Is It Biblical?

Posted on March 28, 2010

[by Leslie Vernick, DCSW, LCSW. Leslie is in private practice, Director of Christ-Centered Counseling www.leslievernick.com, and is our blogger for the month of March. This is her fifth blog]

Recently my husband and I were heading to Florida for a much needed vacation. Right after we dragged ourselves through airport security we sat down to reassemble ourselves.  Glancing up at the airport information center, we observed a troubling and odd scene going on behind the desk.

“Inappropriate!”  “Weird” were the words my husband and I muttered to one another as we watched a uniformed male employee repeatedly stroke a female employee’s face sitting in front of him.

What is he doing?” I asked.

“Is he giving her a facial massage?”my husband queried.

“No. I think he’s putting some sort of cream on her face.” I said.

We continued to stare.  “There must be some rules against employees publically touching one another like that,” I said. So taken with this inappropriate display of public affection by these employees I encouraged him to snap a picture with his cell phone. Then as I stood up to leave I saw things from a totally new perspective.

The woman was confined to a wheelchair. Her arms and hands curled tightly at her sides, useless. Her friend and fellow employee was tenderly rubbing moisturizer or makeup in to her parched skin. My heart sank. How quick I was to jump to conclusions and to judge his actions as wrong. How naturally and automatically I made up a story about what I saw when in fact, I did not see clearly at all.  

At first glance this man’s behavior appeared unquestionably wrong and inappropriate. It was only when I saw things from a different vantage point did I discern that his actions were actually the opposite. They were loving, kind and gracious.

 In the same way, Jesus repeatedly attempted to show the Pharisees of his day that everything wasn’t so easily explained in terms of what they thought was lawful or right and wrong.

For example, Rahab the prostitute was spared by Joshua because she protected the spies from being captured (by lying about which way they went) even though one of the Ten Commandments tells us not to bear false witness (see Joshua 6:25). Jesus did not follow the Jewish law when the woman was caught in adultery as the crowd expected. Instead of sentencing her to death by stoning, he said “Whoever is without sin cast the first stone.” (Luke 14:3-6)

The Pharisees condemned Jesus as a lawbreaker when he healed on the Sabbath yet he challenged their deeply held beliefs by asking them, “Which one of you wouldn’t rescue a son or an ox on the Sabbath if they had fallen into a deep well?” (Luke 14:3-6). Jesus taught that doing good, helping others, and loving well was more important to God than legalistic adherence to biblical law.

What does that mean to us as Christian counselors? Each session our clients invite us to peer into a small section of their life story. At times they actually give us the power to judge what they’re doing (thinking, or feeling) as right or wrong, biblical or sinful, godly or not.

On my weekly blog (www.leslievernick.blogspot.com) I’m often asked questions about whether or not something is biblical. In other words, does God approve or disapprove of what I’m about to do?  Here are a few recent examples I’ve blogged about.

“Am I disobeying God or dishonoring my mother when I put boundaries around her contact with my children?” Or “Is it biblical for my daughter to get a legal annulment from her new husband because she’s discovered he lied to her about who he really was? Had she known these things before hand, she would not have married him.” Or “Is it lawful for me to separate from an emotionally abusive husband? My church tells me that God hates divorce and I’m not allowed to leave under any circumstances.”

Sometimes when I read these tragic situations with their final question asking me what I think God says is right and what’s wrong I imagine how Jesus must have felt when the Pharisees tried to trap him. Is there only one right biblical answer for every situation?

At times I see Christians, including some biblical counselors, use the bible as a rule book to find what God says is permissible and/or unacceptable. But even Jesus had exceptions to his laws and the higher law of love always triumphed.  Biblical love never implies that we always do what the other person wants or prefers, but loving means we actively seek the other person’s long term best interest, including setting boundaries, implementing consequences, or initiating separation when those actions are done to help bring a sinful person to their senses and change.

