Knowing What's Important in Therapeutic Counselling

Unless clients are 'psychologically minded' (that's the jargon) they don't always know what is important to say to the counsellor-psychologist.

Such clients can attend sessions for a significant time and not divulge important incidents in their early lives in particular. (Some do this knowingly but that is another issue; usually an issue of trust.)

I have had this experience as a psychologist as it has challenged me to think about why I might have contributed to my not getting important knowledge about early incidents significant enough to affect the present lives of the clients.

In some cases it has occurred because the client came to me with one problem and then over a longer period the problem became another problem. In other cases, it has happened because the clients saw me for one problem and then a year or so later came back for further counselling.

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).