I'm not so opposed to counseling as to the mentality that everyone can benefit from it. Counseling can help some people, and some people it just can't reach far enough into their problem.

It becomes a matter of physician heal yourself first because the patient is a higher counselor and knows better the deeper matters of the heart.

I can't understand the stupid thinking of some people. Can't they see counselors are human too? People vie to be counselors, or are counselors, and they have huge problems themselves. Why would a thinking hard working person {which by the way are things which eventually eliminate the need of counseling} want to go pollute their hard life experience which is priceless, with something that has the suggestion of leisure in it, or wallows deeper in the problem because it continues to be analyzed, and the worse case of the bad side of counseling, the plain trouble making it causes......why would they go back there after they've come so much further?

I might as well get it all off my chest. As far as I am concerned, the only place counseling helps is on a smaller scale. If the problem is taken to a world view, counseling help no one because everyone is their own counselor. The problem and cure are together in them.

Have you ever noticed. Many times those that need counseling have great voids of time in their life where idleness has taken hold and fertilized a seed of a problem, generally from the plant family of religion? For there isn't anything that generates idleness and trouble making like religion.

Brent

Brent, my son spent the better part of this past year seeing a counselor. The man's title was "clinical neruopsychologist" so he was more than the garden variety counselor. My son was crazy about him. He runs around advocating that everyone should see a counselor. Here is what he says about him; he says, "He just helped me reset my thinking, he just tweaked my mind." My son was dealing with severe post traumatic stress and if he hadn't seen this DR I don't know what would have happened to him. But the DR didn't heal him, he taught my son how to heal himself. He taught him how to manage severe panic attacks, how to harness his racing mind, how to keep from letting depression overtake him, how to carefully release his anger and how to stop fear from ruling his life. But ultimately my son is the one who has to manage all of these issues. Everyone agrees that a good counselor is hard to find. But to dismiss them all (which I don't say you are doing) is certainly a mistake. There are a lot of worthless ones out there. However, the fact that they have problems themselves does not render counselors useless. It might make them empathetic, but beyond that, the techniques that they can teach a person to deal with problems do not require that they be perfect themselves.

I agree..we have to be willing to be helped or couseling does no good. But thinking we are our own greatest counselor can lead us way off track, because we can get in a rut of thinking that can be totally messed up. We need people...and counselors are just people but they are trained to identify and help us recognize what's in us and why we are reacting the way we do. Sometimes you have those "ah ha" moments when something a counselor says just clicks and you never would have seen it that way. But ultimately, you have to heal yourself, because they can't fight your demons for you, they just help you learn how to do it.

Good stuff, Cammie and Cupcake!

Good posts, C&C.

I've gone to a few different counselors, etc. over the years. They will not heal you nor will they often tell you what you should do. They assist you in the process of figuring it out.

Look you guys, I'm not going to directly come against counselling as to write it totally off. I know there's a science there that works. But then the people of it have to be weighed too and not put where others are healed differently. I speak by experience.

What I'm coming against more than anything is that the people that have talked in favor of counselling on here, have done so in almost a religious sense by casting counselling as the only one true way to be healed, and have went as far as to suggest I go for counselling. Also I get the feeling some people want me to go to counselling so I can become like they are, no thanks!!!

Everyone to their own and what they have faith for and want to take a chance with.

I preached my experience, and I didn't say, Thus sayeth the Lord, this is how it should be for everyone.

I think everyone should be where they deserve and have labored in. I think there's xholdemans that should still be in the church. I think there's Holdemans that should come out of the church. I think people should go get counselling because that's where their faith is and where they can only be helped, and you get the picture.

I haven't stated any unreasonable thing on this subject.

Brent

Brent said..."As far as I am concerned, the only place counseling helps is on a smaller scale. If the problem is taken to a world view, counseling help no one because everyone is their own counselor. The problem and cure are together in them."

Exactly right...this is what I was trying to convey over in the "sexual abuse" thread, when I said that what the counselor is ultimately going to teach the patient is to "move past" the problem. Say it however you want to (move on, get over, forgive, overcome, etc). If moving past the problem, and getting on with life, is not to end goal of all counseling and all problems, then I don't know what it could possibly be.

Now maybe some people are better at finding these answers within themselves than others. For those that are unable to muster the knowledge or courage to overcome their problems based on their own observations and willpower, then there's probably a time and place for counseling.

Brent;

If you could clarify by what in you, your help has actually come to you.

By our will power and inner contemplation or by the supernatural power of the inner Christ? Our testimony can be a clear one.

Do we counsel ourselves? "We are exhorted to encourage ourselves". This is legitimate. Do others counsel us? This is legitimate. Is He within our hearts finally delivering us in powerful ways that simply passes our understanding, our inner contemplations, and the external counsel we may get?

