Helping People to Use Their Minds

Let’s focus on how to engage, heal, and integrate the mind in pastoral counseling, with its valuable assets of analyzing data, storing what is learned, and estimating probable consequences of certain decisions.

Most people use their minds without thinking about the mind they are using. They have thoughts without examining these thoughts. They live out beliefs and expectations that were programmed into their psyche somewhere along life’s way, but have not updated these mental assumptions to their current circumstances or the evolving goals that new life challenges bring.

A thirty-year-old man reveals to you that he had three major goals when he was twenty: work hard and make money; have fun letting off steam with the boys at the local bar; and get married.

By the second session, precisely because you’ve been concentrating on his story and looking for how he has engaged his mind in lifespan development, you realize that he did indeed achieve all three original goals, but because he never integrated them with new information concerning how to love and care for his wife, she has ended up alone in the marriage for ten years, and that is why she’s left him.

You present this as a tentative hypothesis, something you are modeling for him to learn to do, in this fashion:

“Bob, from what you shared, it sounds like your company thinks you’re the best worker they’ve got, and your buddies have a ball with you when you all get hammered. Now I know you are absolutely heartbroken that Tanya has left you, and you want to do anything possible to get her back. But it seems to me that without revising your assumptions about life and really changing your thinking about marriage, even if she came back on a Friday she’d be gone again on Monday.”

“I guess you just pretty much hit the nail on the head. I was raised with five older sisters and a mom who doted on me. I guess I never learned to pay attention to anybody’s needs but mine.”

“I think that’s part of it, Bob. But here’s the fascinating thing. You’re only boring when you’re at home with Tanya. The rest of the time people think you’re a livewire who can be totally depended upon to come through with what they need.”

“That’s true enough. Everybody but Tanya thinks I’m a great guy.”

“Well, I have a suggestion for you. I believe you have it in you to take that same emotional gusto, friendly smile, and sincere loyalty that you’ve been giving your guy pals all these years and transfer a portion of it Tanya’s way. You know, like taking funds out of one account that has abundant cash and depositing them in another account that’s overdrawn. If you can just remember to keep doing that, then the emotional satisfaction level of both accounts will do fine. Now, how would you put this in your own words?”

(In this way, you’ve introduced Bob to a new theory of why his marriage has failed, a new way to understand how his past is connected to his present and future, and an innovative idea for making new decisions that can develop more satisfying outcomes. But it is very important after a mental exchange like this, especially when the stakes are so high, that you create room for Bob to find his own way of construing the information, developing his own cognitive-linguistic pathways for expressing these insights, thereby converting them from short-term intuitions to permanent memory).

“Well, I guess it’s that I didn’t want to get over being a spoiled kid when I became an adult. And I did know how to work and play. So when my friends started getting married, I figured I’d do that too. It never occurred to me that I needed to make changes in my thinking.”

“That’s an excellent analysis of the problem. Do you see a solution?”

“I think the main problem is that I always thought women came from outer space, that they had their own needs that didn’t make any sense to me. But from what you’re saying, Tanya may be a lot like my buddies, and that if I can learn to treat her with the same respect and attention I give them, she’ll find out I’m not so bad after all.”

“I believe you’ve developed a solid plan here, Bob. I know it’s not going to be easy, but I want you to keep thinking like this, and trying out some new attitudes and behaviors toward Tanya, without expecting her to change her mind overnight. Let’s work together to keep you on track until treating her with love and sensitivity becomes your new track record in this relationship. May I say a prayer of blessing to close the session?”

“Please do.”

In this example you utilized pastoral counseling to reveal informational deficiencies in the counselee’s mind, and to supply updated principles that the counselee translated into his own mental framework, principles that forge links in developmental growth that will not only mend his mind, but also bring more of his whole human nature to the relationship with his estranged wife.

The Compass Therapy approach to pastoral counseling specializes in integrating polar opposites, transforming them into rhythmic wholes. This brings up a paradox in pastoral counseling: you pass judgment while also expressing empathy; you analyze your counselee’s mental functioning, including scrutinizing the content of ideas, beliefs, and expectations, while at the same time maintaining emotional rapport; and above all, you keep an open mind while having your own values.

For more about using Compass Therapy, see:

CHRISTIAN COUNSELING THAT REALLY WORKS 

Healing Through The Human Nature Compass

The work of pastoral counseling shares elements of reconciling people to themselves, others, and God; imparting skill-sets for living effectively, and blessing them with good will and compassionate understanding. In the context of the Human Nature Compass, this therapeutic healing stimulates spiritual growth in counselees, in rhythm with cognitive clarification, emotional modulation, and physical relaxation.

MIND

Thinking is a cognitive event that occurs in the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. Persons can think thoughts with or without emotion or movement. In 1902 Auguste Rodin created a sculpture titled, “The Thinker.” By reading the body language, you can tell that the man is pensively meditating about some inner struggle.