How we answer these types of questions (or don’t answer), has great implications for our counselees. It may shape our client’s picture of God as well as whether or not she learns to discern God’s voice for herself (John 10:4, 27).

In closing, I try to ask myself some crucial questions when facing these kinds of dilemmas.  

In striving to be Christ-centered in my counseling, I am learning more and more that there is often more than one biblical answer.  My job isn’t to judge or decide for my client what’s biblical. Part of my job is to help my client see his or her situation from different vantage points, (for example, temporal, eternal, short term, long term), talk about what God might be up to in her particular situation and how to listen to the Holy Spirit so that she can walk by faith, not by sight.

Two Types of Suffering

Posted on March 21, 2010

[by Leslie Vernick, DCSW, LCSW. Leslie is in private practice, Director of Christ-Centered Counseling www.leslievernick.com, and is our blogger for the month of March. This is her fourth blog]

Scott Peck opens his best-selling book, The Road Less Traveled with the statement “Life is difficult.”  Trials and troubles come to saint and sinner alike. No one is immune. But it is often suffering that brings a person to the counselor’s office. As Christian counselors we have a unique opportunity when people are hurting because they naturally seek answers from God, often asking the questions, Why God? Why this? Why now? Why me?

I’ve come to understand that there are two types of suffering; necessary suffering and unnecessary suffering. It’s important that we learn to distinguish them because we will approach them differently in the therapeutic process.

Let’s first look at necessary suffering. Necessary suffering is important. It is part of God’s plan to teach us to stay away from dangerous things as well as to mature us. When a child puts her hand on a hot stove, the pain warns her to remove her hand immediately. If she ignored her pain it would result in more intense suffering and perhaps even permanent damage (which is unnecessary if she listened to her pain).

The apostle Paul tells us that suffering builds character (Romans 5) and James tells that we can experience joy in the midst of our trials and troubles if we remember that they are used to build perseverance which help us run the race of faith with greater endurance (James 1:2,3).

Suffering is necessary because it wakes us up from our spiritual sleepiness and teaches us what really matters. Whether we realize it or not, even as believers, many of us are held captive to the lie that we need something other than God to fulfill us and make us happy. When we put our hope in something or someone other than God to give us what only he can give, he will surely frustrate us. He doesn’t do it to punish us but rather to rescue us from our disordered attachments and delusions; from our foolishness and self-deception. Sorrow teaches us to let go of our love affair with false or lesser things and seek harder after God.

Necessary suffering is used by God to dismantle our internal story line about how life should work, what brings inner happiness and what’s truly important. Life’s disappointments and sorrows are unwelcome but necessary gifts to help us see view reality correctly. C.S. Lewis writes, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Necessary suffering helps us find God and our true selves instead of losing our way through life feasting at the table of cheap substitutes.  

Necessary suffering is a result of living in a sinful and broken world. Things are not as they should be. Our goal with individuals who are in the midst of this kind of suffering is to help them express their honest emotions, grieve their losses, and to eventually find hope or some purpose in the midst of them. Like mining for diamonds in the mud, the Christian counselor helps his/her client extract what’s good from the bad, what is beautiful from the ugly. Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). We are not alone in our suffering. Jesus knows the pain of living in a broken down world. He is present to help us, to guide us and to comfort us. Our suffering is not meaningless and God will redeem it if we let him.

In contrast, unnecessary suffering results from our poor response to necessary suffering. It rises out of our unrealistic expectations, the lies we believe (our tell ourselves), our bad habits, poor choices, and our negative emotions such as self-pity, envy, greed, jealousy, resentment, pride, and shame. This kind of pain results from our immature or rebellious way of handling life and our inability and/or refusal to see things truthfully.

When working with someone experiencing sorrow upon sorrow, in addition to being empathic with whatever necessary suffering they are experiencing, we must help our client understand the ways she may play an active role in creating unnecessary suffering.

