This groundbreaking book, now updated and expanded, furthers its original, effective, time-saving approach that benefits pastors overtaxed by counseling demands. Dr. Charles Kollar presents a departure in pastoral counseling, showing that counseling need not be long-term or depend on psychological manipulation to produce dramatic results. In most cases, the solution lies with the counselees themselves. Using the tested methods found in Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling, pastors, apart from counselors, will be well equipped to help their counselees discover a solution and put it in motion speedily and productively.SFPC is short-termâtypically one to five sessions, in which the counselor seeks to create solutions withânot forâthe counselee. The focus is on the possibility of life without the problem through an understanding of what is different when the problem does not occur or is less intrusive. The goal is healthy change, sooner rather than later, by helping the counselee see and work on the solution with God's activity already present in his or her life.The solution-focused approach does not require the counselor to be a highly trained psychological expert. It requires biblically based sensitivity and common sense. Yet this approach also recognizes its limitations and understands that there are situations in which other professional and/or medical help is required.
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CHAPTER ONE Individual Paradigms: A Question of Focus
The mind is a lot like an umbrellaâit 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
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.
Emile Chartier
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 is probably the same thing that hinders a counselee from seeing new options, possibilities, and solutions. Something blinds 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 clear: If you keep doing what you have always been doing, you will keep getting what you have always been getting.
We all have self-imposed rules and regulations that establish our personal boundaries. We learn how to be successful within these boundaries. These perimeters are our individual paradigms. They filter all incoming information, filtering out whatever does not fit. Jesus commented on humanityâs inability to see beyond its 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, âIf anyone has ears to hear, let him hearâ (Mark 4:23).
Because of our fixed paradigms we often miss out on discovering future possibilities. Unexpected information is ignored or twisted to fit old notions. Sometimes it seems invisible. We are blind to creative solutions. Our paradigms have the power to keep us from hearing and seeing what could happen. This results in personal limitations, a kind of intellectual myopia.
My son Nathan recently 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 earthâs orbiting the sun. These observations simply did not fit their personal paradigms. Everyone âknewâ 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 areâusually without knowing it.
Consider the devastating lesson the Swiss watch manufacturers learned. Just thirty years ago Swiss watches were the standard of excellence throughout the world. Nearly 80 percent of all watches sold were made by Swiss watchmakers. Today fewer then 10 percent are made by the Swiss. Thousands of expert craftsmen lost their jobs. How did this happen?
In one sense they were blinded by the incredible achievement and all the successes of their old paradigm. Even a prosperous past can blind us to future possibilities. It was 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 blinded by their paradigm, declared, âWho ever heard of such a thing! Watches must have gears and springs!â They were so sure of their convictions that they did not bother to protect their ownership of the technicianâs design. Some years later the quartz watch was displayed at a worldâs fair. Representatives from two young companies were very much interested in it. One representative 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 trap regarding counseling? It must be done a certain way or it just is not counseling. One thing we are all convinced of is that we need to understand and deal with the problem. It has been said that to define a problem is to begin to solve it. We must 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?
Whether the counselor uses psychological theories and methods or the approach of admonishing from the authority of Scripture, either way the paradigm is centered squarely on the problem. This is what I call a problem-focused paradigm. This is the very reason the counselee has come for counseling. He is so focused on his problem that it is affecting him negatively. So what do we do as counselors? We usually focus squarely on the problem! We are going to help him get to the root of his problem no matter how hard it is or how long it takes! Is there a better way? Perhaps it just takes a little imagination to discover a better way.
For years Disney cartoonists have used a concept called imagineering to assist them in creating their wonderful movies. They carefully visualize their outcome, a perfect cartoon. We could view this as a âproblem-freeâ cartoon. When the artist is creating this perfect cartoon, what will he be doing first? What next? and so on, one frame at a time. 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 âimagineeringâ with those who come to us for counseling. It is about clear procedures for getting them unstuck and back on track in their lives, marriages, and families. It is about busting paradigms regarding how counseling is doneâboth in the mind of the counselor and of the counselee.
