“I often have prospective clients ask me what Christian counseling really means. Is it using Bible verses for every issue? Is it addressing every problem only from a spiritual perspective? What if they don’t want to talk about Jesus?”

From time to time, I will get asked by a client or a prospective client: can we do biweekly sessions? When asked this, I will always push for weekly therapy. And it’s not just to line my pocket. Why counseling once a week? The best answer to this question is the shortest one: Because it works.

In the past decade—and even more so since the Covid-19 pandemic—counseling services have significantly expanded the ways a person can meet for therapy. But at CCCRD, we make the argument that the best counseling comes from in-person, relationally-driven treatment.

Living in isolation increases the risk for premature mortality by nearly a third, while strong, close social relationships are one of the most reliable long-term predictors of mental and physical health. But today, when there are more resources available than ever before—friends, family, partners, and even AI chatbots—why would someone bother seeking out counseling at all? 

Whether you find yourself fearful of AI, excited to automate everything, or somewhere in the middle, AI is pervasive, and it is likely to stay. How then should it be implemented in society, and more personally, into our individual lives?

“Seriously? I just go blah, blah, blah, and my problems go away?” Over the past decade in practice, I have heard questions like this often when starting therapy with someone new, so I thought it would be useful to compile these simple–but admittedly sophisticated–questions in one place.

I have an elderly friend that I do typing for on occasion, and one day we were visiting and he asked me (with a twinkle in his eye as though telling a joke), “where does a pastor’s wife go if she needs to get advice about her marriage?”