Is Counseling Worth the Cost? (A Client’s Perspective)
I have caught myself in this hypothetical way of thinking in the past. In a perfect world, I feel like I should be able to work out all my issues within the tight-knit church community that my husband and I planted 15 years ago. And if I were, in fact, always fully open with the community we lead, maybe my example of openness would even aid in our community becoming the kingdom-of-God sort of place that it has potential to be. Win win. But, even though that’s hypothetically how it would be in a perfect world, our world isn’t perfect. So when I have a real issue in my life, let’s say specifically in my marriage, I’ve had to wrestle with this question: is it necessary for me to seek professional guidance?
Why See a Professional?
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?” My friend knew that a lot of people go to their pastor if they’re having marital issues and he figured that I couldn’t complain to the pastor about my husband if that pastor IS my husband. I laughed, and then I told him that I talk to a lot of other pastor’s spouses. But, while that is true, there have also been times when my husband and I have sought out professionals to help us get to the bottom of an issue. It’s not that we don’t trust our community to see our dirty laundry, it’s that sometimes the laundry has been dirty for so long that it needs some specially-calibrated stain remover to get it clean.
Realizing What Counseling Actually Does
The most recent time that my husband and I sought out counseling we did it for 6 months, and part-way through I remember thinking, “I’m not sure I’m getting anything here that I couldn’t get just by talking to someone regularly at church.” But the key word there was “regularly.” By the end of our 6 months, I realized that what professional counseling did was force me to put marriage on the calendar. I had work to do to get ready for our sessions and I had someone–other than my husband–expecting me to do it. I had the drive on the way there and back to intentionally consider what we wanted to work on (or to fight about what we wanted to work on). I had someone listening who would always take both of our sides equally and pause us to help us learn how to communicate better. And, maybe best of all, I had someone who knew all of the resources, who had read all the books and the theories and could point us to the ones that might be our best tools for the future.
Well-Meaning vs. Well-Trained
Probably the biggest breakthrough for us happened when our counselor shared books that laid out ideas on secure and insecure attachment in relationships. For my husband and I personally, while we both had a deep seated admiration and love for the other, we each doubted that the other felt that way in return. We needed to learn to express our unwavering adoration verbally and often enough to help the other know it was there no matter what. This was something very simple but also very specific, and I don’t think that talking to my other pastor’s-spouse friends or having a chat over tea with the women in my church community would have led us to the same conclusion. My community will always be well-meaning, but I can’t expect them to have the same resources and training as someone who does this as their life’s work.
So sure, maybe in a perfect world we wouldn’t need counselors or pastors or any of those helping professions. Maybe in the age to come there won’t be any tears to wipe away. But until then, I’m grateful that people exist who focus their energy on tending to people’s hearts, souls, and relationships, for I know it has been worth it to invest in mine.
