The Pastoral Counselor and the Avoidant Worrier

I can identify with the avoidant Worrier pattern because in my seminary years I was haunted by it. I cared a great deal about Christ, and had even left medical school in response to God’s call on my life. I read through the entire Bible several times, attended church weekly, and went to Campus Missions Fellowship on Friday nights. Yet I was still aware of a distance between me and other people. 

Why did I feel so alone? The depression felt like a gunnysack of concrete on my chest, the hopelessness like a fist gripping my stomach. I finally resolved to see a pastoral counselor at a nearby church, a very human man who seemed warm enough to entrust with my heart-wrenching worries.

He responded empathetically and astutely. After asking a number of open-ended questions, he said, “Dan, I really feel for your pain. It seems to me that somewhere along your development you found human emotions too painful to handle, and that you created a rift between your mind and your heart. So your mind kept developing, and that’s why you’re so academically gifted, but your heart got left behind, and that’s why you feel so excluded from human community.”

I felt my whole body relax. At last someone had found words for my deep dilemma, and that meant there might be a way out. It wasn’t easy but I did outgrow the trap of my former Weakness-stuck life. 

Yet I didn’t leave the Weakness compass point behind, because in the course of building Compass theory, I came to discover that it houses the root source of humility, a quality that Jesus ascribed to himself when he said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29).

Jesus: Gentle and Humble of Heart

 

When you are counseling someone who manifests worry, you can discern rather quickly whether this worry is transitory, which usually responds well to brief situational coaching, or chronic and pervasive worry, which calls for insight and support through short-term counseling, or personality reconstruction in long-term pastoral psychotherapy. 

When you encounter a chronic Worrier pattern, here are some insights you might offer:

1. Worry is a choice, not a necessity, although it often feels necessary to worry.
2. Worry actively distrusts God’s involvement in life (most people never think of worry this way, but rather “sanctify” their worry as though it is a virtue).
3. Worry translated into action steps has redemptive value, but worry for worry’s sake creates meaningless misery.
4. Counselees can transfer the energy it takes to worry into prayer for guidance and positive steps for change.

At a physiological level, chronic worry may reflect the biochemical condition of major depression, a genetic disorder arising from the body’s inability to produce enough catecholamine molecules in neuronal synapses. So it is a good idea to meet with a psychiatrist or family doctor who is acquainted with major depression, and who can act as a medical referral for counselees whose symptoms seem unabated by psychological and spiritual counseling strategies.

In this case, you can say to your counselee: “I have a hunch that a portion of your pattern of worry and withdrawal is biological. I suggest that you see Dr. _________ and explain your symptoms, because taking an appropriate antidepressant is like receiving a prescription for eyeglasses: it helps the world come into better focus so that you can feel more confident in facing life.”

If the counselee follows through and receives a prescription, you continue right along with the pastoral counseling and coaching, helping them integrate the effects of the meds with their personality and relationship development.

By way of an overall counseling strategy, keep before you the Compass Model, so that at times you can guide the counselee’s attention to growth steps in Assertion, and other times developing Strength or Love. By the same token, you don’t push too hard, because you respect the secret security these counselees draw from the Weakness compass point, since as long as they stay there they don’t have to take risks or assume responsibility. 

Worrier Self Compass

So you relax, even when they express uncertainty, self-doubt, and fear, and in so doing, you create an interpersonal atmosphere that de-catastrophizes their worry, offering your calmness to counter their anxiety (Strength), your practical suggestions to counter their learned helplessness (Assertion), and your faithful caring to counter their depersonalization (Love).

You don’t take on the unrealistic project of turning them into industrious and confident persons, but rather assist them through either an extended course of counseling, or occasional meetings, to construct a developmental bridge that helps them move from fear-filled existence to a more abundant life. 

In a pastoral context, you can pray that they receive the spiritual empowerment of fortitude. At the end of a session, will courage to them by affirming their gradual progress and conveying warm encouragement.

Helping People Experience God's Love

I have helped many people yield to God's love. It isn't nearly as complicated as you might think. The two factors that have to be overcome include fear of the unknown and lack of knowledge about how much God desires to manifest himself in our lives.

I remember as a young boy I went to bed at night feeling deeply frightened after turning out the lights. I would see creepy shadows on the wall formed by streetlights, and imagine all types of weird monsters in the closet or under my bed. Finally my mother suggested a solution. She brought a black Bible into my room and laid it on my nightstand. "Here Dan," she said. "Now you know that God will be here with you in your room." Her technique and confidence, along with my new feeling of God's assurance won the day.

