Pastoral Counseling Literature Review

A literature review examining the phenomena of clinical pastoral counseling.

David W. Coon

CCP 518 (SP99) Research Design and Evaluation

Professor: Dr. Jeffrey R. LaCure. Psy.D, M.S.W.,LICSW

Outline:

Preface

Introduction

Purpose of this Literature Review

Why Pastoral Counseling

The Sufficiency of Scripture in Counseling

Conscientiously and comprehensively Christ-centered

Conscientiously and comprehensively Church-centered

Conscientiously and comprehensively Bible-centered

Questioning the Sufficiency of Scripture

Depravity of Human Nature

The Masters Seminary

Spiritual and Religious Needs in Illness - The Case for Spiritual Care

What the Reviewed Research Shows

Downsides

Conclusion

Preface

Spiritual beliefs are a central part of our existence as humans. God’s love extends to all people, across all religious traditions, races/ethnicities, classes, ages, genders and sexual orientation. That said, not all religions are equal, and if the truth is what you’re after, there is truly only one truth, the rest are simply false. There is more than enough evidence that backs up the Bible while disproving the outshoot cults of false teachers like the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Bible and only the Bible is where we find that truth.

Christian biblical counseling believes in the truths of the Bible and thus seeks to teach these truths as part of the counseling process. And there is a growing demand for quality Christian counselors. According to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study in 2012, 89 percent of adults in the United States believe in "God or a universal spirit" and eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group (Pew, 2012).

Any Christian who sets out to counsel another individual is aware that the counsel offered must be true. Counseling is by definition and impulse a helping ministry. It assumes that someone is confronted with some measure of confusion, disappointment, or despair in their lives and that a second person who endeavors to help by analyzing the counselee’s situation, sorting out the issues involved, and then offering helpful and healing advice and direction. But the efficacy of all that the counselor undertakes to do is dependent at least on this one thing: that his analysis and counsel is true. (Mack, 1998, p. 68)

Thus it is the responsibility of the Christian counselor is to shine the light of truth on what is false. To illuminate the truth, the Christian counselor must be very well versed in God’s Word, plus they must be knowledgeable about world history, science history as well as indepth knowledge of all the other religions and cults.

2. Introduction

What is Pastoral Counseling? Pastoral counseling is a mode of clinical mental health care that integrates the knowledge of psychology and the behavioral sciences with the wisdom of spirituality, religion, and theology.

According to the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC), pastoral counseling is a therapy that aims to alleviate the painful symptoms of mental illness, while increasing coping skills, assisting with positive behavioral changes, promoting spiritual awareness, encouraging Christ-like behavior, emotional maturity, intellectual grounding as well as physical well-being. More specifically, pastoral counseling is a type of therapy that integrates biblical principles, beliefs, and practices as part of treatment. The spiritual wellness of the client is of great importance, and thus biblical discipleship is part of the therapeutic process.

In the article “Why Pastoral Counseling” by Reverend Jill Snodgrass, Ph.D., of the AAPC, defines the term Pastoral Counselor as a clinical mental health professional, who is dedicated to serving clients of any, all or no religious affiliation. Pastoral counseling can be for anyone and everyone at any time. Whether someone is in crisis or looking for personal development, a pastoral counselor can provide the guidance, skill, relationship, and information needed to promote psychological and spiritual growth and wholeness. Pastoral counseling serves individuals, couples, families, and community systems in an effort to foster healing, renewal, reconciliation, and transformation. In order to conduct reliable research, a review of the current literature is conducted.

3. Purpose of this Literature Review

The primary purpose of doing a literature review in the first place is to describe and compare selected scholarly articles on the subject that is to be studied. This is done to get a grasp of what has already been discovered by other academics in that field. Once the literature has been reviewed, its methods and theories are then evaluated and discussed. And finally, drawing from those scholarly articles, evaluative arguments and conclusions are drawn from them.

