WP 3 | What is a Christin Counselor

Nov 18

A Common Question

One of the most common questions that I hear as a faith-based consultant is, what does it mean to be a Christian counselor? A lot of people have this idea that they have to be a certain thing to call themselves a Christian counselor.

Based on my research and conversations with other people, I'm finding that's just simply not the case. When we say Christian counselor, what does that actually mean? I just take both of those words. I'm just going to put it really simple. Christian and counselor.

Okay, I think that it's someone who is a counselor. That could mean social workers, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, right in the mental health field. They are also someone who understands the Christian faith and abides by that faith. Now I know that I say to people that I am a faith-based practice consult.

Now I specifically am referring to the Christian faith, even though faith obviously means a lot more than the Christian faith. There are many faiths out there, but that is the faith that I adhere to. In the next podcast episode, we're going to talk about what faith-based means, like a faith-based practice.

I just want to delineate that those are two separate things, yet they also can go hand in hand. When we're talking about what it means to be a Christian counselor, it means that you're marketing yourself in that way to other people. You're calling yourself a Christian counselor. No, there's no specific training, but there is some training, right? You can't call yourself an EMDR therapist or a certified DBT therapist, unless you have the certifications for that. When it comes to Christian counseling, yes, there's a lot of certifications out there, but there's not like this one overarching one that says you must have this certification to call yourself that.

Have the Right Credentials

But I'm going to jump into the areas that I have researched and seen. The first thing about calling yourself a Christian counselor is point number one, having a master's degree in a mental health field. At least in some states, like I'm in the state of Georgia. To call yourself a counselor you have that certification through the state and you have the education, normally a master's degree, and you've gone through the appropriate parts of your state. I encourage you to make sure that you check with your state as to what language you can use around what you can call yourself and call the work that you do. Every state has a different way of talking about that.

Understand the Christian Faith

The next step here, number two is having a basic knowledge of the Christian faith. Once you can say, “Yes, I confidently can call myself a counselor, I have the correct understanding of that” you also have to understand faith, right? Obviously, most people that are not Christian would not call themselves a Christian counselor.

It's people that adhere to the beliefs of Christianity. This does not mean you have to know everything. A lot of people, this is probably the biggest one that I hear from people is I'm not a Christian counselor because I didn't go to a Christian school, or I didn't go to Christian certification, or almost like this idea, like I don't read the Bible enough.

Let go of some of those ideas. Honestly, we're not pastors. We're not clergy. We are counselors. And a Christian counselor is someone who understands the tenets of the Christian faith. They understand the Bible, understand prayer. They know it enough. To help their clients navigate it. But remember as therapists, we're not here to put any of our opinions on our clients, especially not our faith opinions. That's totally unethical. But if a client approaches us and says, I want a Christian perspective in my counseling, then we can appropriately integrate faith in that work with our clients.

When it comes to calling yourself a Christian counselor, it doesn't mean that you're going to hit people over the head with a Bible or force people to pray in session. Now, some therapists might be bringing the Bible into session or inviting prayer if the client is requesting this, but it's not something that we're forcing our clients into.

Christian Counselors Integrate Faith in Therapy to the Benefit of the Clients

To be a Christian counselor, you're just a perfectly integrating therapy to the benefit of your clients. It's not the only thing that you're talking about, those would be a little bit more of the pastoral counselors that are going to be talking more about that. But if you're a clinical counselor, I want you to consider clinical work first, Therapy integration. We want to make sure that we're addressing the clinical issues such as depression, anxiety, and then we know that bringing faith into that can really be an asset to the treatment. We're always making it therapeutic and to their benefit.

Understand when to refer to clergy

The third step here is understanding when to refer out to clergy. This goes hand in hand with what I was just sharing. As a Christian counselor, yes, I know a lot about the scriptures. I don't know everything. I was not in a school where I learned theology. I learned a couple of things about theology, but I am not a trained theolog. I can't be expected to understand all that. And the other thing that's important for us to understand with our clients is clients come from all kinds of different backgrounds. They have different denominations. And the teachings within one denomination might be different than the teachings within a different denomination. I'm not going to go and pretend like I can be a theologian in every single one.

I want to be able to point my clients to the right person at the right time. This is just the same as we do for other issues. If a client has an eating disorder or a substance abuse issue, I'm going to refer out to someone who has a special education in that area. I think it's great if you can work hand in hand with pastors.

In my ideal world, if a client is coming in, and especially we see clients who have theological maybe distortions or concerns, but they're also trying to deal with their mental health is working hand in hand with that pastor. A lot of times I get the release of information and a lot of people do want to sign that because they're close to their pastor. And if they're willing to sign that you can help with the clinical, but then when they have spiritual issues come up, you can refer them to their pastor and the two of you can talk to one another.