As a pastoral counselor you have countless opportunities to assure people of God's love for them. You can say, "God is going to help you through this current crisis because we are trusting in Him." Or, "I wonder what creative way the Lord will use to help you out this week."

When people express fear at the prospect of feeling God's presence, it is often because they connect it with ghost stories or the loss of control to an invisible force. Here is where people need to realize that in Jesus we see the face and hear the voice of Almighty God. From a child born in a manger, we hear the Lord of Creation speaking to us, usually gently through the voice of the Holy Spirit, about how we are to live and what we are to believe. Understanding that Christ is resurrected and that it's perfectly normal to hear his voice really helps people relax and recognize the Good Shepherd when He guides them.

If a person still doesn't feel comfortable with God, you may need to probe for areas of willful sin, where they are not really surrendering their lives to him, or where they are disobeying what Scripture teaches. A woman revealed to me in pastoral counseling something she had never told anyone: that a local physician had her visit his home each month to handle his sexual needs. For this he helped her out with her monthly condo payment. She had been benefiting from this arrangement for a year, and at first seemed shocked when I reframed it as prostitution. This went against her self-image as a very moral person in other regards. It took her a couple of months to part ways with the doctor, but a new peace of Christ came into her heart when she made the break.
 
Once you have helped a person deal with their reservations about growing in Jesus Christ, this opens up many opportunities for a closer walk with God. Since the Holy Spirit now lives within them, they can talk to God as they would a best friend, any time day or night. They can approach God boldly, as His much loved sons and daughters. "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Heb 4:16).

One day when President John Kennedy was in the Oval Office, a White House photographer caught little Jon-Jon, his three year old son, peeking out from under the desk, where he had been happily playing during a high level meeting.

But Kennedy acted like our Heavenly Father acts, making room for Jon-Jon in  his affairs of state. God loves us even more intensely. The Lord is never too busy to comfort us or give us a spiritual hug in the middle of the day.

Here are Scriptures that work well in pastoral counseling to drive this reality home:

"No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).

"May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God" (Ephesians 3:19).

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7).

Most of all, persons in pastoral counseling learn from you, the pastoral counselor, that God is really there, and that He loves them as you love them.

Assemblies of God Seminary Professors Praise Dr. Dan Montgomery Books

ASSEMBLIES OF GOD THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 

REV. MELODY D. PALM, PSY.D., PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AND COUNSELING

 

“The Church of the 21st century desperately needs pastors and pastoral counselors who are psychologically educated and spiritually discerning to address the complex emotional and psychological needs of today's congregants. 

“As a practicing psychologist and seminary professor training men and women for ministry I have found Dr. Dan Montgomery's work beneficial and practical. 

“In his latest book, Pastoral Counseling & Coaching, Dr. Montgomery provides pastors with both a biblically-based and psychologically sound perspective on human growth and behavior, as well as practical techniques for effective therapeutic intervention. 

“Readers will find case studies, visual models, and excellent resources. This is definitely a book which will help pastors and pastoral counselors find more satisfaction in pastoral counseling. 

“I commend Dr. Montgomery for his contribution to the field of pastoral counseling and highly recommend his Compass Therapy Model as a framework for a pastoral care ministry.” 

 __________________________________________

 

SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY

REV. ROBERT C. CROSBY, D.MIN.

PROFESSOR OF PRACTICAL THEOLOGY

 

“I continue to enjoy using Christian Counseling That Really Works and the Self Compass Model and tools in all my Pastoral Counseling classes. It is such a lively and engaging synthesis of biblical and counseling insights. I'm confident a harvest of young pastoral counselors are going to find these books helpful in the fields of ministry.” 

 __________________________________________

 

SOUTHWESTERN AG UNIVERSITY

JEFF LOGUE, Ph.D., PROFESSOR

LICENSED PROFESSIONAL COUNSELOR

COORDINATOR OF COUNSELING MINISTRIES

 

“Pastoral Counseling and Coaching is a comprehensive approach to pastoral counseling. Dan Montgomery's text is a priceless resource for students, pastors and professionals in the field.” 

