Semi-Integrated Models Of Christian Counseling

Semi-integrated Models Of Christian Counseling

A popular word in Christian Counseling circles is integration. Integration means the blending of psychological and theological ideas. Therapists and theologians both study the possibilities and outcomes of integration as an academic discipline (just like physics or mathematics). Integration in this disciplinary sense is entirely a thought-problem. For example, is sin the same thing as self-defeating behavior? There are many complex and fascinating answers to this question.

There is however a more meaningful and practical version of integration. This is the integration of psychotherapy with Christian faith. Here it is no longer simply an academic task but one with real consequences for the help you receive from Christian counseling.

It matters a great deal if your therapist emphasizes faith over psychology or vice versa. For example: Are your unwanted behaviors or emotional difficulties classified as sin or as poor coping skills? Does God really communicate with you or are you simply receiving messages from your unconscious?

The kind of help you receive with your struggles is determined by how each therapist answers questions such as these. Most therapists and models of integrated Christian counseling fail to achieve a full and meaningful level of integration. This incompleteness is why we call those models semi-integrated.

Examples of semi-integrated models are used by those therapists who claim to keep their faith out of the therapeutic work. There is no reason to choose one of these therapists over non-Christian ones for obvious reasons.

Other therapists simply take psychological concepts and find examples in the Bible that exemplify the idea - this method is referred to as baptizing psychological concepts.

Because no new perspective is forged by this process it too provides no advantage to secular counseling other than using different (Biblical) words for the very same idea. Another model is call "pastoral counseling."

Pastoral counseling is performed by members of the clergy with an emphasis on being pastoral or nurturing to you. The clergyperson is focused on care-giving and direction in life and uses both Biblical ideas and some psychological knowledge.
It is generally brief work and does not attempt to get at the deeper, hidden motivations that cause persons to stay entrapped in unhealthy patterns of thought and action. Pastoral counseling can be very helpful to a person who isn't struggling with more serious issues.
A fourth kind of semi-integration is the eclectic approach. In this model a therapist grounds his or her work in neither Christianity nor psychology but instead moves back and forth between the two depending on what seems best at the time. This is the worst model of all because no serious thought is put into shifting perspectives - only convenience. Therapists who claim to be eclectic are letting you know they really don't know what they are doing when it comes to serious integration.