Here is a “cheat sheet” for counseling. This review The Pastor and Counseling: The Basics of Shepherding Members in Need by Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju provides an outline and overview to follow. It includes what to do before the initial meeting, in the initial counseling meeting, in the follow-up meetings, and in the final counseling meeting. This is a work in progress for me. I am basically taking notes as I read the final chapters on how to actually conduct counseling sessions which I found very helpful. You could literally follow this outline in a counseling situation.
Before the Initial Meeting
(chapter four)
Send and receive a personal background form, or informally ask for a summary of the problem (APPENDIX C is a Personal Background Form that you could use in preparation for the initial meeting). Mobilize resources—books or people—in preparation for the first meeting. Prepare questions and talking points according to the list below for the initial meeting.
The Initial Counseling Meeting
(chapter four)
1. Transition out of small talk and into the counseling conversation with a simple and straightforward question: “How can I help you today?”
2. Take notes (Appendix D describes a simple method for taking notes and organizing data)
3. Be sure to open your Bible during the first meeting
1) In situations of great suffering, the hope of a redeemed creation (Rom. 8:18–25)
2) In situations of grief, the hope of God’s sorrow-ending presence (Rev. 21:1–5)
3) In situations of conflict, the hope of God’s peace between warring parties (Eph. 2:14–18)
4) In situations of distrust in God, the hope of his reception of honest expressions of faith (Lam. 3:1–25)
4. Assign prep work
1) What does this person need to see more clearly about the Lord Jesus?
2) About his gospel?
3) What does this person need to understand better about him- or herself?
4) What does this person need to hear about how to relate to others?
5) How can this person’s perspective on life be adjusted by a biblical view of suffering? Frame the passage with helpful questions that will guide the person to these insights.
5. Determine how many counseling sessions will be needed, if possible
6. Schedule the meeting on your calendar
7. Pray with unhurried sincerity
Follow up Counseling Meetings
(chapter five)
1. Get an update
Give me an update on how things went this week regarding some of the issues we’ve discussed.
1) How are you doing with all this—discouraged or encouraged?
2) Do you have any new thoughts or realizations over the last week or so?
3) Have any situations come up that are related to what we’ve been talking about?
4) Has anything happened this week that you think would be helpful to talk through?
2. Ask about prep work
The best way to frame this is to ask questions that reveal three things:
1) Does the person understand what the text actually means?
2) Does he see the implications of that meaning for his life?
3) Does he see how those implications relate to Christ Jesus?
3. Continue to explore the concern
In the bulk of the sessions, you continue to grow in your understanding of counselees’ problems by watching how their hearts respond to the latest happenings.
First, don’t be hasty or simplistic in labeling what a person’s heart is worshiping. A thirty-four-year-old addicted to video games is not worshiping his Xbox. The video-game addict is using the Xbox as an object to attain a number of possibilities: the significance of doing great deeds, an escape from the difficulties of real existence, or the simple pleasure of impulse stimulation.
Second, when a person comes to you for help, don’t assume he is fully conscious of what motivates him. An angry husband may think he is simply ticked over whatever the last fight was about—say, a disagreement about finances. Simply identifying his idol as money and chastising him for his anger will not do. You have to help him become more aware of things he believes about his wife (that she is materialistic or disrespectful), of things he wants (freedom to do as he pleases), and of other ways, his anger expresses itself (sarcastic comments, a lack of warmth toward her).
4. Offer redemptive remedies
You may not realize that a fairly common complaint from those who go to professional counselors is not receiving enough guidance as to how to deal with their problems.
Here is a sampling of angles you can take for moving a person toward a solution.
1) Reintroduce God
Getting to know the character of God will prove helpful no matter what the problem.
2) Depsychologize
Helping someone to see him- or herself primarily as a child of God (rather than as bipolar or schizophrenic) or to accept suffering as normal for Christians (rather than run from it) is going to take patient reworking of some very subtle assumptions.
3) Deprogram Performance If people are stuck in the performance trap—thinking they must “do” something in order to earn God’s favor—then they need to grow in their understanding of free grace (Eph. 2:4–10).
Contrast Functional and Confessional Assumptions.
As the abused woman comes to terms with the abuse of her father and the love of God for her, she can reconsider whether loving, self-sacrificial male authority is actually possible on this side of heaven.
4) Reframe
This is the essence of encouragement—to lend courage in a situation. Paul did this with the Thessalonians by helping them frame their lives according to the glorious future that awaited them (1 Thess. 4:13–18).
5) Uncover Underlying Dynamic
A person is helped when she is alerted to what she is not sensible of, then directed to Christ as the true object of worship (see 1 John 1:8–10; 2:15–17; 3:1–3).
6) Show Consequences
Based on a pastor’s experience and counsel of others, he will be able to describe like outcomes of a decision
7) Confront and Reorient
Confrontation is a normal part of pastoral life, and it is part of the solemn charge to proclaim the Word (2 Tim. 4:1–5).
8) Suggests long and short-term goals
So instead of setting a goal for a crummy husband to have a better marriage next week set a goal for him to confess his sin to her and ask for her forgiveness.
5. Wrapping it up
Assign prep work, determine how many counseling sessions will be needed, schedule the meeting on your calendar, pray with unhurried sincerity.
The Final Meeting Finishing
(chapter six)
The final meeting is often the hardest part of a construction job, and not because the tasks are more difficult.
1. When to End
1) Positive signs
a. The counselees understand their problem and are equipped to handle it
b. In the course of your care for them, another person’s care emerges as more effective
2) Negative signs
a. Things don’t seem to be changing at all
b. They are not interested in working
c. They don’t trust you
d. They need more help than you can offer
2. Elements of the Final Meeting
a. Review the main themes of counseling
b. Plan for regular care
The counselee should be encouraged to attend the Public ministry of the Word in the regular church services. Also, the counselee should be instructed how to get involved in Personal ministries from the Word, formally with small groups and informally with friends. Lastly, the counselee will need to maintain a Private ministry with the Word that the pastor assigns. This can include the Scriptures or helpful books. This is where the counseling ministry may lead into the discipleship ministry that the authors discuss in chapter seven.
Always leave the door open at the end. This is not necessarily a promise of more counseling but rather of dedication to see them continue to grow through whatever means the Lord would use. Be clear about your expectations for the future, especially about your role after counseling is done. Do not become inaccessible to them. You should welcome a casual conversation after church or an occasional phone call as part of your ongoing care. Often these conversations are the little lifelines that help people stay the course.
When you read chapters four, five, and six, you can fill in the details for each counseling session.