________________________________________

Pastoral Counseling and Coaching: Compass Therapy in Churches

Emotional Healing in Pastoral Counseling

Working constructively with emotions is crucial to success in pastoral counseling because feelings are the energy of personality. They are literally like an artist’s color palette, from which the artist loads his brush to give life, hue, and nuance to a painting. If the artist keeps rinsing the brush between applications, the color will remain vivid and true. But if the artist doesn’t regularly clean the brush, paint from former brush strokes will accrue and turn the new applications muddy and dark.

So it is with feelings. During the course of counseling, from first to last session, you are seeking to offer the counselee ways to experience and express emotions that contribute to healthy living, and keep the heart cleansed from clogged-up feelings that would otherwise contaminate the canvas of perception.

What is the nature of clogged-up emotions? Human emotions are meant to flow through the body much like water down a river. Sometimes there is a lot of emotion and sometimes there is only a trickle, but what’s important here is that emotions are transitory psycho-physiological events involving the mid-brain and lower brain stem, but not the neocortex. In a word, emotions feel but don’t think. They reflect the more instinctual, subjective part of perception, the gut reaction to what’s going on between the environment and the organism in the here and now.

What, then, is the purpose of a feeling? The purpose is to discriminate between liking and disliking, needing and not needing, wanting and not wanting, coping and not coping. Feelings tell people about their own spontaneous interests, preferences, needs, and desires. Once a feeling has served its purpose, it recedes into the background of awareness.

Compass Therapy utilizes the catchall word “Heart” to point toward those inner states that most people experience as emanating from the area of the heart, stomach, and bowels. The Old Testament is full of anthropomorphic references to internal body organs that offer metaphors for how both God and people experience emotion.

Counselees understand immediately when you talk about matters of the heart. When you ask what a counselee is feeling, the person understands that you are inquiring about the most subjective, emotionally colored, and private part of their perception, a part oftentimes so private they can’t find words to express it or even know they are feeling it. 

Now here’s the secret of facilitating the awareness and discrimination of emotions in counselees. Don’t judge them! Remember that feelings are transitory physiological processes that need recognition and integration into the personality, not repression and exile to the unconscious.

Thus when a six-year-old boy says he feels like killing his older sister when she twists his wrist, he is experiencing anger and trying to express it so that the feeling will pass through him and dissipate. You don’t forbid him to ever speak this way again, but rather seek to expand his metaphors until he comes up with a more diplomatic expression of anger.

Your purpose entails expanding inner emotional states, so that counselees can become more comfortable with emotions in general, and more interested in understanding and defining them. 

Feeling and thinking can interact rhythmically here, the feeling providing the raw material of direct experience, the thinking providing an analysis of explanatory causes and effects that pertain to the feeling. By repeatedly helping counselees to slow down their communication enough to feel an emotion cleanly, label it accurately, and consider how best to express it, you are healing their emotions and knitting their personalities together.

This principle is so important that if you primarily listen to people’s feelings and help to clarify and transform them into meaningful expressions, you will heal a good many people. 

For case studies that connect emotional healing with treatment plans, see:

 COMPASS THERAPY: CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION

Your Body Language in Pastoral Counseling

The Countenance of a Counselor

The first impression a counselee will receive from you, and the impression that may stay with them for some time, lies in whether you are warm and personable—not casual and unprofessional, mind you, but simply human and accessible. While attorneys and surgeons may have the option of being cool and remote, pastoral counselors do not.

Everything rests on your counselee’s sense of whether or not they can open up to you, whether you are trustworthy or not, whether you prize them or not. I remember watching Carl Rogers counseling a volunteer counselee at a weekend workshop. It wasn’t what he said that moved me, as much as how humanly present he was with this woman. There was the hint of a smile on his face and in his voice, even though he was conveying thoughtful reflection about what she said to him. 

I thought to myself, “Dan, you’ve got to lighten up with your own counselees. You’re too poker-faced. You’ve got to convey more warmth.” Indeed, I had been trained at the University of New Mexico that counseling and psychotherapy is a serious profession, and that by giving counselees a look of objective neutrality throughout the session I would help them to concentrate on their inner material. It took years to get over that aspect of my training, and to replace that blank look with facial expressions that flowed from whatever the counselee was confiding.