Let me give an example. A woman shared with me that her only son was recently killed in a motorcycle accident. She said, “I can’t be thankful for all things but I have learned I can be thankful in all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

She continued, “I am thankful that I had him with me for 24 years. I’m thankful that he died doing something he loved. I’m thankful that he knew the Lord and I’ll see him someday. I’m thankful that I have so many friends who are helping me through this horrible time.”

This woman was hurting but her grief in facing such a loss was not compounded by additional pain she would have experienced had she told herself such things as, “God must be punishing me for something I’ve done.” Or “If only I hadn’t allowed him to buy that motorcycle, he’d still be alive.” Or “Why my son? It’s not fair. I only had one child and now he’s gone.” Or “My life is ruined, I’ll never be happy again.”

She didn’t isolate or withdraw from her social support and she worked hard to remind herself of God’s goodness and love even in the midst of a tragedy. Necessary suffering was doing its work in her life and wasn’t intensified by additional sorrow that wasn’t necessary.

On the other hand I’ve had many clients who live in a chronic state of misery because of their unrealistic expectations, poor choices, or negative lifestyle habits yet they fail to connect the dots that their suffering is self imposed and unnecessary if only they would change their ways.

 Most of the time there is some combination of both kinds of suffering. Understanding the difference, has helped me to be wiser in the way I approach those that are hurting.

Creativity in Counseling, Part 3

Posted on March 14, 2010

[by Leslie Vernick, DCSW, LCSW. Leslie is in private practice, Director of Christ-Centered Counseling www.leslievernick.com, and is our blogger for the month of March. This is her third blog]

In my past two blogs I’ve invited discussion about creative techniques we can implement to help our clients experience deeper truth or make positive changes. As we’ve learned, showing is always more potent than telling in the counseling process. How we do that can take a multitude of approaches and this week I’d like to share some specific ways I’ve incorporated illustration and story in my practice.

Barker (1996) holds that metaphor and stories are particularly useful to do the following:

Illustrate a particular point

Suggest possible solutions to a problem

Promote insight or awareness

Motivate or plant ideas in a counselee’s mind

Overcome and bypass resistance

Reframe or redefine the problem

Remind people of their resources

The creative use of illustration, story, and metaphor were an integral part of Jesus’ teaching style and are generously woven throughout Scripture. They help us grab a hold of deep spiritual truths as well as bypass the watchdog left brain.

Illustration:  We all experience counselees who typically blame their poor reactions to provocative situations on an external stressor instead of taking personal responsibility for how they’ve handled the situation. During a session they may say something like, “If she wouldn’t have aggravated me I wouldn’t have yelled at her that way.” The implication being that it is his wife’s fault that he lost his temper and that the goal of counseling should be to get his wife to stop doing whatever upsets him.

I don’t have the space in this blog to flesh all the different approaches one could take in this case and there may be a time where talking with the wife about her provocative behavior is appropriate. However, I have found when trying to break through these kinds of circular interactions, quoting scripture (or assigning it as homework) regarding how one should speak or  the consequences of biting and devouring one another, usually fails to produce the desired internal change of greater personal reflection and acceptance of responsibility.

But here is an illustration that stops the blame game. In my office I keep a small jar of seemingly clean water. Unknown to my clients, at the bottom of the jar is some dirty sediment. When a person is habitually blaming outside forces for his or her own poor response, I’ll pull the jar off my shelf and hold it by the bottom so that the sediment is unseen. I ask him if the water looks clean. He usually nods, yes.

Then I vigorously shake the jar of water. The sediment becomes obvious and the water is now dirty. I ask, “Did shaking the jar make the water dirty?”

The immediate answer is often “yes”. Then he pauses and reflects a little more, realizing that shaking the jar didn’t make the water dirty, it was already dirty, shaking only made the dirt obvious.

This opens a window to explore his new awareness and what it means for his interactions with his wife. Certainly people and life provoke us, but what comes out of our mouth in those moments has more to do with the contents of our heart, than the particular situation. My jar illustration shows Christ’s words, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:46). I could have shaken (provoked) the jar until my arm fell off and if the water was truly clean, it would not have become dirty. Shaking simply exposed the dirt that had been there all along.

