A licensed professional counselor is ethically expected to provide the very best care possible to his or her clients and one way to accomplish this goal is by implementing a self-care regimen. Recognizing and affirming one’s own shortcomings is one step a counselor can take to ensure their clients receive top-quality therapy. For the Christian counselor, this means actively participating in the biblical mandate of confession. According to McMinn (2011), “Confession requires humility, and humility is not easy” (p.177), yet this Christ-like characteristic is necessary if a Christian counselor wishes to provide his or her clients with the restorative help found within the counseling session.
It should be noted that from a Christian perspective confession is not only the admittance of the sinful acts committed by the individual, but also a public declaration of one’s allegiance and loyalty to God. Failing to acknowledge the second half of the definition of confession opens the door for insincerity and disingenuousness on the counselor’s part. Moreover, removing God from the confessional equation is to remove the spiritual aspect of repentance and subsequent restoration of fellowship with God. Without professing God as the sovereign ruler of your life any sinful acts committed are reduced and diminished to mere misdeeds and transgressions
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The possibility exists that some of my clients will believe that “confession assumes [a] moral violation [only], and counseling assumes moral neutrality” (McMinn, 2011, p. 168). Hopefully, my modeling of the affirmation part of confession will deter my clients from this one-sided thinking “because …Christian counseling should not always be morally neutral…” (McMinn, 2011, p. 169). When clients seek my counseling they will know from the outset that “…as for me and
In essence, McMinn’s intradisciplinary integrated approach to Christian counseling is more than a “toolbox of set strategies for change” instead it is a “deep, abiding, formative work of God’s Spirit,” within the counselors lives (p 31-32). McMinn (2007) explains his theoretical map is cognitive therapy along with developing a strong therapeutic relationship and trust with our clients is not only essential to the effectiveness of counseling, but also is vital to applying his approach of the integration of psychology, theology, and spirituality into counseling. By McMinn using his theoretical cognitive therapy map he can build upon it to integrate the concerns of the spiritual growth wellbeing of our clients as well as their wellbeing of mental
The start of this article focuses on a Christian client named George who is plagued with feelings of worthlessness, depression, low self-esteem, and suicide. His mother had also battled depression, and his father had an abusive relationship with alcohol, which caused his father to have verbally and physically abusive altercations with George and his mother. The abusive experiences that George was exposed to as a child paved the way for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as an adult (Garzon, 2005). With all of these factors present in this client’s life, a treatment plan was created that involved scripture interventions. The author made sure to touch on the fact that every client is unique in the hopes that counselors would be aware that one type of scripture intervention might work for one client and not work for another. The article highlights three guiding values when considering these types of interventions; “respect for the client’s autonomy/freedom, sensitivity to and empathy for the client’s religious and spiritual beliefs, and flexibility and responsiveness to the client’s religious and spiritual beliefs.”(Garzon, 2005). ...
Wendel, Peter Counselors in Recovery find answers to ethical dilemmas. Counseling Today. May 1997: 28 pars Online: Available http://www.conseling.org/ctonline/archives/recovery.htm
An ethical implication for a counselor expressing their value to a client can be if the client does not believe in God because they he/she is Atheist. The counselor can persuade to the client that my praying the dilemma that the client is current in can be resolved by praying
Next, McMinn continues through the concerns that influence the client spiritually and psychologically: sin, confession, forgiveness, and redemption (McMinn, 2011). Sin is a universal and personal dilemma. Sin exist in all individuals, and an essential element of counseling is to confront the sin currently in a person’s life; choosing when and how to confront sin in counseling has immense implications for success. Confession is a primary component of coping with sin, and counseling is, in essence, a method of confession. The objective of the Christian counselor is to help the client experience forgiveness while concurrently being held accountable for sin and encouraging an empathetic outlook of other individual’s sins (McMinn).
328). Counselors learn to how to incorporate psychology, theology, and spirituality into the counseling session. They also learn how to practice the spiritual disciples, such as meditating on Scripture and spending time with God in prayer. Counselors also must learn about the various challenges they will face in utilizing scripture and prayer in counseling as well as the challenges they will experience in discussing sin, confession, forgiveness, and redemption with their clients. McMinn (2011) revised his book Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling to help his readers understand how they can effectively utilize these disciplines in
Clinton, T. & Ohlschlager, G. (2002). Competent Christian counseling: Foundations and practice of compassionate soul care. Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook Press.