4. Why Pastoral Counseling

The first article “Why Pastoral Counseling”, by the director of the American Association of Pastoral Counseling, Reverend Jill L. Snodgrass, Ph.D. She is the co-editor of the book Understanding Pastoral Counseling and has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. (Snodgrass 2015)

That 2012 Pew found that 89 percent of adults in the United States that believe in "God or a universal spirit" sounds like a good thing. Unfortunately, two years later, the same Pew research found that only 59 percent of participants indicated feeling a sense of spiritual well-being at least once per week. That statistic is supposed to be representative of the entire US population. Put another way, 6 out of 10 people are spiritual in some way, and that’s a good start. Problem is that many people have been church abused, have been led astray by false teachings, or something else.

While about seven in 10 Americans identify with some branch of Christianity, the share of U.S. adults who describe themselves as Christians dropped by nearly 8 percent between 2007 and 2014, according to a survey by Pew Research Center. But while Americans as a whole have become somewhat less religious in recent years – largely due to an increase in the share of people who do not belong to any organized faith – those who are religious are even more devout than they were a few years ago, according to the Pew report. (Pew 2014 Religious Landscape Study)

Therefore it is not surprising then that tremendous interest in spiritually-integrated counseling and psychotherapy today, and the number of clinicians must increase to meet the demands of new generations of clients. Spiritually-integrated mental health care has been shown through empirical research to be effective for individuals experiencing grief, depression, anxiety, and a variety of other presenting problems. To meet the need of this growing field of spiritually-integrated mental health care, the landscape of pastoral counseling is changing in two main ways. Firstly, how pastoral counselors are being trained has shifted towards integrating modern psychology and proven clinical practices. And secondly, pastoral counselors utilize evidence-based therapeutic practices in combination with the Bible. (Marshall, J. 2015)

Many mental health professionals today who are trained as social workers, marriage and family therapists, counselors, and psychologists are already engaging in spiritually-integrated practices. The AAPC welcomes all these professionals into the association and simultaneously endorses the distinctive training that many pastoral counselors possess given their education in theology, spirituality, and religion as well as psychology and the behavioral sciences. (Snodgrass 2015)

5. The Sufficiency of Scripture in Counseling

This article was published by the Master’s Seminary Institute. This article insists that not only are secular psychological principles unnecessary but they may even be harmful in trying to understand and help people. There is no authority that is higher than that in Scripture. Wherever and on whatever subject the Scriptures speak, one must regard them as both inerrant and authoritative. Counseling should be fundamental, conscientiously and comprehensively centered in these three areas; Christ-centered, Church-centered, and Bible-centered. (Mack, 1998, p. 60)

Secular disciplines may serve us well as they describe people; they may challenge us by how they seek to explain, guide, and change people; but they seriously mislead us when we take them at face value because they are secular. They explain people, define what people ought to be like, and try to solve people’s problems without considering God and man’s relationship to God. Secular disciplines have made a systematic commitment to being wrong.

We have no standard by which we can evaluate whether something is true or false except the Word of God. Thus while we can be confident that whatever we share with our counselees from the Word of God is true, we should have a healthy skepticism about any theory or insight that does not proceed from Scripture. (Mack, 1998, p. 66)

5 (A). Conscientiously and comprehensively Christ-centered.

Any counseling worthy of the name “Christian” should be conscientiously and comprehensively Christ-centered. It focuses on who and what Christ is, what He has done for us in His life and death and resurrection and in sending the Holy Spirit. These are extremely important theological concepts that need to be clarified in the client's’ mind. Once these facts are understood and believed, then the focus is on what He is doing for us right now in His session at the Father’s right hand, and what He will yet do for us in the future. Resolving those sin-related issues in their lives is of utmost importance. This includes being redeemed and justified through Christ, receiving God’s forgiveness through Christ, and acquiring from Christ enabling power to replace unchristlike (sinful) patterns of life with Christlike, godly ways of life. (Mack, 1998, p. 62)

5 (B). Conscientiously and comprehensively Church-centered.

Counseling is to be conscientiously and comprehensively church-centered. The Scriptures clearly teach that the local church is the primary means by which God intends to accomplish His work in the world. The local church is His ordained instrument for calling the lost to Himself. The church is also the context in which God sanctifies and changes His people into the very likeness of Christ. According to Scripture, the church is His household, the pillar, and ground of the truth, and the instrument he uses in helping His people to put off the old manner of life (pre-Christian habit patterns and lifestyles, ways of thinking, feeling, choosing, and acting) and to put on the new self (a new manner of life, Christ-like thoughts, feelings, choices, actions, values, and responses—Eph 4:1-32). (Mack, 1998, p. 70)

And thus Christian counseling must be connected to a church body. This often means that church members receive priority in getting counseling first, and regular church attendance is often required as part of the therapy process. Those unwilling to attend church are not serious about biblical counseling.

