Anonymous asked:
There’s a high school student that I am counseling at my church struggling with depression. I am a psych major, so I my pastor encouraged me to counsel students in our youth ministry. She is my first student, and after getting to know her and talking to her for the past month, I saw how broken and lost she was. She feels like life isn’t worth living anymore & I understand that she’s trying to find her purpose in life. I try to encourage her, but I feel like what I say isn’t enough. Any advice?
You’re super-awesome to go out of your way to counsel, and thank God for you. Please allow me some grace to bring this back to ground level.
Though I’m a Psych major and I’m absolutely grateful for my education, I can tell you that most of it is hardly ever useful “in the field.” It’s a world of difference when you’re talking to a real live breathing human being.
I’m also a fifth degree black belt and I can jump kick a dude in the face, but when I’ve had to defend myself, can you guess what moves I used? It’s better to be simple. A punch in the throat is way more effective than a spinning 360 scorpion jump back hook kick, especially if you’re wearing skinny jeans and you don’t want to rip a hamstring. (But yes, doing a spinning jump hook kick on the street makes you legit forever. *cough*)
The truth about counseling is that there are no “special moves” or “magic words” that will suddenly cure a person out of years of mental oppression. While this might sound like the spiritual generic thing to say, the best you have to offer is yourself. Your conversation. Your genuine concern. Your day to day encouragement. Your prayers and your presence.
It’ll be a lot of hanging out, communication, finding common ground, getting ice cream, sharing YouTube videos, and not always talking about the heavy things. Otherwise she might tighten up even more around you; she needs to be able to relax, too.
Counseling can’t happen in an artificial manufactured setting where one person has a formulaic method for psychoanalysis. I know this isn’t what you’re doing, but our established baseline must be human relationship before we get onto counseling. It seems you’ve already gotten to know her and build trust and you’ve earned the right to be heard. You’ve done a lot of the ground work now to just be her friend, so you’re doing exactly what’s supposed to be done.
As you get to know her more, you’ll soon discover malformed patterns of thinking that are simply not good for her, and you can ask her about that. Why do you believe that’s true? Why do you think that works? How’s that going? Those questions, by the way, are still part of a friendship.
She’ll start talking through some of the lies she believes, and you might see lights turn on. She’ll realize the absurdity of some stuff she has fallen for. Your job is to set her free from those lies. Give her truth. Let her pedal some, you push some.
It’s possible she has never heard the truth about her life, ever. Maybe all she knows is the darkness of her lost condition, and that’s not her fault. She needs to know her life has purpose, it’s worth living, and she is way more than what she is feeling. She needs to recognize her God-given strengths, that her past can’t define her, that God has a vision for her beyond what she can see. Expose the lies, bring the truth.
Some more specific posts on depression:
- Helping A Friend With Anxiety and Depression
- The Ground War Against Depression and Anxiety
- The Warfare of Discouragement
The oppression of the enemy can be so debilitating! As your picture quote so clearly reminded me, often hope is very near us but we fail to see it. One quote I remember from days of receiving counseling was “We fail to see things as they are, we see things as we are”
God bless you as you minister to those who struggle with depression.!
As one who has been the primary caregiver of a severely depressed individual for the past 8 years, I couldn’t agree more. You have to be a friend, primarily. Most people fail to even associate with those who live in this darkness for lack of knowing what to do or say. But these people need *friends.* They need love. Little else matters. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much true across the board…human beings don’t respond well to know it all lecturers or detached, inauthentic, have all the right answers and think i’m going to teach you something so-called professionals/superiors. No. It simply doesn’t work. Modern psychology lacks genuine relationship for the most part, and therefore, fails to help those whom it “targets.” The outcome of counseling is dependent upon one thing: the quality of the relationship between parties. IMHO, “professional”:counselors do no more than what a genuine, biblical friend does. Truth be told, they often do much less, and charge you to boot. End rant. =)
Yes, as much as I’ve learned from majoring in psychology, it tends to barely drill the surface on things. There’s a lot of “keep your distance” and “remain emotionless” going on, as if that’s professional. While I can understand keeping the mentor/student bond, it bugs me to no end when anything is dehumanized.
It’s God’s will for you to be there for her as a Christian and with your background. I wish I was in Christian group therapy. I have to say though, it has helped anyway. I have many Christians to fellowship with also in my church. This is by far the best gift, time spent with them listening.This is always a great blog for advice.
Not to minimize the rest of the great stuff you said, but . . . you’re a fifth degree black belt!? Hey, if I can get this new church started in Youngstown, OH, you are more than invited to come along as a bodyguar. . ., uh, I mean, an associate pastor. It will be in a coffee house near the campus, which has 15K students.
HAH that would indeed be a sweet deal. I could regularly fake a choreographed fight to keep people on their toes.