Why Seek Christian Counseling?
The following is the conclusion to our four-week series, Why Counseling? You can find the other articles here:
Why Seek Counseling At All? by Brian Esposito, Psy.D.
Why Seek In-Person Counseling? by Jillian Wilde, MSC, LAC
Why Seek Weekly Counseling? by Sean Kelly, LPC
Christine Bonaventura, LPC, ACS
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?
Those questions lead to an honest conversation about what Christian counseling is (and isn’t!).
Christian counseling does not mean solely using Scripture or spirituality for help and answers. It also does not mean forcing clients into unwanted spiritual conversations. Jesus didn’t do that with people, and neither would we.
So, what is Christian counseling?
At its best, Christian counseling integrates skilled therapeutic care with a biblical understanding of who we are and how true change occurs. Therapy helps us work from the “outside in,” developing practical skills for healthier behaviors, relationships, communication, and emotional regulation. It also helps us work from the “inside out,” exploring the deeper desires, fears, wounds, beliefs, and patterns driving unhealthy behaviors.
But this deeper work doesn’t end with self-awareness or “trying harder.” As we allow Christ access to our hurting and broken places, His love and power heal and transform us. Unhealthy patterns begin to unravel and healthier ones emerge.
In this way, counseling becomes more than symptom reduction. It becomes an opportunity for meaningful growth, healing, and transformation of the whole person.
Brandon Bressler, LPC, ACS
Well, for Christians, seeking a Christian counselor seems to be a no brainer. Why would you want to be counseled by someone who does not have the same worldview as you? How could you trust that they would know enough to handle the theological components of your life struggles?
But for someone who is not a Christian, it might be helpful to know that the Christian lens is one of love, understanding, compassion, longsuffering, and intentional growth through the power of the God of Love and Truth. Sounds like a good place for anyone to receive counseling, honestly. To get a bit more specific, the scriptural anthropological view seems to fit the human experience better than any other worldview out there, in my opinion, which—as a Christian myself—makes sense because the Bible is about humanity’s Creator. Who would know more about us than our Creator? Ultimately, I think Christian counseling has an advantage over every other counseling out there because, not only do we have the source material to anthropological and psychological studies, but it all pales in comparison to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and love manifested in the room for the client. There’s no better grace-filled accountability than that.
Kimberly Fritsch, LPC
When our grip on reality is shattered by despair, unhinged relationships, and hopelessness, envisioning things getting better can leave us helpless. Suffering drains us physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
We can become empty, lifeless humans feeling internally dead. Scripture says God desires His children to be restored in fullness while navigating a broken world. How we heal is considered holy and “set apart.” Being reunited with God through Jesus Christ is essential in the healing process.
Christian counseling is the utmost best therapy to receive because it’s a combination of humanistic psychology embedded with the sufficiency of Scripture. At CCCRD, we fervently believe people are created in God’s image and all human suffering is a heart matter that needs compassionate, wise, godly counsel. A secular, symptomatic approach can help, but its short-term results and limitations may cease when severe, more complex turmoil and suffering hit. No one is prepared for encountering addiction or abuse, infidelity, dementia, cancer, medical complications, a loved one’s death, and so on. Christian counseling—with Christ being central—has supernatural power to revive a despairing person’s heart and soul.
Jason King, Ph.D.
As I sit at my desk writing, I periodically demonstrate my obedience to my doctor’s insistence on 64 ounces of water per day by taking a sip from the glass next to me. The glass itself is ordinary and seemingly simple.
But for that glass to exist, a sand mixture had to be heated to over 3000 degrees Fahrenheit until it melted and the chemical composition changed. While things may seem simple at first glance, there isn’t much in existence that is truly simple once we’ve thoroughly examined God’s design. Yet humans are reductionistic when it comes to the most complex piece of God’s creation—themselves. Romans 8:5 states, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds in the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit” (NKJV, 1982).
Therapy that excludes God and the aspect of the Spirit is constrained to working only with part of our existence, with the “flesh.” Therapists who do not have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ are incapable of fully understanding the “things of the Spirit,” missing the most important quality of being human. People are created in the image of God as a complex interaction of body, soul, and spirit, and good therapy addresses the whole person.