Marriage Counseling: A Christian Approach to Counseling Couples

An approach to marriage counseling aimed at Christian couples is described. The theoretical bases of the approach are cognitive behavioral therapy and structural and strategic marital therapies. Techniques are drawn from various schools of marriage therapy. Shared Christian values between counselor and clients are used to promote increased marital commitment, marital satisfaction, and personal spiritual growth. Marital satisfaction might be increased through helping the couple increase their intimacy, enhance their communication, improve their conflict management, and forgive each other for past and present hurts.     

Christian Counseling: An Emerging Specialty

The emerging professional specialty of Christian counseling is examined in light of its development, theoretical underpinning, training, and roles. Also examined are the various approaches to Christian counseling. Finally, a rationale for classifying Christian counseling as a separate specialty is presented.     

A Viconian Interpretation of Psychological Counseling

Western culture moves through cycles in which faith, logic, and power succeed each other as the dominant structuring principles. Therefore, counseling evolved in this sequence.     

A Stage Approach to Career Counseling With Christian Women

Almost 75% of married women ages 25–54 years are in the labor force in the United States. Many are in occupations that are below their potential or are not personally satisfying. Lack of role satisfaction can result in depression, but the career issues of women in treatment are often ignored. Christian women may be particularly vulnerable to role dissatisfaction. The authors offer a stage model for assessment of Christian women who present with symptoms of depression, in hopes of addressing issues of role satisfaction from work and lessening depressive symptoms.     

Therapists' Use of Religious and Spiritual Interventions in Christian Counseling: A Preliminary Report

This study explored the use of religious and spiritual interventions in counseling by Christian therapists (N = 100). Use of religious and spiritual interventions correlated with personal religiousness and clinical training involving religious clients and religious and spiritual interventions. Course work involving either psychology or theology did not correlate with use of or self‐reported competency in using religious and spiritual interventions. Self‐reported competency was associated with personal religiousness; professional beliefs, attitudes, and values; personal experiences with counseling; and clinical training involving religious clients and religious and spiritual interventions. It is suggested that training programs incorporate clinical rotations, workshops, and supervision involving religious clients and religious and spiritual interventions to teach therapists to use religious and spiritual interventions in counseling.     

心理咨询:存在问题与解决方案

随着社会的发展,心理咨询也得到相应的进展.由于心理咨询本身的特殊性,要求它必须在一些特殊的规范下才能健康发展.然而,心理咨询当前的状况令人堪忧.从主办机构、培训招考和从业监督三个角度分析了当前存在的问题,并提出了相应的对策.     

Counseling the Depressed Christian Female Client

Some researchers have suggested that traditional gender-role conditioning for women might relate to depression and, furthermore, that religion has played a major role in defining and reinforcing gender roles. Depressed Christian women, consequently, make up a unique population with special counseling needs. This article addresses these women as a group and offers suggestions for counseling them.     

Christian Mysticism and Science: The Psychological Dimension

Abstract

In this third of three papers, I identify three fundamental psychological themes that have informed Christian mystical theology and then explore how these themes might be given further understanding via natural science. The first theme, desire, represents an ever greater love for God: an insatiability related to the limitations of human language. Such focused desire for God is likely associated with brain activity in the caudate nucleus (CN); associated permanent changes in the neuroplastic brain further enhance this desire. The second theme, discernment, is about listening to God, being open to God's graces, and waiting for the right time to make godly decisions. Such decisions reflect both cognitive and emotive skills, as verified by their overlapping neural circuits within the brain. Psychotherapy indicates that the mind can control the brain, consciously improving and directing chosen events, thus leading to enhanced discernment. The third theme is charity, which represents the universal link between love of God and love of neighbor. Neuroscience demonstrates how cognition gives rise to such features as willfulness, surrender, fragmentation and wholeness—all of which play significant roles in mystical experiences, including the evolution to charity. Love of neighbor can be taken as shared attention building on intersubjective perception; such shared attention represents a deep interaction of lovers in voluntary self-disclosure—surely the ultimate basis for charity.     

Decision Theory and Vocational Counseling: Important Concepts and Questions

Ignorance of specifics of career decision-making processes has prevented development and use of more effective vocational counseling procedures. Simply giving clients vocational information and assuming rational use of it is criticized. Contemporary decision theories suggest several relevant variables. Two variables, subjective probabilities (individual's self-estimates of success) and utilities (desirabilities held for outcomes or alternatives), are discussed in relation to presenting clients with objective probability information concerning future plans. Some relevant research is reviewed and two questions are discussed: (1) How do different methods of presenting information influence subjective probabilities? (2) How are utilities influenced by objective probability data?     

Value Tensions Between Evangelical Christians and Christian Counseling

The evangelical wing of the American Protestant church has maintained an uneasy and uncertain relationship with the recently emerged Christian counseling movement. Whereas many evangelical Christian groups have been able to assimilate Christian counseling into their panoply of ministry tools, significant sections of this faith group remain very suspicious and doubtful that Christian counseling can be trusted. Most of the stated reasons given by these objectors revolve around theological reservations. This article, however, suggests that an even more powerful barrier between the two groups stems from significantly different values held by each. The article enumerates several of these value differences.     

基督教生态和谐十观

当今世界的生态危机,实质上是人与自然关系的危机。要从根本上解决生态危机,必须从价值观上确立人与自然的新型关系。吸收基督教文化,特别是圣经中的重要思想资源,积极引导宗教与社会主义社会相适应,发挥宗教在促进社会和谐方面的积极作用,从基督教的经典中挖掘其对于人与自然和谐相处的积极因素,发展基督教生态神学,对于重建人与自然的新型关系是不无裨益的。本文将近年来学术界对基督教生态思想研究的成果整理概括为“十观”:创世观、平衡观、位序观、回归观、眷顾观、监督观、惩罚观、平等观、一体观、生态观。     

Spiritual Formation in Christian School Counseling Programs

This article makes the case that Christian school counselors should be more directly engaged in student spiritual formation. To accomplish this aim, the historical context for the discussion is first explored, followed by a review of contemporary medical and psychological research associating a positive spirituality with healthy functioning across a variety of developmental domains. The argument is then situated within developmental theory and systems thinking as well as the Christian theological—philosophical writings of John Macmurray. Recommendations for improving Christian school counseling practice as they relate to student spiritual formation are included.     

Counseling Battered Women from Fundamentalist Christian Backgrounds

The author examines biblical issues that are of concern to battered women from fundamentalist Christian backgrounds and offers counselors suggestions on how to address them.