This is how counselees look when they are inwardly absorbed, trying to sort out what to tell you. They’re not sure what is relevant to the current problem and what isn’t. That is why Freud developed the psychoanalytic dictum, “Say everything that comes into your mind, without censoring anything.” Beyond struggling to know what to disclose, counselees usually want to keep up a good front to convince us that they are, after all, good and capable human beings, despite their needs and vulnerabilities.

The pastoral counselor’s mind is also at work, in the form of providing new knowledge, suggesting interpretations for the counselee’s consideration, offering perspective on a problem, and developing periodic summaries that state what has been covered and what lies ahead.

Additionally, your counselee is thinking between sessions about how to apply new insights toward the solving of current problems. How well counselees can analytically reflect on their therapeutic experience defines the quality of their participation, and may well be the single most influential factor for a positive outcome in counseling.

HEART

Feelings reflect arousal of the limbic system deep inside the brain. Feelings possess psychological, physiological, and even spiritual dimensions. Part of effective counseling is helping people recognize when they are having a feeling, and learn to label it accurately.

Some perennial emotions that may need sorting out include the range between feeling joyful and sad, hopeful and despairing, elated and depressed, loving and angry, excited and numb, secure and anxious, confident and guilty, trusting and jealous, appreciative and resentful, serene and frustrated, interested and bored, intrigued and repulsed, ecstatic and agonized, proud and ashamed, reassured and terrified, or caring and indifferent.

E-motions represent physiological energy that is “in motion.” Emotions express the energy of personality and are always changing, like the flow of water in a river. It is when some inner conflict has dammed up the flow of feelings like a beaver dam that persons become mired in anxiety or depression. This accounts for the unconscious pressure that floods out in cathartic expression when the beaver dam is therapeutically removed.

In order to develop a healthy personality and fulfilling relationships, all counselees need practice not only in identifying their feelings, but also in thinking about them constructively, and expressing them diplomatically to others and to God.

BODY

The field of physiological psychology reveals that there are two different nervous systems in every person. The first is the central nervous system (CNS), which allows a person to stand up and walk, drink a glass of water, or open and close a door. The central nervous system connects skeleton with muscle, and is innervated through the sensorimotor band across the top of the cerebral cortex.

The second nervous system, though less conspicuous, is by far the most important one in counseling. This is the autonomic or “automatic” nervous system (ANS) where respiration, circulation, digestion, elimination, and systemic regulation occur, as well as the daily maintenance of every cell in the body. The ANS can be influenced in dramatic ways. For instance, a professor walks into her class and announces that she’s giving a surprise pop quiz that will account for one-fifth of the semester grade. Within microseconds, blood pressure shoots up, pulses quicken, hands clench, and a few students practically stop breathing.

It works the same in counseling, only you can use the ANS for beneficial results. With a few well-chosen words, or even a purposeful shift in your body language, you can easily influence your counselee’s attitude and bodily state. This week when a counselee starts manifesting anxiety, try relaxing your own body by letting your voice have resonance and breathing from your diaphragm, slowly and easily. Remember to let your hands melt into your lap. Watch how, before long, your counselee begins to relax, since you are giving such strong environmental signals that everything is okay. What is happening is that the direct communication of your “at-ease” body language becomes an unconscious suggestion that your counselee’s ANS translates into a physiological relaxation response.

This “stay and play” mode of the autonomic nervous system is the opposite of the “fight or flight” mode that the slightest hint of threat can trigger. So especially when you are offering a novel interpretation of a counselee’s behavior for consideration, or when you are exploring an emotionally-charged past memory, you’ll want to do so in a warm and relaxing way.

SPIRIT

When working with non-religious counselees, or counselees who adhere to the teaching of various world religions, human spirituality can be thought of as the realm of values, meaning, and ultimate concern that promotes serenity and truth.

Adherents of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, the New Age movement, and agnosticism reveal significant differentiation in their perception of spirituality. Nevertheless, a common theme often echoes Christ’s teaching to love God with your whole being and love your neighbor as yourself.

Or, if the person doesn’t believe in a theistic conception of God, surrendering to a Higher Power is valuable in order to find meaning beyond the autonomous self. And if a Higher Power is excluded from religious belief, then there is usually a quest for truth in terms of freedom from illusions and commitment to social justice.

Whatever the spiritual orientation of the counselee, the pastoral counselor can personally draw upon the unique message of Christian faith and doctrine that God is a loving Trinity, providing a platform for therapeutic helping that spiritually interfaces with Christ as mediator between God and persons, the Holy Spirit as Advocate or “One called alongside to help,” and God the Father Almighty, who together form the ontological foundation of human nature and hold the key to its fulfillment. For an in-depth exploration of this theme, I refer you to:

Trusting in the Trinity: 

Compass Psychotheology Applied