Scripps Sunday #52
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given… and he will be called Wonderful Counselor.” (Isaiah 9:6, emphasis added).
In 1965, a series of monumental films in the world of psychotherapy
was released titled Three Approaches to Psychotherapy I, II, and III, later
dubbed “The Gloria Films.” Directed and produced by noted psychologist and psychotherapist
Everett L. Shostrom, the films consist of three therapeutic sessions, with
three different therapists meeting with one woman known as Gloria. The films
were made to lift the shroud of secrecy that had permeated professional psychotherapy. Textbooks gave loads of information on
theories and such, but there was a scarcity of literature on what therapists
actually said to clients during sessions. These films let the viewer in on real
sessions between a therapist and a client, and they’ve been a source of
education and discussion since their release.
Before his session with Gloria, acclaimed therapist Carl
Rogers laid out his philosophy on creating a particular climate necessary for
good therapy to offer. He said that good counselors must ask themselves a
series of questions before they start:
2. Will I find myself prizing this person? I love the wording here- prizing- because the invitation is for the counselor to cherish the person as they truly are.
3. Will I be able to understand the inner world of this individual? Can the counselor move around the client’s world and see life through their eyes? The goal of the counselor is to know the client’s world of feelings and what it’s like to be them.
I’m not a therapist. But I go to therapy, and my experience with
good therapy is that the counselor has taken these types of questions to heart.
Every good counselor has a heart of empathy for one’s situation and how they
got there, but also a zeal for the individual to become healed from deep trauma
and to walk down the road to a restored, healthy self. At least that’s what we
pay them for.
These questions remind me of the musings in the book of
Hebrews, where the author uses the metaphor of a high priest in his interpretation
of Jesus’ life. A high priest was one who was selected every year to offer the atoning
sacrifices for the entire nation of Israel. He had to take on the mantle of
awareness of wrongdoing and be the confessor in hopes of restoration between the
people and YHWH. A heavy burden to bear, for sure.
What is interesting in the connections that the author makes
between the high priest and Jesus is the qualities of such a go-between.
The author states that the high priest “can deal gently with
the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness.” He
says Jesus was tempted like we are, so “He is able to come to the aid of those who
are tempted.” The author adds that “we do not have a high priest who is unable
to empathize with our weaknesses”--- and thank God we don’t, because how could
we ever experience deep therapy with One who could not understand what it’s
like to move around in our world and see it through our own eyes? It sounds
like the goal of a good therapist and the goal of a successful high priest are
the same—the prize the ones who are being healed.
Rogers said that if these attitudes are present in the counselor,
quite a number of things will happen in the session:
1.
The client will be free to explore their attitudes
and feelings more deeply.
2.
The client will be able to discover hidden
aspects of themselves that they weren’t aware of before.
3.
Feeling prized by the counselor, the client will
come to a deeper prizing of themselves. (I love this one!)
4.
If the client senses a realness in the counselor,
they’ll be able to be a little more real with themselves.
5.
Feeling that some of their meanings are
understood, the client will be more readily available to listen to themselves
and their experiences and find some of the meanings they hadn’t been able to
catch before.
6.
From being disapproving of themselves the client
will move to a greater acceptance of themselves.
The author of Hebrews summarizes his comparison and the good
high priest with an invitation: “Let us then approach God ‘s throne of grace
with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and grace to help us in our time
of need” (Hebrews 4:16)—and I can’t help but think of this as the perfect
description of some of my most healing therapy sessions. A space where I was
seen, heard, known, and prized, which then allowed me to enter into a terrain of
freedom in which I could experience healing and movement toward wholistic
restoration.
Maybe this season, we can see the incarnation of Jesus as
the very way He is answering these questions as a Wonderful Counselor. He
became human so we would know He had nothing to hide. He lived in a complicated
world so He could relate to the complexity of being in our world. His name is God-With-Us
so we would know we are prized and in that feeling of being prized would come
to a deeper prizing of ourselves.
-Scott Erickson, Honest Advent
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