Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling: An Effective Short-Term Approach for Getting People Back on Track

Preface

THIS BOOK IS FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO OFFER CHRISTIAN COUNSELING from a more positive frame of reference. Although the book presents a single theoretical approach to counseling, it is not intended to reduce counseling approaches to this one option. Rather, it presents a natural and spontaneous view of Christian maturation and gives a specific procedure for encouraging that growth from within the counseling process. The primary counselor is always the Holy Spirit. If this approach encourages the reader regarding the counseling portion of his ministry, it has served its purpose.

Certain explanations are in order at this point: (1) In most cases throughout this book, the masculine pronoun is used in a generic and inclusive fashion. This is intended to make writing and, I hope, reading easier. (2) Scripture quotations are from New International Version unless otherwise noted. All use of Scripture is for illustrative purposes only and is not intended to impute biblical authority to any portion of this theoretical approach. (3) The titles pastor, minister, elder, Christian leader, and church counselor are used interchangeably. (4) Today the term pastoral counselor may refer to one who counsels professionally for a fee. The American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC) certifies counselors, offering clear academic, professional, and ethical guidelines. Therefore, when speaking of those who counsel within the local church, the expression church counselor may be used. This in no way implies lesser ability or competence. Church counselors often have excellent credentials, but they rarely receive pay for counseling services. (5) I believe that the use of the term counselee is preferable to client, which implies that the counselor receives pay, and patient, which implies physical illness or disease. Although sometimes confusing to the eye, the terms counselor and counselee appear together often throughout this book. (6) The term interview is often used when referring to the first counseling appointment; second or subsequent appointments are referred to as sessions. (7) The identities of counselees in the case studies of this book have been carefully disguised in accordance with professional standards of confidentiality and in keeping with the rights of counselees to privileged communication with the author. All names and identifying background information have been changed. (8) All case studies represent portions of counseling sessions and relationships. They are presented in various forms throughout the text to illustrate the immediate context. They are not offered to imply that major problems can be solved simply, nor that they can always be solved in two or three sessions. They are intended only to illustrate that counselees can make the required shift in thinking in that amount of time and can get refocused regarding the solutions to their problems. Future sessions are often spaced further apart to facilitate the counselee’s personal observations of being on track.

Introduction

MANY HAVE EXPRESSED A DESIRE TO OFFER COUNSELING THAT IS EFFECTIVE and short term. They are seeking an affirming and positive way to help. Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling (SFPC) offers an alternative to all problem-focused counseling approaches, whether they come from the Bible or from secular counseling models. Its intention is to provide counselors with the how-tos for staying on track during the counseling interview—as well as helping individuals, couples, and families reach their goals.

The material is presented in three parts. Part 1, chapters 1–7 explains and illustrates the theoretical model that supports this approach. Chapter 1 discusses our personal paradigms and how they can blind us to other options. Chapter 2 considers the struggle between expecting the power of God to change lives quickly and recognizing the need for Christians to seek counseling—often from professional therapists.

Chapter 3 presents an overview of the world of mental health and introduces the concept of deficiency language. Chapter 4 explores the hidden presuppositions that all counselors reveal by their use of questions within the counseling setting. It reveals what these presuppositions are and how they direct the conversation, sometimes without our knowing it.

Chapter 5 addresses the issue of personal constructs, that is, the constant process all of us are engaged in as we seek to make sense of what we experience in life. Chapter 6 explains how God’s grace affects our personal constructs, endowing them with new meaning and forming our individual identities. Chapter 7 presents the nine guiding assumptions that inform this solution-focused approach.

Part 2, chapters 8–14 moves us from theory to practice. Chapter 8 introduces a simple flowchart that serves as a map showing various avenues for creating outcome-focused conversations. Chapters 9 through 13 develop and illustrate the four processes of SFPC, demonstrating a framework for change.

Chapter 13 gives guidance for consolidating change if second or subsequent sessions are needed. Chapter 14 offers a case illustration that brings the SFPC approach together.

Part 3, chapters 15–20, focuses on the application of solution-focused counseling as well as ethical guidelines. Chapter 15 further develops some of the key components regarding the solution-focused model. Chapter 16 seeks to understand how this model can make an impact in areas that are presently of great concern to the church and society, such as bullying in our schools, the increase of suicide, dealing with grief, preparation for the end of life, the challenges of substance abuse, work with teens, outreach to those with eating disorders, sexual abuse support, financial counseling, and ways to stay solution-focused with staff, ministry teams and volunteers.

Chapter 17 considers the use of psychological assessment tools such as the T-JTA and M-BTI. Chapter 18 clarifies how solution-focused pastoral counseling can draw on other counseling models and also presents twenty solution-focused exercises.

