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.

The Glory of God Composed of Form and Splendor – part 2

Posted on December 28, 2009

[Eric Johnson is our guest blogger for December. Eric is the Director of the Society for Christian Psychology and professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This is his fourth post].

Last week I began a discussion based on a distinction borrowed from the great 20th century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, that glory is composed of both form and splendor. I will assume the reader has read that introduction as we explore this week the implications of that momentous distinction.

In art, physical form has to do with spatial arrangement of the features, say, of a statue. A beautiful statue looks good. But we are interested in psychological or spiritual form-something invisible-and therefore not something we can see with the physical eye, but something we arrive at by means of inference and wisdom.

God is the source and measure of glory; indeed, glory is the biblical term for the beauty of God. God’s glory is the “sum of his attributes,” his greatness and goodness, his meaningfulness. God is the essence of perfect, infinite form and splendor. So God’s form is the perfect configuration of psychological and spiritual features: God knows everything (including absolute self-awareness); always thinks clearly; is completely content,  but has emotional richness that corresponds to the rest of reality perfectly (including true empathy); acts determinedly and wisely; and (in the Trinity) consists of strong, loving persons-in-communion.

Last week we defined splendor as the depth dimension of a form, its inner radiance that “shines out” from the form. God is also the essence of perfect, infinite splendor, so he is the deepest of beings: he loves that which is lovely-himself supremely and all creatures, especially insofar as they resemble him-and he hates that which is ugly-sin; he regards all things in proportion to their true value with respect to himself; he always acts according to his preeminent values; and he “sees through” mere appearance and promotes depth in those made in his image.

Being the Son of God in human form, Jesus Christ is the perfect human representation of God’s form and splendor. The Gospels are important because they provide narrative descriptions of his glory, “glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14). Jesus Christ shows the human race flawless human form and consummate depth of splendor. Being increasingly conformed to Christ (in his form and splendor) is the goal of human life (Ro 8:29; 2Co 3:18).

So it is God’s intention that humans made in his image are created to realize the greatest form and splendor of which they are capable as finite creatures. Having good form means having healthy thinking and emotions, well-functioning memory, the ability to freely act so as to realize one’s realistic goals, and good relationships. Modern psychology has explored many of these features.

Having a high degree of splendor means being deep, rather than superficial, being focused on the important things in life: supernatural reality more than natural, people more than things, being and doing good more than simply looking good; but also having regard for the weak, hurting, broken, and sinners, and all creatures in proportion to their actual value before God, yet hating sin. Obviously modern psychology has not focused much on splendor.

This doxological focus (doxa = glory, Gk) makes human development central to God’s purposes. Children obviously manifest God’s glory, but it is good to develop into increasingly well-formed creatures with greater splendor. Because of their limited formal capacities, children necessarily act with less splendor than adults, because adults can do what they do intentionally for the glory of God; children cannot, at least not as fully as adults.

Glory of course is not the possession of anyone except God. To be human is only to be a means of God’s glory; by grace God permits humans to participate in his glory. The more well-formed our souls and the more splendorous their form, the greater glory we are capable of receiving from God in worship, love, and gratitude and expressing in our voices, lives, and relationships.

This glory framework gives Christians a different way of viewing psychopathology.  Sin is the worst kind of psychopathology because it radically compromises our ability to participate in God’s glory. Sin’s essence is anti-glory.  Part of sin’s effects was the damage of the soul’s form evident in distorted thinking, inappropriate emotions, and personality disorders, so this kind of damage should be of concern to Christian counseling, since it can inhibit our ability to participate in God’s glory. However, sin’s effects are most evident in the compromise of splendor. The more sinful we are, the less devoted to God we are and the more focused we are on this creation as an end in itself (so it becomes an idol), so those who live lives distracted by the superficial (fame, fashion, power, possessions) lack splendor. Low levels of splendor, then, is a greater problem than poor form in Christian counseling. Interestingly, having damaged form leads to increased suffering, but suffering promotes our deepening and so our splendor.

