Casey McCall has picked up on and adapted the title of Stephen Corbett and Brian Fikkert’s book “When Helping Hurts” to talk about “When Helping hurts in pastoral counselling.” His main point is that pastoral counselling does more harm than good when those seeking it confuse it with therapy.
To some extent I want to agree with that and to distinguish pastoral counselling from “therapy” especially when the expectation is that a therapist will simply listen quietly, perhaps with a few questions whilst you talk your way into a better mood. That is often how therapy is perceived and indeed, I’ve sat and listened to people as they’ve unburdened themselves to me as their pastor, before they’ve stood up and said “thank you, I feel much better.” Sometimes I’ve been left wondering why at this stage they feel better or if they should.
However, I would still be a little cautious with the distinction. Therapy might be seen to be simply about healing This can be physical, mental/emotional and perhaps spiritual too. I wonder if sometimes those who want to firmly distinguish pastoral counselling from therapy are highlighting their wariness of “healing” language around pastoral care. This might be particularly so if we only think of the need in terms of sin, confession and change.
This leads into my primary question mark. McCall writes:
“I require homework. In fact, I’m so serious about homework that I won’t meet again until homework has been completed. The counselee bears the responsibility for change, and his willingness to do the assigned homework signals the degree to which he understands that. Insisting on completed homework communicates that the conversation with me isn’t the main point; following the Lord in faith and obedience is.
Why do I struggle with the language here? You see, as it happens I lean into the view that what matters is the time away from the meeting between counsellor and counselee. Incidentally, soo do many therapists. Secondly, I have in effect set, what might be called homework in most pastoral counselling contexts. However, I am a little nervous of two things here, first the statement that “The counselee bears the responsibility for change” and secondly, the use of “homework” language.
Whilst there is a sense in which we want to encourage people to take responsibility for where they are, there can be a risk that we slip into a kind of behaviourist approach to counselling. Indeed, behaviourist models, life Bible Counselling tend to make use of homework and projects too. What we want to be emphasising is that it is fundamentally God’s work, through the Holy Spirit and through the Word that brings about change.
In terms of homework, yes I want the person to focus on what they are doing day to day rather than depending on meetings with me, I wonder if “homework” is the right language. It may still place the emphasis on the meetings, just as school homework is there to supplement the real stuff that happens in the classroom. Moreover, the language fits an educational framework. Of course, as pastors, we are teaching in those one-to-one sessions as much as in the pulpit but we want to be careful that this doesn’t become about head knowledge and I think that can become the case with some approaches to Biblical counselling such as when tasks like “memorise these verses” are introduced. Again, there can be benefit in learning Scripture, so that “the word of Christ dwells in us richly”. My emphasis would be on meditating on God’s Word rather than memory and recital.
The risk is that the person can begin to learn to do their homework In the right way, can get the answers right, can perform at memorising in a way that satisfies the counsellor. This does not mean that there has been heart change. What I really want to be focusing on is a sense that the primary thing is their daily walk with the Lord with regular check ins with me whilst they work through something.
In conclusion, I agree with McCall that pastoral counselling can hurt as well as hurt but I also wonder if there may be dangers that he has missed.
Faithroots 