Chapter 19 discusses how to support those diagnosed as borderline, agoraphobic, psychotic, schizophrenic, or as having dissociative identity disorders or personality disorders. The use of psychotropic medication is also considered. Chapter 20 presents some ethical guidelines that guide the practice of counseling.

Part 1

THEORY

1

Individual Paradigms:

A Question of Focus

The mind is a lot like an umbrella—

it works best when it is open.

Anonymous

If we do not change our direction,

we are likely to end up where we are headed.

Ancient Chinese proverb

I HAVE OFTEN WONDERED WHAT IT IS THAT PREVENTS US FROM SEEING AND acting on new ideas. It is important to understand this because it could be the same thing that hinders a counselee from seeing new options, outcomes, and solutions. Something clouds our vision when we are in the midst of a crisis or problem-saturated life situation. We assume that the future is only an extension of the past. Yet when it comes to problems, one assumption is readily agreed upon: if we keep doing what we have always been doing, we will keep getting what we have always been getting.

Still, we all have self-imposed rules and regulations that establish our personal ways of dealing with life. We learn how to be successful within these parameters—which we could call our individual paradigms. In this sense, these paradigms filter all incoming information, sorting out whatever does not fit. Jesus commented on humanity’s inability to see beyond these paradigms when he taught about the kingdom of God. What he said was unlike anything his listeners had ever heard before. It did not fit their rules and regulations. To many of them it was as if they were entirely deaf. Of such Jesus said, If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear (Mark 4:23 TNIV).

Because of our fixed ways of thinking, we often miss out on discovering future possibilities. Unexpected information is ignored or twisted to fit old notions. We may become blind to creative solutions. Our paradigms have the power to keep us from hearing and seeing what could happen. This results in some personal limitations that could have devastating consequences.

When he was a child, my son Nathan did a school report on Galileo. I think I learned as much as he did through his presentation. I was reminded of the religious and civic leaders that Galileo had to contend with. They were unable to see or hear his observations regarding the earth’s orbiting the sun. These observations simply did not fit their personal paradigms. Everyone knew that the sun revolved around the earth! Although seeing, they did not see. Hearing, they did not hear. Of course, history has revealed their shortsightedness. We would never be as blind and deaf as they, or would we? We would, and we often are—usually without realizing it.

Consider the lesson the Swiss watch manufacturers learned. At one time, Swiss watches were the standard of excellence throughout the world, with nearly 80 percent of all watches sold being made by Swiss watchmakers. Today the Swiss make fewer then 10 percent, and thousands of expert craftspeople lost their jobs. How did this happen?

In one sense, they were blinded by the extraordinary achievement of their old paradigm. Even a prosperous past can blind us to future possibilities. It was actually a Swiss technician who created the quartz watch. He had managed to reach beyond the paradigm that watches must have gears and springs. His superiors, however, still limited by their paradigm, declared, Whoever heard of such a thing? Watches must have gears and springs! They were so sure of their convictions that they did not bother to protect their ownership of the technician’s design. The quartz watch was later displayed at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. Representatives from two young companies were very much interested in it. One was from Seiko and the other from Texas Instruments. The rest is history.

As counselors within the local church, have we fallen into a similar paradigm regarding counseling? It seems that one thing counselors agree on is the need to understand and deal with the problem. It has been said that to define a problem is to begin to solve it. We want to explore the problem and perhaps discover how the counselee is thinking, feeling, or behaving. There must be a reason. Why is it happening? What is maintaining it?

Therefore, whatever counseling model or theory a counselor may use, the counseling process often remains centered on the problem. This could be considered a problem-focused paradigm. Keep in mind, the counselee is also focused on whatever problem is causing him to seek help. Is it possible that we, as pastoral counselors, are doing the same? Without realizing it, could we be reinforcing the problem simply by making it our primary focus? Is there a better way?

For years Disney engineers have used a concept called imagineering to assist them in creating their theme parks. In this sense, they combine engineering with imagination and are governed by a process in which they seek to generate ideas with no limitations. They take the most creative idea they can come up with, develop it in every detail, and delineate the steps required to bring it to reality. The Disney Imagineers consider this the beginning of their design process and operate under the notion that if it can be dreamed, it can be built (Marling 1997). It seems to me that imagineering is a paradigm buster. When we visualize the outcome first, we become solution focused rather than problem focused. The outcome dictates the process rather than the process dictating the outcome.

This book is about imagineering with those who come to us for counseling. It is about developing principles for getting them unstuck and back on track in their lives, marriages, and families. It is about shifting paradigms regarding how counseling is done—both in the mind of the counselor and of the counselee.

