The Holy Spirit and Pastoral Counseling

It is perfectly appropriate for a pastoral counselor to suggest that God is present in counseling, offering redemptive hope that helps remove obstacles blocking the way to wholeness.

In some contexts, a pastoral counselor’s freedom to invoke God’s blessing through prayer is part of the counseling process. This is especially true in pastoral ministry, spiritual direction, and church-based counseling centers. On the other hand, there are contexts in which it is unwise to mention God in a personal way, such as the name of Christ.

Even so, there is a considerable range of opportunity where spirituality is welcomed covertly, if not overtly, and this may be where a significant number of the new generation of pastoral counselors find themselves.

The Spirit Moves Where The Spirit Wills

As a professor at a graduate school of psychology, I found myself in one of these places. While affiliated with a Christian denomination, the university reached out to students of all races and faiths, and pursued academic excellence within a context that celebrated and extended the spiritual and ethical ideals of the Christian faith.

Yet Christian witness or prayer was not acceptable in the classroom. I understood and accepted this. Nevertheless, some students knew of my relationship to Christ, and perhaps because of that saw me more as a pastoral counselor than a professional psychologist. Greg was such a student.

Following a class one afternoon, Greg called me aside in the hallway and said, “Dan, can we talk privately?”

“Sure,” I said. I opened the door to an empty classroom and we sat down in two desks. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well,” he said, looking suddenly unsure, “I just wanted to get something off my chest and you’re the one I’ve chosen.”

“I’m honored. Go ahead.”

“My life has fallen to pieces. Ever since elementary school, I had only one goal in life and it didn’t matter what it cost to get there.”

“That’s unusual clarity and single-mindedness. What was the goal?”

“To become a National Football League player. And finally, last spring, I was recruited.”

“That’s great news. Congratulations.”

Greg’s face turned to stone and he shook his head. “That’s when it happened,” he said. “I had a great spring training and a strong start to the season. But then I got hepatitis.” His eyes watered and voice broke. “They hospitalized me. My skin turned yellow.”

“I am so sorry,” I said.

“It gets worse. The doctor said there was permanent liver damage—that I could never play football again….”

We sat searching each others' eyes for a long minute. I let my face express the shock and sorrow I felt.

Finally, placing my hand over my heart, I said, “This is truly tragic. How have you possibly coped?”

“That’s just it,” he said. “I haven’t. I withdrew from my wife to the point where we hardly talk anymore. I withdrew from the players because it was excruciating to watch them working out. And I withdrew from God because I don’t believe he exists any more.”

Another silence.

Now I knew why Greg had chosen me. Paradoxically, he had sought out a person of faith in order to confess his loss of faith.

“Greg, I believe you of all people have every right to challenge God’s existence,” I said. “Do you care to share more about that?”

He nodded. “Yes. I always thought it was God calling me into professional football. I asked his help all the times I felt crushed by opposition or numb with pain. I thought he had big plans for me. And then when I finally became a pro and got my uniform and saw my name on the locker, he gave me hepatitis. What kind of God does that to a child he loves!”

I suddenly felt as helpless as Greg did. I had no answer for God. It would have seemed trite to quote a scripture or ask if he still attended church. At times like this I can wonder why I got into counseling in the first place. Some problems seem too profound to fix.

“So that’s why I came to you today,” said Greg, breaking through my internal anguish. “I want you to pray for me.”

My mind became a freight train: Oh-my-goodness-what-have-I-got-myself-into-I’m-not-supposed-to-witness-to-faith-in-Christ-here!

Fortunately another voice, a calmer one with a different message, whispered within me: Dan, it’s okay to offer a healing prayer when a person asks for spiritual help.

“All right, Greg,” I said. I bowed my head. “Dear Father, you’ve heard Greg pour out his pain and confusion today. All his hopes have been destroyed; all his dreams shattered. Can you please, in your brilliant capacity for resurrection, restore this young man to a life filled with meaning and fulfillment? I praise you and thank you in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

I looked up, but Greg still had his head in his hands.

“Greg,” I said gently. “Would you like to say a prayer too?”

He hesitated. Then he said, “Oh Lord, I am so sorry I have forsaken you. I never even said goodbye. I just tightened my heart and shut you out. Just like I shut out Marilyn. And all you both ever did was try to love me and help me through life. Please come back to me. Please don’t leave me all alone….”

