Brief version of your testimony



Philosophy of Counseling

Kenji Fukunaga - 737

Counseling

Corban College

Philosophy of Counseling

I was born into a Christian family and have been going to church ever since I can remember. When I was in preschool, I participated in a Bible club with my church where I remember asking God to come into my heart. I always had a desire to follow God in the back of my mind; however, I was not very serious about it and did not understand it was about a personal relationship with Jesus rather than obeying a list of commands. After going through a couple books with my dad and meeting weekly with my youth pastor, I started making my faith my own as a junior in high school. Since then, I have been learning more about God’s grace and how it frees me to live how God meant using the gifts He has given me to glorify Him.

Although it was not till then that I started to take my faith more seriously, I was always good at listening and loved to be available for friends. As a sophomore, I had the opportunity to volunteer as a student leader with the junior high group at my church. The students that I worked with recognized that I cared about them and would often come and talk to me about their lives and ask me for advice about what they were going through. While I did use questions, reflection of meaning, and other microskills, I was not purposefully using them with a specific goal in mind or consciously trying to integrate them into my conversations. I did my best to listen and help the students and my friends to express themselves and help them come to a solution but I did not follow a plan or theory.

The reason I cared for people and made myself available to listen to them was because of my beliefs about who we are as humans. “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him…” (Genesis 1:27, NIV). Everyone is important and has value because of who they are as image-bearers of God. Although God created Adam and Eve in his image and placed then in a perfect world without sin, it did not stay that way. The Bible tells us that all of us have fallen short of God’s glory and God’s plan for how He meant us to live. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12 New International Version). Because Adam disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, sin, pain, hurt, and brokenness entered the world. We are all imperfect sinners and deal with brokenness in ourselves and our relationships with God and others. There is a sin nature inside of us that we cannot conquer ourselves. As soon as we enter this world, we are inherently evil.

However, there is hope. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus reads from Isaiah proclaiming his purpose in coming to earth. “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18-19). Because Jesus came as our savior, we do not have to live in our brokenness and sin any longer. Through His work, He can heal our hearts and set us free. If we die with Him on the cross we can be raised with Him again and “live by faith in the Son of God, who loved [us] and gave himself for [us]” (Galatians 2:20). This is the hope that we can put our faith in. Because of this hope and because of who we are as image-bearers of God, there are no throw away people. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man” (Genesis 9:6). God made it clear in telling Noah not to murder that we are valuable because of how he made us. Because God’s image is in us, there is nobody with problems so big and messy that they should be left for dead.

Despite the hope we have in Jesus, there is still sin in the world. The brokenness that is a result of our sin causes hurt and pain in us, others, and in our circumstances. Our selfishness and desire to please ourselves and put our needs above others is the root of most of our sin and pain. Adam first sinned because he wished to be like God and wanted to exalt himself as equal to God. Because of Adam’s selfish desire, he was kicked out of the Garden and that is when our problems started. Whether our own or someone else’s, sinful selfish desires cause a lot of the pain and struggles that we go through as humans. God gave us the law and instituted so many commands to protect us from ourselves and from others. He did not want us to get hurt so He outlawed many of the things that cause us pain and suffering. Having sex outside of it’s boundaries of marriage is against God’s desires because of the negative effect it has on us emotionally and physically.

Our perception and outlook can also add to the magnitude of our problems. We often try to blame things on other people and do not like to take responsibility for situations. We want other people to change to fix our problems and fail to realize that there are things we can do as well. Half of our problems could be resolved if we took responsibility and decided to change ourselves or our perception to minimize the problem and deal with it differently. When I get angry at someone, I can either be bitter until they change or I myself can stop doing whatever it is that makes them angry and decide not to react when it does happen.

With that in mind, my personal approach is a mix between person-centered counseling and cognitive-behavioral therapy. I feel that the client should be empowered to find a solution by themselves and work through their own problems as much as possible. My task is “to listen and help clients discover that inner, more ideal self. Primarily used are the listening skills and reflection of meaning, which seek to focus on internal strength and resilience” (Ivey, Ivey, & Zalaquett, 2007, p. 397). While I do not believe that we are capable of getting to “that inner, more ideal self” on our own power, I do believe that it is not my job to tell the client what to do. As a Christian, I would want to introduce the Biblical view of man and help them see their problems in light of that perspective. Christ is the one who is bigger than all our pain and can handle anything we throw at Him. 1 Peter 5:7 says to “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” As well as listening, I would want to point them to Christ and help them discover their strengths. In that process, I would try to lead them to come up with their own solution to their problems.

Through expressing their feelings and talking through their issues, clients are able to get a better perspective on their problems and are better able to figure out how to deal with them. “Decisions may be made and issues worked through, but it is how the client feels about the self that is most important. …How this individual client relates to these issues and concerns is as important as or more important than resolving them” (Ivey et al., 2007, p. 397). Figuring out what the client thinks about their problems and identifying their feelings and dealing with those is the key to solving their problems.

This is where cognitive-behavioral therapy comes in. “Cognitive-behavioral therapy works on the assumption that we can facilitate change in client behavior and that will be followed by changes in the client’s thoughts and feelings. Also, we can change thinking patterns, and behavioral change can often be expected to result” (Ivey et al., 2007, p. 401). By giving them challenges to change their behavior, you can give them a totally new way of thinking and vice versa. Through changing the way they think and see certain issues, you can change the way they act in those situations. Ultimately, the only way our problems can be fully solved is through Jesus. Our wounds need healing and our brokenness needs fixing. Even as Christians, we need Jesus to heal us and to make new the place in us that have been hurt. The Bible and my relationship with Jesus is my foundation and would color everything I do in a counseling situation.

With this new understanding of these theories, I now have a much better perspective on the big picture of counseling. I understand that there are specific goals and methods to keep in mind when using the different skills. Going into counseling sessions or conversations with students and friends I now have a general idea of where I am going and what I need to do to get there. I never identified questioning and reflecting as skills to be used during specific times in an interview to achieve certain purposes, but now I am able to practice each microskill individually and include them in my conversations. Although I need more experience to be able to seamlessly integrate the different microskills in a single coherent interview, I have more confidence in my ability to help people and assist them to move toward health and wholeness.

References

Ivey, A. E., Ivey, M. B., & Zalaquett, C. P. (2007). Intentional Interviewing and Counseling: Facilitating Client Development in a Multicultural Society (7 ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks Cole.

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