Can counseling be enjoyable and spontaneous? Can we envision, with the counselee, a future without the problems dominating—and chart a course in that direction? Is it possible that the traditional paradigm that counseling must focus on problems is not necessarily the most effective way to assist those who come to us for help? With this in mind, let’s consider a solutions approach, beginning the process of developing the guidelines and skills for creative goal formation in the counseling interview.

2

Christian Faith:

A Story of Change

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;

the old has gone, the new has come!

2 Corinthians 5:17

I’ve learned that the most creative ideas come from beginners—

not the experts.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

THE APOSTLE PAUL ANNOUNCED A TOTALLY UNANTICIPATED NEW BEGINning. He declared to the church in Corinth that everyone who trusts in Christ for salvation becomes a new creation, which reflected a profound change. In Christ, the believer’s hope is restored and personal control is reestablished. All this happens in spite of the problems the new believer is facing. And often when Paul offers a solution to a problem, it doesn’t seem to have any direct connection to the problem at all. Instead, the solution amounts to an entirely new way of perceiving life—an extraordinary shift of paradigms.

As both a pastor and a professional counselor, I have discovered a struggle between knowing that the power of God can change lives quickly and recognizing the need for Christians to seek counseling. This dichotomy also exists throughout this book. It is intentional and, I believe, unavoidable. It represents the internal contradictions that exist side by side in my own philosophy of ministry. On the one hand, as a pastor, I have come to depend on and assume the creative activity of the Spirit of God. Thus, my understanding of counseling also assumes this creative activity. New life in Christ is to be prompted and encouraged. Pastoral counseling desires to strategically move the counselee forward into his new life.

And yet, as a professional counselor, I am also a part of the world of mental health, a system that maintains its own hierarchy and tenets of faith, and that initially focused on the small percentage of the population afflicted with physical dysfunctions of the brain. However, many well-intentioned practitioners have overgeneralized, applying this same concept of mental disease to the mass of people who struggle with emotional problems. The church would be wise to avoid this overgeneralization. At the top of the hierarchy are the psychiatrists—medical doctors who are highly skilled psychopharmacologists. Their priority is the utilization of psychotropic or mind-altering medications. Next are the clinical psychologists who, having their doctorates in psychology, are experts in this field. Then come the therapists, who are licensed and highly trained academically—at least at a graduate level, and often at a doctoral level as well. All of these professionals may represent dozens of therapeutic approaches. Some are eclectic, and others may focus more on social services. Finally, underlying this hierarchy is the pharmaceutical industry, which has millions of dollars invested in the world of mental health.

Here is where the division lies in my own philosophy of ministry today. The pastoral side is crying out, Slow down! Are we, like Esau, selling our inheritance for a bowl of stew? Why do I ask this? Because pastors are not represented anywhere in the hierarchy of the world of mental health. We are often relegated to a subordinate position beneath therapists, useful as referral agents. Religion is often dismissed to the domain of personal faith alone. The hierarchy in the mental health system has the stamp of scientific approval on it, so the pastor should not venture into an arena where he is not qualified to minister. Yet the therapist side of me has seen individuals so overwhelmed by mental confusion that most pastors would be out of their depth in knowing what to do—especially when, in dealing with such persons, they try to make use of the small amount of psychological training they may have had.

Can the church maintain a friendly working relationship with the world of mental health and yet reject any implied notion of subordination? If not, we risk placing the power and grace of God into a subordinate role as well. Can we assume the leadership role of counseling in the local church? If not, there is another world ready to take leadership in this field. If we are to refer a counselee into that world, then let us refer him to Christians who are aware of the capabilities of the Spirit of God within the counselee and the recognized limitations of psychological theory. Christian counselors who choose to function professionally in the world of mental health also believe in new life through Christ. Many of my colleagues consider their calling in the mental health community a ministry, and they have dedicated their time and efforts to it.

Subordination

It seems to me, however, that pastors often see themselves as capable only of assisting a person with salvation and engaging him in training and discipleship. After all, serious problems must be entrusted to an expert. How have we become convinced of this?

Many pastors have had a few courses in psychology and sociology, and these have opened to them a whole new perspective on human development. But in each course, the message has come through loud and clear: this is a discipline that you must become expert in if you expect to utilize it successfully. In a sense this is true—if you simply meddle in psychology, you can do more harm than good. Most ministers realize that they are far from expert in this field. Usually the few courses we take on counseling are very practical in nature, for example, how to counsel parishioners with minor problems and when to refer them to expert counseling. Indeed, we are told that the best thing we can do for a counselee is to know how to refer and to whom.