Christ came to earth and died and was raised to heal our form and deepen our splendor. Some healing in our form is possible in this life, but its complete healing is reserved for heaven. However, in light of the foregoing, we might expect more healing on earth in our capacity for splendor, as we grow through suffering in worship, wisdom, faith, hope, and love. Christian psychotherapy and counseling is doxological as it participates in the glory of Christ’s salvation by helping to bring healing to the human form and increase human splendor through the resources of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

On the Psychologist’s Orientation to Human Suffering: A Call to Christian Psychologists

Posted on September 20, 2009

[by June L. Phelps, Ph.D. Dr. Phelps is a psychologist in community mental health at Trillium Family Solutions in Canton, Ohio. This is her first post for September as guest blogger.]

I see the Society for Christian Psychology blog, among other things, as an opportunity for practitioners to share their hearts and struggles as Christian psychologists and in doing so help establish a community of therapists/academics who together are seeking to root their psychological work in their Christian faith. I am a psychologist who has both practical and academic interests and views the Society for Christian Psychology as a possible home for those intersecting interests – a space where Christian faith, scholarly ideas, and psychological practice can cohere.

For the last several years I have thought about human suffering and wondered whether my Christian faith has affected how I view suffering as well as how I internally respond to and externally react to my clients’ suffering. Furthermore, I have wondered whether a clinician’s responses and reactions to client suffering, as informed by the clinician’s core beliefs about human suffering, ultimately influence therapy outcomes – perhaps through the making and maintaining of the therapeutic alliance. I have sensed that a psychologist’s willingness to be fully present in the midst of client suffering, to deeply hear, see, and take on human suffering, has an important part to play in both Christian and non-Christian clients’ ability to speak out of their agony and begin to heal, irrespective of the specific techniques utilized in therapy.

Those in the field of psychology as well as in the related fields of medicine and social work have for the most part overlooked questions concerning client suffering (see Cassell, 1991 for a notable exception in the field of medicine). A commonly held view in the scientific community is that human suffering is best addressed by theologians and philosophers; clinical psychologists should stick within their purview and focus on the amelioration of mental health symptoms associated with specific disorders.  Mental health symptoms often overlap with but are not synonymous with the components of suffering: feelings of isolation, abandonment, despair, vulnerability/loss, and a sense of meaninglessness (Cassell, 1991; Reed, 2003). 

 Until recently questions regarding the influence of therapist characteristics in the healing process were similarly overlooked by research-minded psychologists. However, the development of an APA task force in 2002 to explore the degree to which participant variables (therapist and client) affect therapy outcomes independent of and in conjunction with technique and relationship variables demonstrates a growing interest in the “person of the therapist” in psychological change (Castonguay & Beutler, 2006). Perhaps now is the time for psychologists to take another look at variations in therapists’ core beliefs about human suffering and whether this practitioner variable has bearing on healing. Christian psychologists, who feel free to draw upon biblical wisdom and the vast body of theology and Christian philosophy that focuses on human suffering, might be best suited to be forerunners in such an exploration.

One question that might be fruitfully explored is whether Christian psychologists who have developed a nuanced understanding of human suffering viewed through the lens of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are better equipped to provide the gifts of loving, non-judgmental presence in the midst of client affliction than Christian therapists who have developed more restricted orientations to human suffering (e.g., bypass Christ’s cross and focus solely on the hope of the resurrection , view suffering primarily as a result of the individual client’s sin) as well as than non-religious therapists who perceive human suffering as meaningless. 

  In my second blog (September 28, 2009) I will advocate that Christian psychologists are called to cultivate a coherent, Christian orientation to human suffering that is based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ yet considers the biblical narrative as a whole. I will describe aspects of my own journey as I seek to develop such a view and to live faithfully by it. I will also identify resources that have assisted me in this journey.  

 Cassell, E. J. (1991). The nature of suffering and the goals of medicine. New York: Oxford University Press.

 Castonguay, L. G. & Beutler, L. E. (Eds.). (2006). Principles of therapeutic change that work.New York: Oxford University Press.

 Reed, F.C. (2003). Suffering and illness: Insights for caregivers. Philadelphia: F.A Davis Company.

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