This simple yet powerful illustration helps people see that their reactions and responses to difficult people or situations expose the darker contents of their own heart. These qualities usually stay hidden (at least from our client’s own awareness) until provoked. Seeing the dirty contents of one’s heart is a good thing so that we can begin to repent, take responsibility and change.

Story:  In my counseling practice I often tell stories or assign my clients to read stories or watch movies as homework. The editors of Futurist magazine assert that storytellers will be the most valuable workers in the twenty-first century.

I worked with a woman who felt depressed and was morbidly obese. In addition she chronically masturbated and fantasized how her life “could” be but never actually did anything to change it. Please understand that I am not commenting on whether or not masturbation is biblical in this blog nor am I presenting an entire case. I’m showing how I used a story to get her unstuck.

After some time of trying all sorts of approaches, I finally asked my client to read the fairy tale “The Little Match Girl”.  If you recall, the story is of a poor girl who froze to death by lighting matches trying to stay warm while having fantasies of a crackling fire, a Christmas dinner, and a loving grandmother.

The story helped my client see herself and her own impoverished, empty life. She saw how she used masturbation (lighting matches) and fantasy to warm herself instead of connecting with and loving real people as God has made us to do. Most importantly it motivated her to move forward in making healthy changes because she could now see that she too, was freezing to death.  

Let me close with a short story I sometimes use with a client when he or she is quite sure the difficult moment they are in will last forever or means that nothing good will ever come of it. You can find various versions on the internet. It goes something like this:

There was an old farmer that had only one horse and one day his horse ran away. The neighbors came to console his terrible loss. “This is awful,” they cried.

The farmer said, “Oh I don’t know, it could be good or it could be bad.”

A month later the horse came home – this time bringing with her two beautiful wild horses. The neighbors became excited at the farmer’s good fortune. “Such lovely, strong horses,” they exclaimed. “What a fortunate man you are.”

The farmer said, “Oh I don’t know, it could be good or it could be bad.”

Some days later the farmer’s son was riding one of the wild horses when he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors said, “Such bad luck!”

The farmer said, “Oh I don’t know, it could be good or it could be bad.”

A war came and every able bodied young man was send into battle. Only the farmer’s son was exempt because he had a broken leg. The neighbors said, “This is good, he doesn’t have to go away.”

And by now you know what the farmer said.

None of us know what good things can come from the bad things we experience or what difficulties we will encounter even in life’s blessings. Suffering and blessing is in all things. It’s not either/or, but both/and.

 

Barker, P.(1996). Psychotherapeutic Metaphors: A guide to Theory and Practice. New York: Brunner/Mazel.

Creativity in Counseling, Part 2: The Art of the Therapeutic Question

Posted on March 8, 2010

[by Leslie Vernick, DCSW, LCSW. Leslie is in private practice, Director of Christ-Centered Counseling www.leslievernick.com, and is our blogger for the month of March. This is her second blog]

As an author, I’ve struggled to show instead of simply tell what I want to convey to my audience. I’ve found that this same writing principle of “show, don’t tell” works best in the counseling office as well. Dr. Burns (from last week’s blog) showed his client that she wasn’t having a heart attack through her experience of jogging in place. Telling her wasn’t enough to convince her. To explore a different avenue for creativity in counseling, I want to look at the art of asking good questions.

Therapeutic questions are most often used to gather information and orient ourselves as clinicians as to what brings the client to our office. We want to understand how she perceives her current life problems as well as explore what precipitated them, how she has coped, as well as what solutions, if any, she has tried to resolve her pain. As a wrench is to a plumber, a scalpel is to a surgeon, and a paint brush is to an artist, the question is the basic tool of the therapist. Learning how to use this tool competently is as much an art as it is a skill.