Carl Rogers, Virginia Satir, Rollo May, and other master counselors whom I’ve observed in person helped me discover that good counseling involves human-to-human communication. Inspirational teachers and coaches know this. They’re not afraid to greet you with a smile, pat you on the back when you’ve achieved something significant, or frown when they are perplexed. So when you invite each counselee into your office, enjoy giving a warm smile and a firm handshake. This sends the message: “I respect your courage to come in for counseling; now, how can I help you out?”

Your Body Language Matters

While we’re on the topic of a counselor’s body language, let me mention three more cues. Watch your hands the next time you are counseling. Make sure they are not fidgeting or locked together in an ironclad grip. Use selective relaxation to connect the occasional smile you offer during a session with a relaxed pair of hands. Then look at your legs. Is one of your feet bobbing up and down like a cork in water? 

Mouth, hands, legs, feet: all are visual cues that convey attention or inattention to your counselee. Opt for a relaxed body in which you are breathing easily and making natural gestures when you speak. This conveys relational connection. 

Beyond this, you can use the style of communication with which you are accustomed. Some counselors have a dramatic and histrionic style. Others are more calm and composed.  This is fine. But do become aware of your body language so that you can maintain an accurate picture of how the counselee is seeing you.

For more, read:

PASTORAL COUNSELING & COACHING:

COMPASS THERAPY IN CHURCHES

Christ in Pastoral Counseling

While the world benefits from psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and marriage and family counselors, no one can take the place of Christ’s pastoral shepherds, appointed by the Lord and empowered by the Holy Spirit, spending countless hours calming the anxious, encouraging the depressed, binding up the emotionally wounded: Maria, Bill, Antonio, Ming, Abdul. Through his pastoral ministers, Christ reaches out in every culture not only to save people from sin and set them right with God, but to help them grow psychologically and spiritually, creating in them a sound mind and responsive heart, a relaxed body and serene spirit, edifying them with enough maturity to love others as they learn to love themselves and God.

 During my seminary years, a classmate of mine I will call Jeff developed suicidal urges; his study of the Bible had left him with the impression that he had too many sins for God to forgive. Though there was a professional counselor on staff, this student chose to confide his soul-pain to a professor of Old Testament, himself an ordained minister. What struck me was how the professor took time out of his schedule to shepherd and nurture Jeff, even to the point of visiting him in the dorm at night to make sure he was okay. After several days of being watched over, Jeff’s depression lifted. He told me that the professor’s faithful caring had penetrated his emptiness, opening an inner door through which he experienced God’s love.

Churches offer a natural home for personal development throughout the lifespan. Many ethnic backgrounds, all types of personalities, and every form of relationship add to the richness and complexity of local churches. And if there are biases regarding class or gender, the Holy Spirit empowers the Word of God to challenge and change them. The church is like a living organism, where the Trinity lives and breathes, awakening individuals to their full potential in Christ, stirring motivation that draws them forward, offering hope when difficulties overwhelm. Here pastoral counseling delivers the service of repair and recovery, providing confidential one-on-one or group sessions specifically designed to explore what troubles someone, what baffles or frustrates them, to the end that their lives are clarified and they are set on a path of healthy growth.

 The unique revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the Son sent by the Father to take away the sins of the world, reveals that Christianity’s whole purpose centers on a proactive faith, inviting God’s people to discover and actualize ever-greater depths of his love, peace, and joy. While Scripture paints in bold strokes God’s plan of salvation and the struggle between good and evil, the Bible was never meant as a handbook on personality theory or psychopathology. For that we need the information that behavioral science provides, just as God blesses humanity with the applied sciences of dentistry, optometry, and medicine.

Skilled pastoral counselors combine sound biblical principles with scientific psychology, bringing together a depth analysis of people’s problems with an effective treatment strategy—a process that  includes psychological as well as moral and spiritual dimensions.

  

My vision for developing pastoral counseling and coaching is two-fold:

1) To provide pastors and churches with a perspective on human growth that integrates trustworthy psychological principles with orthodox Christian faith, and helps pastors enjoy pastoral counseling.

2) To provide pastoral counselors with competent theory and techniques for therapeutic intervention across a wide range of human needs, while discerning when a referral to a licensed therapist is indicated.

Setting Up a First Pastoral Counseling Session

Let’s speculate a little, for the purpose of enhancing empathy with counselees, about what goes on within a person before making a first contact with a pastoral counselor.

It’s awful when individuals feel bound up with a knotty life problem that won’t go away and doesn’t get better, no matter what efforts they make, no matter what advice they receive from trusted friends. The problem can even defy heartfelt prayer, a sense of helplessness accruing alongside inner anxiety.