My heart caught. I sat waiting for Greg to finish the prayer. But he didn’t, at least not that I could see. Instead, he began to tremble. I thought immediately, Oh no, I’ve done it now…I pushed this student over the edge…he’s having a panic attack.

The trembling increased and so did my heart rate, until Greg suddenly sat bolt upright and practically shouted, “I feel him, Dan. I feel God. He is right here with us!”

It took a moment for me to understand that this was no psychotic break, but a glorious visitation by the Mighty Counselor himself.

I watched as Greg looked upward, directly over my head, beaming like a child chucked under the chin—a six-foot-six two hundred and fifty pound young man being hugged and loved by his heavenly Father.

When we did finish up our impromptu session that day, I left campus appreciating more than ever that we are not alone as pastoral counselors. We are not left fending for ourselves with mere counseling theories and clinical techniques. The Holy Spirit moves where the Spirit wills, and that especially means moving where people are broken and needing one called alongside to help them, one like you or me and the Lord. 

Greg later told me that God had led him to become a football coach, a calling that he greatly enjoyed in service of his Lord and Savior. 

Restoring the Supernatural to Pastoral Counseling

We live in a time when much that is precious to Christian faith and doctrine has been removed from some approaches to pastoral counseling. I know one reason for this development. 

One of the founders of the pastoral counseling movement in twentieth century America, Seward Hiltner, wanted to apply modern psychology to the work of the clergy. He sought and received help for doing this from humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers. The help Rogers provided turned traditional pastoral care into an extension of humanistic psychology.

Seward Hiltner

Hiltner and Rogers taught pastoral counselors how to show empathy instead of judgment toward counselees. They emphasized that each counselee is unique, and lives within a perceptual field can only be disclosed in an atmosphere of trust and positive regard. This helped pastoral counselors get out of the rut of offering superficial advice or moralist platitudes, and taught them how to listen more deeply and respond more humanly to their counselees.

Carl Rogers

As a psychologist, I too knew Carl Rogers. I read all of his works and had several memorable conversations with him. I asked him once if he believed in God. He said, "Dan, I am uncomfortable with the personal God that is presented in the Bible. I believe that the highest authority should be a person's own experience." When I asked why he had used the biblical term of "agape love" to describe the bond between people in his encounter groups, he said, "Perhaps it has to do with the Spirit of the Universe."

For all the good that Hiltner and Rogers brought to pastoral counseling, there was a downside.

My friend and colleague, theologian Donald Bloesch, a noted theologian of evangelical theology, knew Seward Hiltner at the University of Chicago. Don said he had felt very disheartened on hearing Hiltner discuss pastoral counseling. "He disallowed any sense of the supernatural, including any reference to Jesus' divine nature and miracles, or the activity of the Holy Spirit in pastoral care."

Donald Bloesch

Bloesch and I agreed, he as a theologian and me as a psychologist, that one of the distinctive elements of Christian pastoral counseling lies in the presence of Christ the Lord during sessions. There exists an unbroken continuity made possible by the Holy Spirit between the soul care offered by Peter and the disciples, and the pastoral counseling we offer to people today. Two months before he passed away, Don said, "Dan, I believe that God has called you to bring the supernatural back into pastoral counseling. My prayers are with you."

We can pray for supernatural intervention and expect the benefits of Christ's atonement to help heal personality conflicts, reconcile damaged relationships, and vitalize lost spiritual lives. We can use Scripture and biblical stories, including miraculous stories drawn from the Old or New Testament, as word pictures that inspire faith and hope. We can delight when the Holy Spirit moves through gifts of the word of knowledge or word of wisdom, in which our own knowledge is augmented by insights or interpretations that come from a higher power than ours. We can respect counselees' unique perceptual world, while inviting them into a larger world of God's in-breaking kingdom on earth.

Dan Montgomery

The Compass Therapy approach to pastoral counseling brings together the tools and principles of therapeutic psychology with a robust faith in the Word of God and Spirit of God to make Christ's presence real in counseling sessions.

For more about Christ's presence in pastoral counseling, see: 

Christian Counseling That Really Works