for affluence is illegitimate because it fails to take account of the needs of others both present and in the future for a reasonable standard of living. However, over-riding even that consideration is the deeper religious issue that needs ideology seeks to find revelation for human living within the human person. Hence, in that respect it is humanistic and unchristian. Needs are important but they are not to be the drivers of human action, the oughts that push behaviour.

Christians find divine Revelation in the Word of God and as the community of Christ it positivises or gives concrete form to what it hears from the written, spoken and non-verbal Word (Ps 19.1-4).

Hidden Feelings & Their Consequences

Books can be divided into various categories somewhat like people we meet: some remain complete strangers, others mere acquaintances while others friends and still others close friends regardless of how often one sees them.

A long time ago I bought Self-Therapy: Techniques for Personal Growth by Muriel Schiffman (1967). Her work obviously arises from the 'humanistic' movement spawned by Abraham Maslow and later Carl Rogers which became the 'pop' psychology of the 1960s and beyond.

Although her general humanistic philosophy is not one I subscribe to yet I find myself often coming back to this book. Her book then is a 'friend' of mine. And it's easy to see why. My own experience forces me back to it.

Just recently, I slid into a strong, down mood. When I asked myself why I could see that it had arisen out of family communications where I had got quite narked by what had been said by others but had immediately 'sat' on my anger and gradually descended into depression.

Schiffman called emotions like anger 'hidden feelings' and the depression an 'inappropriate reaction'. Often we think that the depression or anxiety has just fallen on us from nowhere but in fact it has engulfed us because we have failed to face something we don't want to face.

She outlines four helpful ways of approaching such situations with the first one being to 'talk it out'. She noted that this approach is good if the situation is in the past. She described how she had heard some dancing music going in the lounge room while she was working in the kitchen which made her eager to dance. She was in the mood but her husband was lying on a couch and was obviously not with the beat at all. In fact, he decided to go outside and garden. Muriel was furious!!

The next day a friend calls and Muriel decided to talk with her about what happened. Muriel by now has realised that she was at fault in getting angry with her husband. (How would he know she wanted to dance? She hadn't told him!) 

This step then, is step 1: recognise an inappropriate reaction to something.

Step 2: feel the apparent emotion. Muriel then talked her way back into the anger she had felt the previous day.

When the feeling was strong again, she went to Step 3: what else did I feel? Interestingly, what she felt before the anger was 'feeling helpless, starved, like a child deprived by an adult' (p. 10).

Her Step 4: what does this [picture] remind me of? brought to mind a number of potent associations. Wanting to dance at dances but not being asked; the special meaning that dancing seemed to have for her; her father's account of how he had fallen in love with her mother while dancing with her.

But Muriel concluded that she couldn't find the hidden feeling so she went back to Step 3: what else did you feel? Briefly she tracked down the feeling to shame. She was ashamed of this desire to dance. The feeling was strong enough for her to cry but it lasted only a minute. The anger at her husband had left after the feeling of shame had taken over.

She felt much relieved and lighter so she moved to the final step (Step 5) Look for the pattern. The pattern is, whenever she feels the desire to dance she is secretly ashamed of it.

She didn't analyse this incident much further than this but she did discuss it with her husband. She cautioned that it's not always wise to discuss the hidden feeling with the person directly involved but she wanted him to know about it because the situation was sure to arise again. He assured her that his unwillingness to dance with her at times in the future would not be evidences that he was rejecting her.

She did report that the urge to dance did arise in her at a later date after her husband had had a very, large meal. He didn't want to dance because the dance style did not suit his stomach feelings. Although she felt the shame feeling it didn't trouble her as much.