What is Pastoral Counseling?
American Association of Pastoral Counseling reports that Pastoral Counseling is a unique form of psychotherapy which uses spiritual resources as well as psychological understanding for healing and growth. It is provided by certified pastoral counselors, who are not only mental health professionals but who have also had in-depth religious and/or theological training.
Across the nation, more than 3000 pastoral counselors provide a variety of services including treatment for persons with mental disorders; counseling for adults, adolescents, children, families and couples; substance abuse treatment; wellness programs; religious retreats; spiritual direction; clinical training; consultation to corporations; outreach preventive services in prisons, military settings and schools; and community education.
At any time, individuals, couples or families can be confronted by uncertainties and life experiences which threaten to exhaust emotional and spiritual resources. The loss of a loved one, parent-teen conflict, loss of job or the care of an elderly parent are just a few of life’s transitions and crises that can be depleting.
While some individuals turn to a psychologist, social worker of psychiatrist, others want support and the opportunity to discuss their problems or illness in a spiritual context.
A 1992 Gallup poll asked 1,000 men and women about the context in which they would seek counseling. 66% said they would prefer to receive counseling from a person who represented their spiritual values. 81% said they wanted their own spiritual values respected and integrated into the counseling process.
Religious communities are one of the principal gateways for individuals seeking assistance with depression, grief, marital conflict, substance abuse, family violence, juvenile delinquency and AIDS, among other issues and societal problems. However, most religious leaders have neither the time of the training in psychotherapy to do extensive, in-depth work. If a situation or crisis requires more than a few informal sessions, it’s time to see a certified pastoral counselor.
Solutions Focused Pastoral Counseling
Where typical counseling focuses on your deficits and problems, Solutions Focused Pastoral Counseling focuses on your strengths, believing that you are the expert of your life. Your pastoral counselor’s role is to help you identify ways your faith enables you to live in spite of life’s difficulties. Simply put, SFPC is centered on how our faith brings life.
“Life happens when we are focused on other things.” Much of psychotherapy focuses on problems. Being problem focused leads us to become problem centered – seeing ourselves and our world through the lens of our deficiency. Instead of being healing, this view of life and our part in it actually inhibits the very healing we seek as we trade the life we have for the life we “wish we had.”
A Solution Focused Pastoral Counseling approach encourages positive change through an emphasis on outcome and a carefully described vision of a path to this outcome. Rather than focusing on the problem, SFPC focuses on the qualities, strengths, and abilities of the client as the expert of the client’s life.
Solution Focused Pastoral Counseling has nine guiding principles:
- God is already active in the counselee.
- Complex problems do not demand complex solutions.
- Finding exceptions helps create solutions.
- The counselee is always changing.
- The counselee is the expert and defines goals.
- Solutions are cocreated.
- The counselee is not the problem; the problem is.
- The counseling relationship is positional.
- If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
Let's Get to the Solution
SFPC is short-term—typically five or fewer sessions, in which the counselor seeks to create solutions with—not for—the counselee. The focus is on the possibility of life without the problem through an understanding of what is different when the problem does not occur or is less intrusive. The goal is healthy change, sooner rather than later, by helping the counselee see and work on the solution with God’s activity already present in his or her life.
We understand that there are limitations to this approach and there are situations in which we will refer to other professionals and/or medical car providers.
We provide Solution Focused Pastoral Counseling services for individuals, adolescents, and couples in the midst of difficulties from:
- Depression
- Grief and Loss Issues
- Marital and Family Conflict
- Anxiety and Panic Disorders
- Couples Conflict
- Stress-Related Issues
- Family Violence and Abuse
- Parenting Issues
- Child and Adolescent Development Issues
- Divorce, Re-Marriage or Blended Families
- Pre-Marital Assessment
- Major Life Transitions
- Elder Care and Relations
- Women’s Issues
- Men’s Issues
- Addictions
- Emotional and Spiritual Growth
- Congregational Conflict