What Can I Expect From Pastoral Counseling?
- Austin Davis
- May 19
- 2 min read
Counseling, for a pastoral counselor, typically revolves around examining thoughts and feelings orbiting around particular beliefs. For example, a client comes in with intense anxiety about death/dying. My first step is asking about their beliefs about death. What do they think happens when they die? Nothingness? Unknown? Heaven or hell?
Then, what about that belief is causing the anxiety? Are they more so scared of dying (i.e. pain) than they are death? What could change about death that would help the anxiety go away? Knowledge? Control? Hope?
Hopefully I am showing that this can be done with Christians and non-Christians (even with people of other religions!) and that their responses to my questions determine the route we take. My goal is not to give them new beliefs, but to help unpack and examine their pre-existing beliefs. I am also absolutely adamant about creating a space that does not reinforce the idea that peace and joy are rooted in right belief or right knowledge, but rooted in the very character of God.
Just believing the right thing will not give you peace.
Just knowing something will not give you peace.
Often, people are after answers about God more than they are after God himself. This is why I am passionate about creating a space to wrestle with God in the unknowns, instead of a space to find answers.
In my experience, therapy helps strengthen one's relationship with God primarily by working through shame and guilt. Clients are ashamed that they have problems, and come to a Christian/Pastoral Counselor for Christian ways to overcome them. More often than not, their motivation to change is to please God or make God happier with them, because God is ashamed of them in their current state.
Two ideas I consistently come back to in Christian counseling are:
There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more than he does right now, or more than he did before you ever knew him.
Following Christ is, especially in our culture, an invitation to do less, not a command to do more.
Candidly, having a theologically trained counselor can help strengthen one's relationship with God in several ways. Not only do I know Scripture, but I am familiar with several differing interpretations of Scripture throughout the history of the church. My client's scriptural understanding will (likely) not take me by surprise, and I will be able to meet them where they are at. I also know how the church's interpretation of God has grown and changed throughout the centuries, as well as what “worked” and what didn’t. Spiritual Formation and Christian Counseling are actually very closely related and this aids in the introduction of a healthy spirituality into counseling sessions that helps clients grow closer to God.
Looking for a pastoral counselor or Christian therapist? Check out Lane of Roses Counseling and Therapy program by clicking HERE.
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