All of us have learned about asking good questions in graduate school, but perhaps some of us haven’t taken the time to master some of the finer or more subtle ways we can use this important tool in the therapeutic process. Talented artists don’t paint pictures using a single brush. They learn which brush is required to make a bold stroke versus a fine line. They study and repeatedly practice what kind of angle and exactly how much weight to apply to the brush in order to achieve their desired results. In a similar way, as clinicians we can use a well worded or wisely timed question to turn the corner beyond fact finding or data gathering and move our client toward change. 

When I was beginning my counseling career, I often felt like I was stumbling in the dark. After gathering my information and forming my hypothesis, I wasn’t sure how to take my client from point A to point B. I knew where I wanted to go (sort of), but wasn’t sure how to get her there. Instead of asking the right question that might help my client see her way forward, I pushed rather than invited, taught instead of showed, and sometimes preached rather than simply be present. 

Perhaps because I was so guilty of these missteps, I readily see them with the Christian counselors I supervise as well. Instead of helping someone grow to become more aware of themselves and/or God and his truth through the use of good and well timed questions, we lecture, teach, or preach.  But Jesus masterfully wielded the right question at just the right time in order to bring individuals into greater awareness, to challenge wrong thinking, and to influence them toward deep and significant change.

Let’s briefly look at 3 types of questions Jesus asked in order to see how we might sharpen our therapeutic tool in a more creative way.

1. Teaching Questions: Instead of telling someone what to believe, Jesus often used questions to challenge wrong thinking or bring about greater awareness of a spiritual truth. For example, Jesus asked:

“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way…Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them. Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?” (Luke 13:1-4)

  “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish will give him a snake?” (Matthew 7:9)

“Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? …Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life, and why do you worry about clothes?  (Matthew 6:25-29)

Jesus used these questions to correct wrong thinking and help individuals to see God and life in fresh new ways.  

Instead of telling or teaching the truth, here is an example how one might use questions to help a client think more biblically.

“What do you think it means in Romans 12:21 when it says that we’re not to be overcome with evil but to overcome evil with good?  How might that truth help you decide how to handle the situation we’ve just talked about?  What would good look like here?”

2. Challenging Questions: In addition to teaching someone new ways of thinking there are times our clients are caught in faulty and deceptive beliefs. Below are some questions Jesus asked to challenge and cast light upon deeply entrenched beliefs in order to invite a person toward greater truth and healing.

“And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then shall his kingdom stand?” (Matthew 12:26-29)

“Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16)

“If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?” (Matthew 12:11)

In last week’s case example, Dr. Burns could have asked his client, “Do you believe you can jog and have a heart attack at the same time?”  He didn’t directly ask her that question, yet embedded in his request to jog, it was an obvious challenge to her faulty belief.

Here’s an example of a question I’ve used to challenge the head/heart division that many of my clients experience when they say, “I know that in my head, but not in my heart.”

            “When your thoughts and feelings are contrary to what God says, who wins?”

3. Confronting Questions: As Christian psychologists and counselors, we are not merely truth seekers, we are called to be truth tellers. How we tell the truth however, is important. Jesus often used a piercing question to confront a particular sin or heart attitude.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3-5)

“Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46)

Confronting sinful and/or immature attitudes and behavior is not easy while still maintaining a good therapeutic relationship. We have been taught not to use why questions because they usually put someone on the defensive. However, we can ask probing questions without using the word why. Here are some examples.

“You’re right, it’s not fair that your parents (or whoever) treated you so sinfully, but what does it cost you to stay stuck in resentment and anger for this long?

 ”You tell me that you want to honor God and be a good husband. But what happens to you when you also want your wife to listen to you and she is too busy or isn’t interested? What happens to you and in you when you don’t get what you want from your wife?”

Within the therapeutic hour there are many choices and decisions we make regarding what strategy to use for a particular client and his/or her situation. A well timed and thoughtful question can open otherwise closed doors.  I welcome further dialogue on ways that others have used questions to show, not tell.

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