Confidentiality. Confidentiality is just as important in Christian counseling as it is in secular counseling. According to the American Association of Christian Counselors (2014), “confidentiality recognizes that every client has a fundamental, moral and legal right to privacy and to have a wide range of personal thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and behaviors that are protected from public knowledge” (p. 22). It is crucial for counselors to maintain client confidentiality unless what a client discloses brings harm to themselves or other people. Confidentiality should be kept at all
The concepts are; Prayer, Scripture, Sin, Confession, Forgiveness, and Redemption. The question of prayer has always been somewhat controversial in the counseling arena. One may ask” Should counselors pray with client before a session begin? Some will say yes, because prayer is crucial to every Christian practice, however, others will say no, feeling that counselors should stay away from including spirituality in counseling. (McMinn, 2011 p.77) McMinn states that there are seven different types of prayer Christian counselors can implement while counseling clients. McMinn (2011) concludes that praying silently or outside counseling sessions is not harmful to the client. The second concept McMinn addressed is Scripture use. Although the use of scripture is controversial among some persons, McMinn (2011) stresses the it is a powerful tool and it is our most important technique of perceiving who God is( p.
In counseling integration of Christianity into the therapeutic process has long been researched and developed. In order to get a good grasp as to what things or ideas would be a part of that process the individual must look into themselves as a therapist and decide how or what that integration process would look like for them. The difficulty in meshing Christianity and Psychology is that there will always be a degree of fealty to one side or another. According to Emmons, many studies have demonstrated that spirituality and religion are closely associated with psychological well-being but, there are also levels of spiritual maturity and an individual 's ability to forgive others to contend with. Throughout the course of this paper I will be discussing the integration process as I understand it and how it would relate to my own relationship to faith.
However, it does not matter how strong a person’s faith is or how weak a person faith is, everyone in Christian counseling starts off the same. It is a process how a person develops overtime. This is similar to a child learning how to tie his or her shoes. At first they do not get it but overtime, it becomes of habit and the person get better. According to Clinton, Hart and Ohlschlager (2005),” they believe that Christian counselling has to do with and learning applying the principles of the kingdom on living to the chronically sins, fears, failures, and dark areas of our life (p.21). When people are at their lowest point he or she turn to Christ to get the throughout tough times. Furthermore, in chapter two a person learns about the trust and fined our truth. In chapter two it discusses becoming a trust worthy counselor. In Chapter two, I realized that is all about gaining the clients trust. If the client, does not trust the counselor then no typ of relationship can be bonded. The client is in a venerable state and the counselor has to make sure that the can feel free to be
Incorporating religion and spirituality into counseling from a counselor’s perspective can be intimidating. According to the authors Gladding and Newsome (2014) counselors avoid incorporating religion and spirituality into counseling due to the fear of “violating ethical guidelines by imposing personal values on clients” (Gladding & Newsome, 2014 p. 174). To address the issues related to incorporating religion and spirituality in counseling, the Association for Spiritual, Ethical and Religious Values in Counseling (ASERVIC) developed a list of six competencies to assist professionals. These six competencies are Culture and Worldview, Counselor self-awareness, Human and Spiritual
bless to be a counselor, but Dr. Crabb's biblical teaching in Christian counseling will lay out the foundational requirement to enable the ones
On the down side there are a limited number of educational programs that adequately deal with the issue of incorporating religion and spirituality in therapeutic/counseling settings. This can be attributed to the fact that counseling is based in psychology, a scientific field, which has traditionally neglected issues of a spiritual nature (Nelson, Kirk, Ane, & Serres, 2011) as well as the practice used within the United States to separate education and religion (Cashwell and Young, 2011). This then results in a significant portion of therapist and counselors who are not prepared to address the issue of spirituality and religion with their clients. One would think that with the value many Americans place on the topic of religion and spirituality that there would come a time when a client would want to address this topic during his or her session.
In our fast passed and ever changing society, personal experiences built up over time and often make life difficult to deal with over time. Everyone has their own prospective on what is important and how they will tackle various problems they face from day to day. It is the responses to our harsh environment and experiences that can often manifest into feelings such as: anxiety, resentment and possibly guilt (Crabb, 1977). It is those that have negative experiences in life that seek out the help of counselors, to better understand and change the root of those problems. Each Christian counselor must carefully research and develop a counseling model which best aligns with their education level and spiritual beliefs. The following will be a summary of the models of counseling developed by Dr. Crabb and Dr. Hawkins, addressing the strengths and weaknesses of each model. Through this theory critique a Christian counselor should be able to identify and develop a strong foundation for their counseling theory and better serve their clients while maintaining a strong spiritual foundation.