I cannot stress the importance of getting the ROI (release of information) for pastors. Some people push back on me on this because they think it's going to make clients uncomfortable. We are just inviting them to sign the release of information. If they don't want to sign it, they are not going to sign it. But if they do, giving that pastor a call, you can get much information. I can think of many times where I would call a pastor and he would tell me the family information that I had no idea.

The pastor often knows the family. Sometimes the clients don't tell the whole truth, or honestly, they consciously don't even know what they should have say and didn't say. We just naturally hide. I've had times where clients are telling me how they're acting and how they're improving. And then when I talk to the pastor, they're like, that’s not what happened at church last week. And I'm like, “Oh, that's good to know.” This person has a distorted view of their reality, or they're confused. It's really great if we're working alongside clergy.

It's important to let clergy know, especially if you're meeting with them, let them know “Hey, I'm not here to teach theology.” I'm here to teach clinical skills and refer to you for theology. I'm telling you; pastors will love it. A lot of clergies get worried if they refer to a therapist that the therapist isn't going to refer back to them for clergy issues. They're worried that therapist is going to teach inappropriate theology. You want to make sure that they know that you can refer back to them.

Ethical Training in Christian Counseling

The fourth one here is ethical training in Christian counseling.

There might not be a specific like certification that's required, but there are certifications out there that you can get for Christian counseling. And there's also just ethical trainings that you can be a part of faith-based trainings to be able to help you know how to properly integrate.

I want to encourage you if you are going to call yourself a Christian counselor, that you go get that training because it's only going to be beneficial to you. There are graduate programs that you can go to that are Christian in nature. And I went to a Christian school. It was called, it's called Richmont Graduate University. It is located in Atlanta in Chattanooga, and I took clinical classes, I took all the requirements and then I also took theological courses to go alongside my counseling courses. The training was really helpful. It was a really great experience. I've definitely seen spiritual CEU’s offered through like the American Counseling Association or other affiliate programs within the different states. There's lots of training and certifications out there. Continue to educate yourself because the ethics within Christian counseling is important.

Get Consultation Information from Other People

All right, and the fifth thing here of calling yourself a Christian counselor is get consultation information from other people.

When you're growing in your faith as a clinician, you want to be sure that you're doing your own work, right? I've heard the saying, we can only take our clients as far as we've gone. We might be saying that for anxiety, depression, but also want to say that for faith that we should be actively growing in our own relationship with God.

And I talked about this a little bit on the last episode, but I believe that being a therapist is our work, right? Like I am constantly challenged by my clients to rethink the way I think about myself in the world. And it’s important I'm doing that work within the faith that I'm a part of. This might be that you're attending regular services or that you have a peer consultation group of other Christian therapists that you're talking to.

I run a membership community of faith-based practice owners, where we come together and we talk about the things within our faith, within Christianity and how we're making that a part of our business and a part of our clinical work. It's important that we have those relationships in our lives. If you're interested in that community, you can head on over to whitneyowens.com and learn more.

There are many books and resources out there for consulting resources. We have many self-help books, but also books on Christian theology and Christian kind of soul care and our own growth. Reading these books allows me to be a better therapist. Recently I've been getting a little bit more into kind of Christian fathers. I love Henry Nouwen and Thomas Merton.

Also, it's a requirement, but I think getting your own therapy as a therapist is really vital. It impacts the way they do my work. And you can consult with your own accountant. It's my understanding that if you are a business owner and you're getting your own therapy, it helps your business. And it might be a tax write off. Make sure you ask about that. But that's what I do. It really helps me be a better therapist.

Summary

To do a quick recap here of what we're talking about is what does it mean to call yourself a Christian counselor? The first is getting a completion and a master's degree in counseling or a related field and checking with your state to make sure you can call yourself a counselor, or whatever term you decide to call yourself.

The second is having that basic knowledge of the Christian faith. Not that you must know everything, but that you know some about that Christian understanding. The third is understanding when to refer out to clergy, and the fourth is having that ethical training in Christian counseling and getting educated on a regular basis.

And the last is getting consultation and information from others, making sure that you're doing your own work. Look for other therapists to connect with as a faith-based practice.

Within the Wise Practice community, there's lots of ways that you can get involved. There is a free Facebook group for anyone who's looking at started and growing a faith-based practice. It's just called Faith Based Practice Owners.

You can join my email list totally free where I'm going to send you information that's going on, like events that are happening. I will also share ways that I personally am learning and growing. It's a way for us to connect with one another and I can teach you tools.