FORTY-TWO percent of individuals with emotional problems sought the help of clergymen, compared with only 31 percent who had gone to a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or a marriage counselor. These statistics come out of a study by University of Michigan investigators. They had extensive interviews with hundreds of Americans, representing a cross section of the general population. In the light of these findings there is no doubt that ministers occupy a central and strategic role as counselors in our society. The pastor does not elect to counsel or not to counsel. His counseling is done in a skilled manner, or in an untrained way.
"Americans View Their Mental Health," the university study, indicates that almost 25 percent of those interviewed admitted that they felt themselves to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown at some point in their adult lives. The death of loved ones and job pressures were the two major factors contributing to this feeling.
The Goal of Pastoral Counseling
Man needs to feel that his life is meaningful. This comes from having a loving, trustful relationship with his heavenly Father. It is the reason why man is "incur ably religious." Augustine's familiar lines state it: "Thou hast made us for Thyself and our souls are restless until they rest in Thee."
William Glasser, in Reality Therapy (1965), is partially right when he maintains that persons have only two essential personality needs—to love and be loved, and to feel that one is worth-while to one self and others. Howard J. Clinebell, in Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling (1966), summarized these two needs as the need for authentic love, a relationship characterized by mutual "sensitivity and responsiveness to the needs of others."
Man needs a sense of his own worth through Christ. This makes it possible for him to feel that others too have inherent worth.
Persons who need counseling help may be those who are blocked to a painful degree in their ability to maintain need-satisfying associations. Many factors may be involved in such blockages: the lack of an adequate supply of mature love in early life; a traumatic crisis; a paralysis of the will due to inner conflicts; or the accumulated results of irresponsible (or prodigal) living.
It is my belief that direct encounter with the ferment of new developments in current psychotherapies will broaden a minister's counseling horizons and improve his general approach to pastoral care.
Methods of Counseling
The older model used extensively by the ministry was "Rogers with a dash of Freud." The profound influence of the Rogerian, client-centered, nondirective method has rescued pastoral counseling from the legacy of over-directiveness. It was particularly needed by clergymen to prevent them from the twin professional hazards of verbalizing and playing God to the counselees. A grounding in this method and philosophy is an excellent starting point, assuming that there is a basic under standing of God, and of His love, and of our need of Him.
With some counselees this method is sufficient by itself. This is true for those whose main need is for emotional catharsis—the opportunity to pour out their burdened feelings and have them shared by a sympathetic listener. It may also be true of those whose need is to think through a situational problem. As a method of long-term psychotherapy, this approach is useful with reasonably intelligent, verbal, young or middle-aged neurotics who are strongly motivated to ask for help. But many of those who come for pastoral counseling do not seem to fit this type.
The Rogerian model has tended to make the minister feel that he should strenuously avoid the use of his position to in spire, direct, teach, guide, confront, or en courage people to function responsibly. The revised model regards creative teaching methods as indispensable. Helping a person learn certain facts and skills may change his entire perspective toward his problems. The revised model picks up an existentialist emphasis in which the counselor brings himself to the person.
The revised model does not ignore early life or unconscious factors in current problems, but the emphasis is on the here-and-now. Certainly in short-term counseling, which is usually all the pastor can take time for in his busy program, more constructive results are achieved by focusing on contemporary problems and realistic plans for the future, rather than by searching, like a psychological archeologist, for the origins of current problems. Going back to the early life is usually unnecessary, as William Menninger said, in effect, "It isn't necessary to know how the fire got started in order to put it out."
Common Elements in All Types of Counseling
A therapeutic relationship grows as the counselor concentrates on listening, feeling, and relating. The art of reflective listening is essential in counseling. The pastor listens for feelings that are "between the lines," too painful to trust to words. As someone has said, "Many people are looking for an ear that will listen." This is hard to find, because most people are talking when they should be listening.
As the counselor listens in depth, he reflects back to the person what he hears, particularly the individual's dominant or recurring feelings. His listening is "disciplined listening," focusing on what seems to have the most meaning and significance. In this way he can help the person begin to organize his confused inner world.
The process of listening and reflecting serves a variety of functions:
1. It allows the minister as counselor to check the accuracy of his perceptions. If he is not on the counselee's emotional wave length his reflections provide opportunities for his misperceptions and his misinterpretations to be corrected.
2. It lets the counselee know that the minister is trying to understand his inmost hopes and fears.
3. This awareness of the minister's concern stimulates the growth of counseling rapport.
4. In some cases, responding to feelings lances the psychic wound, permitting the poison of powerful pent-up feelings to drain off so that normal healing can occur.
Three things can block the minister's or counselor's sensitivity to his member's feelings: overconcern with personality theories and techniques, premature attempts to think of solutions, and anxiety that produces unawareness of feelings. Inexperienced ministers need to be encouraged to avoid trying to "cure" the person, or find answers to his problems at the beginning, instead of concentrating on understanding the person and his problem.
Listen intensively and reflect feelings. On short-term counseling also use questions carefully to focus on conflict areas rapidly. This is called focused listening. Provide useful suggestions. Clarify the various actions or alternatives the counselee can take. Presenting alternatives based on the minister's knowledge and experience is radically different from giving off-the-cuff advice.
Help the person decide on the "next step," and then follow up to see how it works. This procedure usually strengthens his inner resources. Even if the decisions are minor, it helps break the paralysis of indecision. Practice in taking short steps strengthens a man's self-confidence, his "psychological muscles," and enables him to take even longer steps.