Of course, it is true that a pastor is an inadequate counselor if he must be an expert in the world of mental health to be effective. But must a pastoral counselor be an expert in the field of psychology? The apostle Paul wrote that God is already at work in the counselee (2 Cor. 4:12; 1 Thess. 2:13). He is a letter from Christ, written with the Spirit of the living God, not on a tablet of stone but on a tablet of a human heart (2 Cor. 3:3). Perhaps the counselor’s task is to look for this writing from the Spirit of God that is within the counselee’s life, rather than concentrating on present or past problems. This is what ministers are expert at doing.

Mental Health

Paul wrote to another church saying, I have become [a] servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness…. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ (Col. 1:25, 28). This perfection is not only positional, but actual. The word perfect here refers to being complete in all that pertains to personal growth, mental health, and moral character. It is the life of God in the counselee, placed there by the Word and the Spirit, that is making the Christian perfect.

When a minister reads a book on counseling, he often feels like a fish out of water. How is he going to find the time to use these theories properly? Many feel the frustration of having little to build on because their foundation for teaching and training is through faith, Scripture, and the church. A pastor’s strength is the Word of God and an understanding of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, not psychological theory.

I have wondered if pastors, through the educational process, have come to believe that their pastoral training is inferior to psychological training. Again, ministers are not considered real players within the hierarchy of the mental health community. Many have experienced a tragic loss of confidence in their authority and ability to counsel. This loss of confidence has often been reinforced by psychiatric centers whose marketing strategy is to convince ministers and other Christian leaders to send their parishioners to them for professional psychological help.

However, through personal experience and through relationships with other professional counselors, I have discovered that psychological methods and therapeutic approaches are not always very effective. Often they are not much more than guesswork and sometimes actually reinforce the client’s problems. The primary diagnostic tool of the professional counseling community, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV; American Psychiatric Association) is used for the diagnosis of mental disorders. But more than that, it gives structure to an entire way of perceiving reality. It is offered as a guideline for understanding a counselee.

Truth

As a Christian, it was my encounter with Jesus, my belief that he was speaking the truth and was totally worthy of my trust, that transformed my life. It was this same truth that altered my perception of reality. And it was this altered perception that gave me the ability to see through difficult problems and take hold of solutions that God’s Spirit revealed as actualities already accomplished. I find it ironic that a secular counseling theory (Brief Counseling) and a model (Solution-Focused Counseling) have swept through the world of mental health—with many professional therapists now spurning psychological beliefs that counselors in the Christian community are still embracing.

These therapists are returning to a commonsense approach to counseling that is suspicious of all diagnostic labels or mental disorder classifications. Their intent now is to focus on the positive strengths of their clients rather than on their weaknesses and problems.

Agreement with God’s Intention

The prophet Amos wrote, Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? (Amos 3:3). The counselor and the counselee must be in agreement with God’s intention if the counselee is to make any progress. In going to a professional counselor, a parishioner is often removed from many of his primary sources of strength: a caring and loving church counselor; a healthy and supportive community of fellow believers; and, most important, the transforming power of the Word of God. Some counselors believe that it is helpful to remove the parishioner from the church setting. I disagree with this in light of the scriptural insistence that the believer is to grow within the community of the local church, where there is accountability to others and for others, along with acceptance. Paul implied as much when he wrote, Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ (Eph. 4:15).

Although Scripture has a great deal to say about looking within, at our hearts, it does so from the perspective of remorse, forgiveness, cleansing, and discernment. As the apostle Paul wrote, Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14).

Paul encourages Christians to press forward toward God’s unfolding purpose, trusting God each step of the way. In the same passage, he also instructs us to live up to what we have already attained. This assumes that God has already placed into our lives much of what he considers necessary for us to begin making progress regarding our spiritual and emotional growth.

So what alternative is there to becoming an expert in psychology? An effective alternative is to train ministers and leaders in the local church to counsel at a professional level through that which God in his wisdom has already supplied—the strengths of the counselee. That is what this book is all about.

3

Deficiency Language:

The World of Mental Health

Keep clear of psychiatrists unless you know that they are also

Christians. Otherwise they start with the assumption that your religion

is an illusion and try to cure it: and this assumption they make not

as professional psychologists but as amateur philosophers.

C. S. Lewis

Of all the tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised

for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis

ISSUES REGARDING MENTAL HEALTH IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER AFFECT US all. Perhaps Mom is clinically depressed or Dad is having panic attacks. Grandma is bipolar, and Aunt Helen has an anxiety disorder. Certainly that teenager across the street must have a personality disorder. You are codependent, and Uncle Eddie has an intermittent explosive disorder. Even Junior has ADD and is learning disabled. And everyone needs medication.

