I made a monster counseling mistake . . . as a counselee. My mistake?
Assumptions! I wrongly assumed a Christian counselor would counsel according to the truths of the Bible. Click & Tweet!
Before continuing, may I say this? There are wise Christian counselors trained as professional state-licensed counselors who counsel hurting people with the gospel of Christ. Perhaps you’ve received help from one of them. Maybe they pointed you to Jesus and to God’s words as the answer to your emotional problems. You are fortunate. That wasn’t my story.
Why I needed counseling: I was an emotional wreck. My thoughts raced, my appetite plummeted, and memories of sexual molestation in childhood by one family member and deep rejection by another bubbled up and I freaked.
My husband witnessed my tears, even my wailing coming from deep deep inside, a hiding place only God knew existed. My anger stuck him too. I tried to act normal near our four-year-old daughter. Now nearing 30, she says she doesn’t remember anything unusual about that tumultuous year. No doubt she picked up my tension and inattentiveness. When stressed I plopped her in front of the TV.
But Barney the Purple Dinosaur is a poor “babysitter” when a kid needs her mom, don’t you agree?
How the Counseling Mistake Began
Back in the 1990s, I thumbed the Yellow Pages, landed on “mental health” and picked a Christian counselor based on the word “Christian.” When I phoned his office, I failed to ask questions about his counseling approach. The listing said he got his degree from a well-respected Christian college, so he’d steer me to Jesus, right? Wrong.
My counselor, though a Christian, was a proponent of psychodynamic psychotherapy, including transference, a Freudian tool. Transference messed me up big.
Here’s a definition of transference:
In psychiatry, the unconscious tendency of a patient to assign. . .to the therapist of feelings and attitudes associated with a parent or similar person from childhood. The feelings may be affectionate (positive transference), hostile (negative transference), or ambivalent.
My counselor said through transference, I’d experience healing. Instead I became more confused, more anxious, more depressed. He said feeling a lot worse was also part of healing. To crunch this story into a sentence: I had dump this counselor.
From Counseling Mistake to Real Hope
Desperate for peace and wooed by Christ, I looked to biblical truth for the answers to my emotional pain. Like Elyse Fitzpatrick before me — who shares in Love to Eat, Hate to Eat how she ran to Christ and listened to God’s words to overcome an eating disorder — I also counseled myself with God’s words. God healed me of depression, though anxiety hung on.
A few years after the black cloud lifted, I stumbled on books on true Christian counseling, which I and others call biblical counseling. What a difference!
Biblical counseling weaves together God’s love and truth. It is comprehensive biblical wisdom and compassionate Christlike care. It addresses life’s problem (emotional and mental) with the hope Christ offers.
Here’s how Bob Kellemen describes the hope of biblical counseling in Gospel-Centered Counseling.
- Biblical counseling helps you and me to develop confidence in how we understand and view the Bible and real life.
- Biblical counseling helps you and me to develop the competence to use God’s words in solving real life issues.
We All Have Bad Days, Right?
Of course I still have bad days. And I keep making one mistake after another. We all do. My ongoing struggle with anxiety ended about three years ago when I took a very scary (to me!) chance and applied God’s words, no matter my feelings, to my various fears, including a highway driving phobia.
God continues to teach me who I am in Christ — loved, chosen, redeemed, forgiven, and more — and show me who he is: loving, compassionate, good, and holy. These are life-giving, hope-enlarging lessons. You see, I used to picture God as a dark, creepy giant ready to squash me for the tiniest mess-up. This is why I tried to be a good girl while believing lies that God screwed up when he made me.
Do you believe lies too?
Does Satan mess with your mind and convince you to believe his lives?
How My New Hope Became a Ministry
As God comforted me, I now comfort others through the ministry of biblical counseling. For nearly 20 years, I’ve counseled women and families in person and by Skype/FaceTime/WhatsApp, using the word of God, and modeling care.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, ESV
Counselees come with every sort of life struggle. Among them are a young mom who experienced panic attacks, a 30-something woman in an difficult marriage, a confused college-age 20 year old who self-injures, a wife who feels rejected by her husband, a woman dealing with addiction, and many more.
Would you like help? I encourage you to reach out to a family member, a friend, or a pastor for help. If you’re interested you could learn more about biblical counseling in person on by Skype/FaceTime/WhatsApp.
COUNSELING: Would you like a free consultation by phone to see whether biblical counseling could help you personally? Please contact me and let’s set it up.
Counseling Hearts to Hope,
Good post. It’s important that people understand what Biblical counseling is and isn’t.
Thanks, Kristine. I much, much, much prefer biblical counseling over psychology. There is power in the inspired Word of God.
Yes, I’ve had bad Christian counseling, only it didn’t kill me softly. It killed me harshly. After only two sessions I was even more beaten down and debased than when I started.