It is my belief that counseling should be fun and spontaneous. The traditional paradigm that counseling must primarily focus on the problem is an unhelpful idea that has hindered counselors for years. My hope is that this book will encourage the reader to see beyond a problem-focused paradigm, while providing helpful guidelines and skills for creative goal formation in the counseling interview.
CHAPTER TWO Christian Faith: A Story of Change
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17
Iâve learned that the most creative ideas come from beginnersânot the experts.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr., 1991, p. 99
The apostle Paul announces a totally unanticipated new beginning. What he describes in his letter to the church at Corinth reflects a profound change. In Christ, the believerâs personal control is being reestablished and hope has been restored. All this happens in spite of the problems the new believer is facing. Often the solution that Paul offers does not seem to have any direct connection to the problem at all. The solution amounts to an entirely new way of perceiving lifeâan 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 exists throughout this book. It is intentional and, I believe, unavoidable. It represents the internal contradictions that exist side by side within my own philosophy of ministry. On the one hand, as a pastor I have come to depend on and assume the presence of the creative activity of the Spirit of God. Thus my understanding of counseling also assumes this creative activity. New life in Christ needs to be prompted and encouraged. A solution-focused approach to pastoral counseling specifically seeks to move the counselee forward into his new life.
On the other hand, during the past ten years I have, as a counselor, also entered the world of mental health. This is the designation I use to describe a system that seems to maintain its own hierarchy and tenets of faith. This world focuses on the small percentage of our population who are afflicted with a physical dysfunction of the brain, resulting in a mental disorder. But many well-intentioned practitioners overgeneralize, applying this same concept of mental disease to the mass of people who struggle with emotional problems. The church must not succumb to this same overgeneralization.
As I perceive it, at the top of the hierarchy are the psychiatristsâmedical 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 within this field. Then come the therapists, who are licensed and highly trained academicallyâat 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 within my own philosophy of ministry today. The pastoral side is crying out, âSlow down!â Are we, like Esau, selling our inheritance for a bowl of stew? Why do I ask this? Because pastors are not represented anywhere within 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 within the mental health system has the stamp of scientific approval upon 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 doâespecially when in dealing with such persons they try to make use of the small amount of psychological training they may have had.
I believe the church must maintain a friendly working relationship with the world of mental health. Yet we must reject any implied notion of subordination, or we are at risk of placing the power and grace of God into a subordinate role as well. We must take back the role of counseling within the local church. If not, there is another âworldâ 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 within the world of mental health also believe in new life through Christ. Many of my colleagues consider their calling within the mental health community a ministry, and they have dedicated their time and efforts to it. Many recent books on mental health published for the church have been written by those who minister in this fashion.
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?
Most 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. And of course 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, e.g., 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 to refer.
Some Christian writers today imply that the pastor is subordinate to professional counselors. He is unequipped to effectively counsel anyone who has a serious mental disorder. Christian psychologists continue to publish books that reinforce this basic belief, even as they try to help the pastor counsel more effectively in regard to the basic problems people face.
Of course it is true that a pastor is an inadequate counselorâif he must be an expert on emotional problems to be effective. But must a counselor be an expert? 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). I believe the counselorâs task is to look for this writing of the Spirit in the counseleeâs life, rather than concentrating on present or past problems. This is what ministers are expert at doing.
MENTAL HEALTH
Paul wrote to another church, âI have become [a] servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullnessâŚWe proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christâ (Col. 1:25, 28). This perfection is not positional, but actual. The word âperfectâ 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 âperfect.â
One Christian author who is a successful psychologist wrote, âChurches have a woefully simplistic understanding of the problems people experience. A fair number seem to glory in their ignorance by insisting there is no need for an inside lookâ (Crabb, 1991, p. 51). I know what he means, and it does happen. But how can ministers and other church leaders who counsel be effective when the standard for competence regarding emotional illness originates from the discipline of psychology?
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 pastorâs 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 some 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 clientâs problems. The primary diagnostic tool of the professional counseling community, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, now in its fourth edition (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), is used for the diagnosis of mental disorders. But more than that...
