Analyze the content and processes of the Brief Christian Counseling model detailed in Chapter 4

The second phase of our model is longer-term and discretionary, oriented toward a deeper level of healing and characterological change. This is depth therapy that can run anywhere from ten to fifty or more sessions— running from a few months to a few years to accomplish stated goals. This therapy is discretionary in that both the costs and the time incurred by clients is substantial, and most if not all of these costs are borne by the client alone. Therefore, since managed care and insurance no longer pay for this kind of long-term care, consent to such care is an important discretionary choice by the client. The transition from one to the other comes about in a hundred different ways—even in the revelation of child abuse that will not be revealed until there has been a successful period of counseling on another issue.

A Seven-step Process

The counseling relationship can take many forms depending on the counseling theory the counselor maintains, the presenting problem(s) of the client, and the unique style of the interpersonal relationship that counselor and client develop. Despite these differences, there is a series of stages in the process of counseling that are generally consistent across the spectrum of differing theories. The process of Christian counseling tracks through these seven interrelated and overlapping steps. Competent helpers should be able to locate themselves and their client at the proper stage along this road map, and to be able to define the necessary work to be done to move the process along to the next stage.

Intake. Remember that well-worn adage: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Since many people come into counseling with some anxiety and skepticism, first impressions by counselors and their staff are vitally important.

You want to do everything you can to reduce anxiety, inspire hope, and promote confidence in others who may be looking for any excuse to turn and run. It has long been accepted that the rapport between client and counselor is the most important part of the counseling process. Known as the “therapeutic alliance,” relationship formation includes a commitment on the part of the client and counselor to participate in therapy, and a mutual perception that both can communicate effectively. These are critical to the construction of a bond of interpersonal trust, and that begins with the first contact.

Assessment. Counseling is much like medicine in that it involves an accurate assessment of the patient’s problems, goals, and abilities and deficits that will impact the process of goal attainment. There are many different methods for assessment of a client’s situation. These range from psychological testing, to neurological CAT-scans that show cross sections of the brain, to an in depth counseling interview. Some of the most basic questions a counselor can ask a client are:

1. What do you want? What kind of changes are you hoping for?
2. What are you doing to get what you want?
3. Is it working? Or what’s working and what’s not? and
4. If not, what do you have to think/do/maintain/relate differently to make it work?

Gaining insight, or improving support-building, explanation and understanding. Support-building combines both the intangible qualities of relational trust with the practical enrichment of professional and social support that is built around the client during therapy. The supportive aspects of an ever-increasing trust relationship allows the therapist to explain, to challenge, even to goad the client toward a deepening understanding of avoided pain and change-oriented risk-taking.

Though identifying the problem begins early on, understanding develops progressively throughout the counseling process until genuine insight into life—especially God’s invisible interior life—is attained. For example, a woman in counseling is diagnosed with depression, and may begin to understand some causes of her depression. However, only after continued counseling does she understand the full root source of the problem. It should be noted—from a pastoral aspect—it is in this part of the counseling relationship that confession and repentance take place.

Yielding to His healing touch. Can counseling be truly Christian without an encounter with the living God? We think not. We believe that the essential experience in Christian counseling—and that which produces lasting, even eternal change—is a result of encountering God via the relationship between Christian counselor and client. Christian counselors, when functioning at their highest, are truly the healing regents of the living God, and are engaged in the triadic relationship we defined and described in Chapter 1. The Christian counselor, as an agent of supernatural change, guides the helpee into that otherwise scary zone of meeting and yielding to the Master of all healing. This reminds us of 1 Corinthians 4:1–2 where Paul writes, “So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”