5 (C). Conscientiously and comprehensively Bible-centered.

The idea of the sufficiency of Scripture is paramount. The grounds for rejecting the idea that Christian counselors need extra-biblical insights to do effective counseling is that the Bible says God has given us—in our union with Christ and in His Word—everything that is necessary for living and for godliness (2 Pet 1:3).

Scripture clearly says that it contains all the principles and practical insights that are necessary for understanding people and their problems. For example, in Psalm 19:7, it says that God’s plan is perfect. There is no ideas or theories of man that anyone would seriously consider perfect. This assertion is what sets the Bible in a class all by itself—statements that unmistakably demonstrate the Bible’s sufficiency and superiority over any of man’s theories. God’s Word is perfect (whole, complete, sufficient, lacking nothing) and therefore able to restore (transform, renew, restore) the soul (the inner man, the real self).

So, apart from the question of whether it is possible to integrate the ideas of man with the truths of God’s Word is the issue of whether or not it is necessary. On this matter, the Scripture’s own testimony about its sufficiency, adequacy, and superiority is abundantly plain and convincing.

6. Questioning the Sufficiency of Scripture

At this point, many individuals who come to Christian counseling ask the same question, “Well, what you’re saying is nice, but what do you think should be done when people have really serious problems?” Is the Bible really adequate and sufficient for all problems, even serious mental health issues? There are a few points of view of this matter; they are the Two-Book Approach, the No-Book Approach, and the Filtering-Device Approach.

The first is the Two-Book Approach. When most people, including most Christians, who do not believe in the sufficiency of Scripture for counseling, actually do regard and use God’s Word in counseling in conjunction with modern-day psychology.

The second is the No-Book Approach. In this approach, which suggests that we cannot really be sure that our understanding of the Bible is accurate because our interpretive efforts are always colored by our own perspectives. This is the most agnostic approach.

And third is the Filtering-Device Approach. Some Christians who are not comfortable with either of the previously mentioned perspectives assert that the Bible should be used as a rule book or filtering device for identifying counseling truth. (Mack, 1998, p. 73)

Though proponents of these three major approaches to Christian counseling differ on some issues, they are all agreed on one major point: the traditional biblical resources for dealing with man’s problems are not enough; they simply are not adequate. We must use insights and ideas and techniques that are not taught by nor found in God’s Word.

7. Depravity of Human Nature

The depravity of human nature is another factor that supports the rejection of the idea that man by himself can fix his own condition. The idea that Christian counselors need to depend on extra-biblical insights and therapies is erroneous. The Bible teaches about the depravity of man’s nature since the fall of Adam in Genesis 3. This means that man’s character, speech, and behavior have all been perverted and compromised, as well as his emotions and desires, his conscience and will, his intellect, his thought processes, his goals and motives, the way he views and interprets life. None of man’s faculties has escaped the corrupting, corrosive, perverting, and debilitating impact of sin.

Thankfully there is a solution. The only way we can truly think rightly is to believe what the Bible teaches, and allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds so that we will learn to look at, interpret, and understand life through the lens of Scripture (Psalm 119:104; Romam 1:18-32; Eph 4:23). (Mack, 1998, p. 75)

8. The Master's Seminary take

Dr. Scott of The Master's Seminary teaches a course on pastoral counseling. Dr. Scott urgently stresses that pastoral counseling is not an optional ministry for believers. It is a kind of discipleship that encourages others to be live a Christ-like life. It is about helping people identify sin in their lives, and overcoming the selfish destructive behavior that it causes. It’s not just about sin, it is also about helping people with the trials in their lives. In the book of Revelation, five of the seven churches struggled with sin problems. The other two struggles with various trials. It is all about teaching our utter dependence on God and our interdependence on each other. No one is meant to be totally self-sufficient. (Scott 2013)

9. Spiritual and Religious Needs in Illness - The Case for Spiritual Care.

Religion plays an integral part in the lives of many Americans. Patients everywhere, those in acute health crisis situations, trauma survivors, families who have lost loved ones, and the list goes on and on, they all have spiritual and religious needs. Special training is needed to provide for these needs. (McCaffrey 2004). Understanding and resolving all of the non-physical personal and interpersonal sin-related difficulties of man.

