How to Prepare Myself to Be a Faith-Based Counselor Chapter

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Faith-Based Counseling

When contemplating using my faith to help people through counseling, it is impossible for me not to consider current events that might be relevant to the world of mental health. The current event right now that touches on faith-based counseling is the Duggar molestation scandal and the family's choice to put the offender in a possible faith-based counseling program rather than pursuing legal intervention or seeking counseling from a different type of provider. Lacking all of the information about the offenses, I am not prepared to speculate on whether their choice was the morally or legally correct one, or whether the program that they chose would have been sufficient to end the predatory behavior and protect the victims. I do not have the information that I think would be necessary to begin evaluating those issues. However, it has made me very aware of the fact that, as a faith-based counselor, I am going to encounter scenarios where my religious approach may vary dramatically from the approach that secular counselors would take. I may find myself confronted with a scenario, like this one, where Scripture seems to contain opposing directives to the counselor, because we are simultaneously directed to protect little children and to forgive people. I might find myself in a scenario where I have an ethical or moral duty to report certain behaviors, which may conflict with my legal obligations to a client or with rules dictated by my religious beliefs. Therefore, I realize that in order to prepare myself for faith-based counseling, I need to work to resolve these conflicts before they occur in my role as a counselor.

The first thing that I must do is identify areas where I believe conflict could exist. Clearly, it would be impossible to determine an exhaustive list of potential counseling scenarios where my faith-based approach might bring me into conflict with standard secular counseling approaches as well as with legal requirements. However, any time that a counseling client indicates that he or she has been or intends to harm others, it seems clear that a conflict exists in any counseling scenario because of the competing duty to the client and the moral responsibility to ensure that no one else is harmed.

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Knowing these potential areas of conflict will help me prepare myself for when they occur.

The second thing I need to do is look into what my legal responsibilities are in various areas. I know that as a counselor, even a faith-based counselor, I will probably be a mandatory reporter if informed of any threat of continuing child abuse. However, what are my obligations if someone I am counseling says things that make me believe that someone who is not a child is in danger? What if the threats against another person are not specific, but still seem credible? Knowing what my legal obligations to report things are could help me resolve some things that might appear to be conflicts.

The third thing I need to do is look into Scripture. It seems to me that many of the problems that plague modern society are not directly addressed in Scripture. These things include alcohol abuse, drug abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, as well as non-criminal challenges, such as pornography, the use of the internet and technology, and even questions about the application of modern medicine and whether using certain innovations are ethical or moral. Many of these issues are not directly addressed in Scripture, and, the parts of the Bible that do relate to them have been interpreted in a wide variety of ways, making it difficult to say what the appropriate Christian perspective is about those issues. To me, one of the dangers is to look solely at Scripture when trying to determine what is ethically or morally right in those scenarios. I also need to look at evolving moral and ethical norms in society. For example, modern society largely believes that slavery is immoral, although The Bible has instructions for the moral ownership of slaves. Therefore, I believe it is critical to examine the surrounding secular moral and ethical norms. I do not believe that these norms should ever be used to be less ethical, but that they can and should be used to be even more ethical or moral.

Furthermore, I believe that I need to familiarize myself with what is known in secular….....

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