God has since provided our family with a wonderful counselor, but we’ve been told that it’s necessary to get a psychiatrist involved. I don’t know how to find one in our area who has a Christian/Biblical approach.
I did not have a bad experience with Christian and secular Counseling…I do not like to put one experience and put it all in one in basket. I do not feel that it is imperative to dismiss one’s chosen practice to promote your opinion on what is effective for people going through counseling.
I’ve gotten bad (unhelpful/inappropriate) “Christian” counseling and I’ve coached people who’ve been harmed by it. What a testimony-breaker that is for the many wonderful, spirit-led professionals who are helping people.
I’d like to take their signs away!
Thanks for the post.
I was put in jail by a christian therapist who falsely accused me of doing something I did not do. She later dropped the charges but the damage was done. I am still trying to recoop from that bad experience. I have sense found a real christian counselor that shows me JESUS!!!!
My wife and I went in to our church for some counseling, we were not communicating well. Our counselor an associate pastor (and I thought friend). Took the information we gave him and used it it against us. Also told others on the church staff what we had said. The senior pastor defended him.
I have recently discovered “Biblical counseling” “IT IS GREAT”, I wish I had discovered it earlier.
Lucy, I’m also a Biblical Counselor. I firmly believe that the 66 books making up the Bible pertain everything we need for life and godliness. Thank you for making this website available with a clear understanding of what a Biblical Counselor is.
Blessings.
Awesome, Marsha. It is my heart’s passion to empower hurting Christian women, especially those shunned by a local church, to find healing and hope in Christ.
What has been your experience with women in the church? Do you find many that feel unwelcome for one reason or another (from tattoos to divorce to abuse to suicidal tendencies)?
I just left a church due to some very harsh Christian counseling. Where is the compassion of Christ in Christian counseling? I’m a 55 year old woman, who is obviously an adult, and the pastor was barking at me and putting words in my mouth. He also told me how I felt. I was stunned into silence during the session. I felt belittled and demeaned. I don’t know if I will ever go back to any church again. This happened about 2 weeks ago and I’m still having difficulty getting over it. I haven’t been able to talk to God since. Instead of allowing this to draw me closer to God it has pushed me away from Him.
I had a very bad counseling experience. I had gone to see a Christian counselor who moves in the Holy Spirit. Because I’m also more charismatic in my beliefs, this sounded like what I needed. I went to see the counselor at a time when I was suicidal and dealing with a lot of past hurts from growing up in foster care and abuse and such. This was a mail counselor, but it soon turned into being a husband and wife duo type thing. They seemed very loving, telling me how much they loved me and always giving me hugs, especially the man. Things were going o.k. until they decided to see me as their “child” and even suggested me call the man dad. Because I have issues with abandonment and parental boundaries, I jumped in with both arms. The deeper things got, the blurrier the boundaries got. I started also hearing about others patients/children of theirs and it got very hard to see where “counselor” began and “family member” ended. Besides blurry boundaries, they were also not very reliable. They were travelers and would often just leave for weeks. They once left for three months with no prior warning and it hurt me so deeply. Because they were “Christian Counselors” and much older than me, it was very hard to tell them they were wrong and for them to believe they were wrong. Lots of excuses were given but under the guise of “spiritual work” and “God’s purposes/calling”. I finally brought up my concerns and frustrations with them in a last attempt to set clear boundaries and the wife accused me of being the one with the problem. In the end, I just cut off relationship with them (with help of course). It’s been a little over a month and a half and it’s been very difficult to heal from it all. A friend of mine actually described what I went through as spiritual abuse and emotional rape. Because of this, I have found it very hard to trust any Christian Counselors.
So, for those of you Christian Counselors out there, please be aware of what your doing. Please seek educational courses, and please make sure that God is really governing you. You could do more damage than help. Also, if it’s possible for someone to come up with a good another good article on the things to watch out for in Christian Counseling, that would be helpful as it is very hard to find.
Thanks
Lee,
I am sorry that these Christian counselors did not act Christlike and hurt you. Some counselors counsel using the Word; others use nonChristian psychology. This “reparenting” is an example of the latter. Do you have a biblical counselor in your area? You can go to the website to NANC and locate a nouthetic (biblical) counselor. I also counsel biblically. If you ever want to Skype or talk on the phone, send me a message.
Our great God is good and will provide all your needs. Blessings, Lucy
I was referred to a Biblical counselor a few years ago. My husband and I poured our hearts out explaining the struggle we faced. The counselor looked at me and said, ” You just need to care less.” I have a great counselor now. But wow.
Laura,
I hear your “wow.” It sounds like the biblical counselor you counseled with failed to weave grace and truth in his or her counsel. Compassionate and competent Christ-like care are key to true biblical counseling. Do you remember what prompted the counselor to say, “You just need to care less”? I can see why this you felt hurt. I thank God that you and your husband continued to seek counseling and restoration.
Blessings of hope to you,
Lucy