| Thoughts on Faith and Therapy... I explained how I do pray for him, try to encourage him, and help---but my faith is private. He read me a fortune cookie that said, "Faith is personal, but never private". Point taken. I don’t share my faith. I'm so quiet. Whereas I believe in teaching others through the way I live my life, he believes in the more open faith. I can see his views, but I also know that if you push someone, you will push them away. I need to know how to live an ASSSERTIVE faith. Not passive like I am now, but also not pushy. In fact, Cindy (who's basically agnostic) was asking me about salvation yesterday at work. She doesn't understand how she WON'T go to Heaven because she’s a good person and has overcome a lot in her life. I tried to explain the Christian faith, but I'm not convincing. I try not to push my beliefs on others--when realistically I SHOULD!! right?! Its' my job to teach and convince her. I teach her, but never convince. I find myself in the same situation with my fundraising. I tell people about my trip and my needs, but I'm never pushy about them donating money. In fact, I tell them not to donate when they offer. Almost like I do the opposite of what I WANT because I don't want people to do things because they feel pressured or guilty. It's the same thing with preaching faith. I tell people the truth and I try to live my life in example of Christ's love, BUT I don't push. I don't want people to become a Christian because they feel guilty or pressure. If they do, it's not genuine and authentic! Right!? but if I don't, they never see the seriousness and real significance in believing in God. Maybe I minimize and don't put the importance in God that HE deserves. But like I was asking Josh last night, how do you find the middle ground between the two extremes!?! Not push people away, yet not minimize God. He said not to worry too much in pushing people away because ultimately we SHOULD push non-Christian people away from us and the people meant to be saved WILL BE saved. I just need to work for Him the best I can. Even if it means being pushy. Counseling this morning at 10am was with my dissociative fugue client and his psychological test administrator (Aaron) to talk about his test results. It was really interesting, but in the end, I feel the same pull in the counseling field. Aaron is so professional, convincing, normalizing, and CBT all the way!! Whereas, I am the opposite. So Aaron talked the WHOLE session...saying he's the expert so he might as well be directive with the client. They work together--CBT being the expert in change and the client being the expert in himself. He was SO CINVOINCING and pushy of his views onto mine. He's also going for his Psy.D. in CBT--he teaches CBT and I teach Eastern's model (psycho-dynnaimc). We disagree greatly on techniques of counseling. However, as he is the test administrator, he needed to write suggestions for more helpful therapy for my client. Of course he recommended CBT! So, we had this little debate in front of my client, which I felt was unprofessional because it made my client question the psychodynamic therapy he just spent 1 year doing with me. I definitely need to address the differences in Aaron and my approach in therapy on Wed with my client. Aaron doesn't believe in the subconscious or unconscious mind. He focuses on symptoms...where I focus on changing the unconscious for LONG-TERM change, not just symptom relief. It's SOOOO confusing, but ultimately my client’s choice on the type of therapy he wants. In the end, everyone that knows Eastern’s approach loves it. Right now I’m teaching Cindy and my supervisor. It goes deeper….really deep. CBT is symptom focused. Surfacey. Aaron says it saves the client time and energy because he won’t do more than 17 sessions with someone, but in the end Eastern saves the person time because it changes them internally….unconsciously. Forever. Obviously, no one can change without God, which is why I love Eastern’s approach, too. It recognizes God’s power and control in all this. It’s humbling. Whereas, some therapists think they are God. Anyway, after the session, Aaron went into this 20 minute speech about CBT, social skills training, problem solving therapy, etc etc....and how I should examine all these avenues with my client. While I listened and respected his counseling views, I also tried to show him how those thing are NOT helpful because I didn’t want to be a pushover and passive. It came down to me saying how Eastern's approach has some cognitive qualities, reframes, etc....and how the two are similar except the therapist in EU stays neutral. Aaron then explained how it's not similar at all, and how CBT is better. How he is neutral. Me explaining how what he said was NOT neutral and how I don't want to reinforce the client because it may sway their opinion in one direction or another AND cause the client to depend on me. Him explaining how he reinforces good behavior and coping, teaches new skills, and lets the client do it on his own. Me explaining how that's not always effective because there's deeper issues. I said, "It's like a diet. I know like 50 diets, but I still can't loose weight because it's deeper than that. I need a new way of thinking, feeling, behaving, and believing." He agreed, but then went back to--that’s the clients' job to apply skills to his life to stop symptoms. I was frustrated--thinking he's not hearing me. I'm sure he was frustrated with me. We could have debated ALL DAY about the differences in therapy approaches, but eventually I laughed about how we disagree because we both teach different strategies of counseling, so we both believe strongly in what we do. I'm not opposed to CBT for this client, mainly because he is blocking so much stuff and I only have a couple more months until Africa anyway...BUT overall I don't like it. Aaron was trying to convince me to change my style forever. Which frustrated me and turned me off. If I start doing Faith like that, I will turn away sooooo many people. But overall, people just want to be heard and understood. They don't want thoughts imposed on them. However, God is important enough to impose. It's just knowing how to get around the defenses. CBT goes right up and challenges the defenses to break down the walls of denial, resistance, projection, intellectualization, etc etc. Eastern empathizes with the defenses so the person takes them down themselves and voluntarily makes himself vulnerable to learn more about himself. To change forever. No fights needed. I feel like God should go along with Eastern's model of therapy. Trust, empathy, slowly, gently, consistently. No fights needed. Change forever.
PS--I think about this strategy mainly with Natalie. She's been one of my best friends since 7th grade. I have NEVER pushed my faith on her...she was never ready or interested. However, I have ALWAYS tried to show her love like Jesus would show her. I have always tried to fit it in the conversation where it's appropriate and gently talk about it if she wanted to. Now, she's FINALLY questioning her faith. I think that's the second stage of faith. Questioning, exploring. I think if I would have pushed my faith on her years ago, she would have been turned off forever because she would have been so resistant and guarded. Who knows what God will do with her, but I pray for her and try to be that consistent, safe friend she knows she can talk to and explore with her. Not jumping down her throat or suffocating her. However, I believe I could do more than my passive love now. We never know when Jesus will return so maybe I should be more pushy. It's a really fine line to walk in my mind. Thoughts?! |