It may be that a third child, unlike the first two who were calm and sociable, climbs the walls day and night, paying no attention to parental pleas or reprimands. Or it may be that sexual issues have come to haunt the marriage bed. Or what about a person who has recurring anxiety attacks and doesn’t know why?

Every counselee feels anguish. They would not contact you if pain and perplexity didn’t compel them. And once they are resolved to reach out, there is the added uncertainty about how you will respond to them.

Treatment fearfulness is commonly underestimated by counselors, but nevertheless acts as a genuine obstacle in seeking help. Further, men especially may have some culturally determined resistance to counseling because of the intimate sharing it requires.

Take heart, though. Research shows that counselees have a greater probability of experiencing healing in their area of need than do patients who seek a physician’s care. And generally speaking, the more anxious and distressed people are when they enter counseling, the more likely they will continue with it and the more benefit they will likely derive.

Keep in mind, too, that many people prefer seeing a counselor who is sensitive to spiritual values over one who is secular-minded. Fears and all, then, many hurting persons reach a point where they decide to pursue pastoral counseling, mustering the courage to make a first contact. They may know you from church, hear of your work from someone you’ve counseled, or find your site on the Internet.

In their moment of reaching out, a touch of hope stirs within them, a warranted hope, since God is encouraging them to make a counseling connection with you.

Now, for our part, what goes on inside us to prepare for a first session with a new counselee? Personally, I am helped by an open-ended prayer conversation that says to the Lord, “Please send me only those individuals that in your providence you want me to see, and please guide us from beginning to end.”

This steadies my confidence in God’s superintendence of my counseling practice, helping my unconscious to accept that the Lord is guiding people long before they see me, and will continue to help them long after our counseling is over. I want God’s multifaceted involvement in my counseling and coaching practice. After all, Christ is the one who originally called me to this profession!

Another way of preparing for new counselees is simply not scheduling more appointments than you can handle in a given week. This requires that you diplomatically saying “no” to a prospective counselee who would create an overload in your counseling practice: “I’m very sorry but my practice is full just now. Let me give you a few names of other counselors who might be able to see you.” This is hard for me, since I want to help every person who needs me, and, at a less mature level, I am flattered when people call upon my expertise. The tendency to overbook threatens the delicate balance of a healthy pastoral counseling practice. 

Seeing too many people—even one too many counselees—leaves us irritable or exhausted after a day of counseling. This in turn deprives spouses and children of rightful energy needed to nourish them. It doesn’t take long for a spouse to think, “My husband (or wife) cares more about taking care of other people than about me!” I suggest placing your spouse at the top of the list of those who need nurturing love. An intimate marriage deepens the reservoir of energy required for serving counselees effectively.

If you are single, this overload appears more as a secret depression: like being crushed under a heavy load that no one else knows about. Either way, you learn to place your physical and psychological wellbeing as a primary priority, recognizing that by showing this love for yourself, you’ll have energy to care for others.

In either case, watch out for the isolation that comes with over-exposure to counselees. Counter this isolation with the development of hobbies and social outings that keep you interested in life and rejuvenate your spirit. You want longevity and career fulfillment, not burnout. 

 I know. I've burned out twice in accruing 35,000 hours of counseling experience. Each time it took several months free from counseling to recover my health, identity, and sense of enjoyment of this challenging vocation. However, I'm happy to report that the older I've gotten, the more relaxed I've become in counseling, and the more joy in this calling I have come to experience. Even though it's still hard work!

How are you doing?

Pastoral Psychotherapy Using Compass Therapy

Long-term pastoral psychotherapy generally requires ten sessions to a year or more. While some exposure to clinical pastoral training is recommended for all pastoral counselors, long-term pastoral psychotherapy in particular needs formal academic and supervisory training in the field of counseling.

If brief situational counseling is like taking a car in for lubrication, oil change, and tire rotation, then longer term pastoral psychotherapy is like rebuilding the car’s engine. This requires the thorough integration of a Christian personality theory with a well-established counseling theory, and supervision of your initial counseling experience.

You want enough knowledge about personality disorders to treat counselees with narcissistic, compulsive, paranoid, antisocial, histrionic, dependent, avoidant, schizoid, and borderline personality patterns.