How have these labels come into such ready acceptance and popularity? The manual that doctors and therapists use to guide their understanding of symptoms and help them in making a diagnosis is called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Within its pages, emotional disorders are classified and organized according to their symptoms. Those mentioned above are just a few. Thus, we have a well-intentioned instrument that nevertheless views all emotional difficulties through what is wrong, damaged, missing, defective, incomplete, or inadequate—focusing only on these symptoms as criteria for describing mental health.

Symptoms or Stuck?

I am looking forward to the day when the DSM-20 comes out. Perhaps it will be a much thinner manual with only one diagnosis to consider: stuck! Although there are certainly medical considerations to consider, for the vast majority of people, symptoms actually point to a breakdown of options or possibilities. They have what could be called a stuck disorder. Various fears, lack of family support, broken relationships, difficulties on the job, unemployment, and other things have all come together at a particular moment—resulting in a mind-deadening inability to picture or work toward a way out.

Whatever it is, it has resulted in a focus on problems and given birth to various types of uncomfortable emotional feelings and mental images. How do we get stuck? To explain this, I need to take a moment to illustrate how the brain works. Although much of the brain’s functioning is still a mystery, more is being understood every day.

A Baby’s Brain

What does a baby see when he or she is born? Not much really. Everything is a blur. Mainly, the baby seeks to focus on eyes, connecting them to soothing sounds. Research indicates that at birth a baby’s eyesight is 20/400, but rather quickly, between three and six months, connections between neurons in the visual cortex bring the baby’s sight to 20/40 or better. Yet the baby’s environment remains a blur. The reason everything remains blurred is that babies, as well as adults, see with their brains not with their eyes.

A baby’s brain has not received enough sensory data to make much sense of what is being seen. For example, an infant looks at a couch but sees only colors and shapes—even though his or her eyes are working quite will. In time, with more input from other senses, such as touch, smell, taste, and hearing, this infant will see the couch. Until then he or she is stuck in this blurry vision of the world. The way to getting unstuck is to continue the natural development of the human brain from within a loving and supportive environment—all senses working to bring information into the cerebral cortex, each layer of data creating a context for the next.

This process is unending. We are always growing. The question becomes, are we aware of this process of growth? Keep in mind, this is a physical process created by a loving God. The data brought in by your five senses go into a physical location where connections and neural pathways are constantly forming. Yet, at times, we do not keep up with the process of our own development. As was discovered through examining the children raised in Romania’s orphanages, left alone without love and affection, this lack of human touch and interaction caused actual physical dysfunction in their brains. In many cases, this neglect led to physical dysfunction in their bodies as well.

This is the same process at work in us today. At certain times of our lives, we are literally saturated with problems. The ability of our brains to keep up by creating the necessary neural pathways and connections is hindered—thus we become overwhelmed. We feel unable to cope. We are stuck, powerless to visualize options or solutions. The result is a physical change in the brain’s chemistry—its neurotransmitters. We experience this as a change in our feelings—feelings of depression or anxiety for example. Basically, our senses have become unable to bring in enough of the right kind of data—data that gives us new perspectives on our struggle. The connections have yet to be made. We are therefore overwhelmed, unable to see the couch.

How Do You See?

In many cases, what is actually happening when you are experiencing an emotional setback is that you have not yet developed the mental ability to deal with a new set of problems. From a biological point of view, you are at the limit of your neural pathways. Yet this is also a spiritual problem, because you were created to have enough access into God’s thought patterns so that you need not be defeated by such difficulties. Thus, spirituality and the way God intended the mind to develop becomes one and the same thing. It seems to me that who you are and how you develop in this present life will determine who you are going to be in the age to come. I imagine there will be stages of growth throughout eternity, but it begins here. Thus, life is an education for eternity—an education that begins in earnest with our new birth in Jesus Christ.

So, how we see this present life becomes essential. Jesus said, Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear (Matt. 13:16), to those who enter and live within the context of the kingdom of God. Jesus knew our eyes and ears are simply data receivers, not data processors. This is a metaphor for saying that all those who think God’s thoughts will experience God’s emotions, also known as the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23). Seeing becomes seeing when our minds can quickly make the connection from a present challenge or setback to a potential solution or outcome—that flows out of God’s intention. Yet this cannot happen until our brain actually has established the necessary neural pathways.

Figure 3.1. Young woman and old woman

Consider this picture. What do you see?

Some will see an old woman, while others will see a young woman. Primarily,