Different folks, different terms, but who is getting the glory and praise?

" he taught my son how to heal himself"


Hmmm..that seems to a common thought in many of these posts. If the counselor/psychologist/whatever are teaching a person to manage their problems, is that the person healing themselves?

Personally, I find that thought scarey. Can we heal ourselves? Or does this knowledge of how to handle our problems and what to do with them, ultimately come from God. If we say we are healing ourselves, then we start to take away God's glory. People can point us in the right direction, but it comes down to God doing a work in ourlives, irregardless of rather the person is a christian, atheist, or whatever.

Also.. would like to ask.. if we are just taught to "handle" our problems, is that really a healing? For example, for someone with diabetes, they are taught to handle their sugar levels, etc., making life more manageable. The knowledge to mange their sugar levels come from God, and God should receive the credit for revealing that to man BUT they still have diabetes. So they are still not healed.

Doug, a post like your's sets me off!!!

From the first time I corresponded with you, you tried to cast doubt on my testimony in sneaky ways.

For one that touts an inner only Christ, you sure don't give inner counselling much credit, but says trained counselors can help us that may or may not believe in your inner Christ. Can't your inner Christ deal with your problems? There shouldn't be any external healings coming, being you don't believe in an external Christ.

Brent

"inner Christ"

Doug and company,

That term is fodder for error and religious doctrine.

People have a reason not to believe in an external God, for after all, God says he's Spirit. But his Christ????? If Christ isn't an external Being, then all we have left is our gods.

I find it strange that after Christ died on the cross the only way he was ever going to live again was second rate in bodies that weren't his own. I wonder what happened to his bones? You reckon God has them stored in a box in some dusty corner of heaven?

You know Doug, you and company believe in external counselors, but you don't believe in The External Counselor.

Brent

Brent;

I was not casting doubt, not with intent. Forgive me if I came on that way. I was encouraging you to make a profound statement of your testimony.

You did not hear me saying that I considered counsel from unbelievers in the believers life to be a good thing. Let me clearly say this; I believe that skilled counseling by sincere born again believers who are trained in the science of the mind, is the best of external counseling for the believer.

The internal Christ when it's the real article is sufficient for the believer who is totally given over to the internal Christ!

The problem is this; my wife and I found something to be true in years of ministry: many believers are not totally given over to the inner Christ and these need help as well at times! Some born again believers are able to take hold of Life Eternal in them and others are not so able without someone first helping them at the level of the mind. These are the facts. Humility and trust is needed to employ these avenues of counseling when needed.

"I was encouraging you to make a profound statement of your testimony."

Doug,

I make a profound statement on my experience almost every time I write here. You just don't want to hear it.

What "totally given over" entail. Are you in the position to make this call?

Brent

>>I make a profound statement on my experience almost every time I write here.< <br>
Well, well, well. Someone's feeling pretty confident about the profundity of his writings...

Lark, have you ever had SEVERE Post Traumatic Stress with severe nonstop panic and anxiety? As a result of an extremely traumatic experience? It helps to learn to manage racing thoughts, how to breathe, and how to stop the endless cycle of terrifying thoughts. It helps to have some keys put in your hands to deal with a pattern of negative behavior. But I never meant to imply that God isn't a part of this or that it is something one simply does for one self. No counselor can heal anyone. But they can simply give them tools to work on things themselves. And in many cases God is introduced into the picture. In my son's case, he did not see a Christian counselor, but he got saved after the traumatic incident (which by the way, was 1 year ago today) and if he hadn't the counselor wouldn't have been able to pull him back from the brink he was tottering on.

First of all, it takes a certain humility to receive counseling. It takes a close look at one's self and an admission that  "yes, I need help." Then, opening up the sometimes sordid details of your life to a perfect stranger is not an easy task.

Because, it takes a determination to do the work of reliving traumatic incidents, sorting through the old thought patterns and forcing healthy thoughts to the forefront. And, it can be exhausting work.

Third, it takes a certain intelligence to be able to receive benefit from a counseler. The ability to use the tools provided by counseling needs to be learned. Like anything else, some can and some cannot.

Forth, it takes courage. For many, the fear of change is paralizing. Not until the pain of the present circumstances outweigh the fear of the unknown, is real change possible. Facing the demons in our mind is not unlike Pilgrim's adventures on his journey to the Celestial City.

If any of these attributes are lacking, therapy, or counseling if you prefer, will benefit little. I know those who have made initial inquiries into therapy and lacking some or all of these attributes, passed it up and generally denigrated the whole thing as useless. Their life is poorer, now more than ever, because of that decision.

Insightful post OS