You want enough knowledge of biochemical disorders such as chronic depression, bipolar disorder, and attention-deficit disorder to discern when a referral for medical evaluation is indicated.

You want an understanding of the role of the unconscious in the generation of psychopathology and the therapeutic transformation of personality.

And you will undergo a course of therapeutic treatment yourself, a standard requirement for advanced degrees in counseling, so that your own personality patterns do not negatively impact the counseling process.

The reason for this extensive psychological preparation is simply that you don’t want the counselee to become worse off for seeing you! And this is what can happen when a counselee’s repressed emotions, irrational thoughts, conflicted values, and pent-up pain enter the counseling arena.

You can take them too far too fast, or make a seemingly innocuous remark that sets in motion rash decisions, suicidal urges, destructive aggression, or the collapse of a fragile sense of self. Nor do you want to become emotionally enmeshed with your counselee, so that you both topple off the nearest cliff.

Think of it like this: if your counselee needs you as a guide to ascend Mount Everest, you want to have safely guided many people up that mountain so that you know the territory.

That said, pastoral psychotherapy contributes profoundly to the present and future wellbeing of people that it serves, for it can transform barriers to wholeness, creating a positive behavioral legacy that will bless generations of people to come. You just have to know that you are called to this vocation and that you have acquired the expertise to deliver on its challenges.

I suggest that if you have a passion for counseling, you set about developing your capability in all three types of pastoral counseling—brief (1-3 sessions), short-term (four to nine sessions), and long-term (ten sessions to a year)—so that you can exercise wisdom and creativity in meeting a wide range of counselee needs, enjoying the freedom and fulfillment this brings you.

For more theory and techniques to enhance

pastoral psychotherapy and pastoral psychology, read:

Compass Therapy: Christian Psychology In Action

Pastoral Psychotherapy with Compass Therapy

Compass Therapy provides three types of pastoral counseling: 1) brief situational support; 2) short-term pastoral counseling; and 3) long-term pastoral psychotherapy.

Here I am speaking of long-term pastoral psychotherapy, which generally requires ten sessions to a year or more. While some exposure to clinical pastoral training is recommended for all pastoral counselors, long-term pastoral psychotherapy in particular needs formal academic and supervisory training in the field of counseling.

If brief situational counseling is like taking a car in for lubrication, oil change, and tire rotation, then longer term pastoral psychotherapy is like rebuilding the car’s engine. This requires the thorough integration of a Christian personality theory with a well-established counseling theory, and supervision of your initial counseling experience.

You want enough knowledge about personality disorders to treat counselees with narcissistic, compulsive, paranoid, antisocial, histrionic, dependent, avoidant, schizoid, and borderline personality patterns. You want enough knowledge of biochemical disorders such as chronic depression, bipolar disorder, and attention-deficit disorder to discern when a referral for medical evaluation is indicated.

You want an understanding of the role of the unconscious in the generation of psychopathology and the therapeutic transformation of personality. And you need to undergo a course of psychotherapeutic treatment yourself, a standard requirement for advanced degrees in counseling, so that your own personality patterns do not negatively impact the counseling process.

The reason for this extensive psychological preparation is simply that you don’t want the counselee to become worse off for seeing you! And this is what can happen when a counselee’s repressed emotions, irrational thoughts, conflicted values, and pent-up pain enter the counseling arena. You can take them too far too fast, or make a seemingly innocuous remark that sets in motion rash decisions, suicidal urges, destructive aggression, or the collapse of a fragile sense of self.

Nor do you want to become emotionally enmeshed with your counselee, so that you both topple off the nearest cliff. Think of it like this: if your counselee needs you as a guide to ascend Mount Everest, you want to have safely guided many people up that mountain so that you know the territory.

That said, pastoral psychotherapy contributes profoundly to the present and future wellbeing of people that it serves, for it can transform barriers to wholeness, creating a positive behavioral legacy that will bless generations of people to come. You just have to know that you are called to this vocation and that you have acquired the expertise to deliver on its challenges.

Contemporary theoretical and practical tools for the empowerment of pastoral psychotherapy are found in the following books: Pastoral Counseling and Personality Disorders, by Richard Vaughan (1994); Clinical Handbook of Pastoral Counseling, edited by Robert Wicks, Richard Parsons, and Donald Capps (2003); and Christian Counseling That Really Works: Compass Therapy in Action, by Dan Montgomery (2008).