10. What the Reviewed Research Shows

There is significant support for patient’s reliance on spirituality and religion and patient’s need and desire for spiritual support, often from a chaplain or pastor. Evidence for the importance and prevalence of spiritual struggle is overwhelming. There is also evidence that spiritual needs are often not met.

There are some research gaps. The religious and spiritual needs of patients and families in who are coping with illness in general. The spiritual needs associated with specific diseases are often complicated. The spiritual struggle has been found to be common in people who are ill. Care that includes the spiritual dimension increases patient and family satisfaction. The spiritual needs of many patients in health care institutions are not being met. (McCaffrey 2004)

11. Downside of Pastoral Counseling

There are some downsides of pastoral counseling. One downside is that the average, modern-day pastor is overwhelmed with many tasks and must be careful not to take on more than he can handle. Many churches spread counseling out among associate pastors or elders who are equally equipped to counsel from the Word of God. Some churches hire counseling pastors whose primary role is to counsel those in need in the congregation, freeing the preaching pastor for sermon preparation and teaching responsibilities.

Another issue to be conscious of is that care must be taken to avoid counseling situations that can lead to sin. Pastors should not counsel women individually without another person present, preferably another woman, perhaps the pastor’s wife. Discernment should also be exercised to be certain a dependent relationship doesn’t occur between the pastor and his counselees. Dependence upon God and His Word should be sought and stressed in each session, not dependence on the pastor to meet every emotional and spiritual need, an impossible task for any pastor. (McCaffrey 2004)

12. Conclusion

What is the value of pastoral counseling? Pastoral counseling must be biblical counseling, as opposed to psychological counseling. Secular psychology or psychotherapy, based primarily on the teachings of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Carl Rogers, has no place in biblical counseling. (Koenig, 2012)

Biblical pastoral counseling uses the truths of Scripture, explaining and applying them to the individual’s life—exhorting, rebuking, correcting, and training—so that practical help is gained through the understanding and application of God’s Word (2 Timothy 3:16). The Word of God has a power not gained from textbooks or taking courses in psychology, the power to “penetrate even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The Word is the pastor’s primary tool in counseling, and, because of his years of study, he is in a unique position to wield the sword of truth.

While biblical counseling can be obtained outside the church, pastoral counseling has unique benefits not to be gained elsewhere. The pastor has a relationship with his counselee that continues outside the counseling sessions. He is in a position to observe and follow the progress of the church members he counsels. He can also solicit the prayers and advice of others in the church such as elders, always keeping in mind whatever confidentiality agreement he has with the counselee. There is also the accountability factor that the pastor can bring to bear during counseling sessions. (Koenig, 2012)

16. References

Koenig, H. G., Larson, D., & Larson, S. (2001). Religion and coping with serious medical illness. Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 35(3), 352-359.

Mack, W. A. (1998). The Sufficiency of Scripture in Counseling. The Master's Seminary Journal, 9(1), 63-84. TMSJ 9/1 (Spring 1998) pages 63-84

Marshall, J. 2015. Futures of a past: From within a more traditional pastoral counseling model, published in E. A. Maynard & J. L. Snodgrass (Eds.), Understanding Pastoral Counseling (pp. 435-448). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.

McCaffrey, A. M., Eisenberg, D. M., Legedza, A. T. R., Davis, R. B., & Phillips, R. S. (2004). Prayer for health concerns: results of a national survey on prevalence and patterns of use. Archives of Internal Medicine, 164(8), 858-862.

Pew Research Center. (2012). The global religious landscape.

Pew Research Center. (2015). Religious landscape study.

Scott, Stuart W, 2014, Associate Professor of Pastoral Counseling of The Master's Seminary, 13248 Roscoe Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 91352

Snodgrass, J. L. and Maynard, E. A (Eds.). (2015). Understanding Pastoral Counseling. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.