There are three main telephone counseling methods used by therapists today: secular counseling, integrated Christian counseling, and pure Christian counseling. Secular counseling can be found everywhere and it is a very common form of counseling. In this form of counseling, human beings use their understanding of how things work to try and deal with other peoples’ psychological problems. This type of counseling is taught in colleges.
‘Integrated’ Christian counseling is fairly common and it is where Christians who are trained in secular counseling combine it with prayer and the teachings provided by scripture. These therapists often believe that they are providing a patient with the best of both 抑鬱症催眠治療 worlds and their intentions are often good. However, as we shall see, this method of counseling has limited success. The third form of counseling relies completely on the truth and the power of God’s word to heal psychological problems that humans face.
The difference between these forms of counseling boils down to two main things: The target of the counseling process and the source of wisdom for therapy provided. Since Christian counseling relies on the ideas of God on how things work and secular counseling relies on understanding of men of the workings of the world, most of us would put our money on Christian counseling any time. The scriptures teach us that God’s ways are not at all alike to man’s ways and that His thoughts are as high from man as heaven is from earth. It continues to teach that what God considers as foolishness seems like wisdom to men. This indicates that God’s views are diametrically opposed to man’s views.
Another significant difference to Christian and secular telephone counseling approaches is the target of counseling. Secular counseling often focuses on the symptoms and not the root cause. It provides chemical band aids to deal with peoples’ psychological problems but it does not provide any long-lasting solutions. The target of counseling is therefore wrong when secular counseling methods are used.
According to scripture, the only real target of counseling is the heart (who we are inside). Any counseling that targets anything but this cannot bring healing and lasting transformation, Secular counseling is therefore misdirected and doomed to fail in the long run. The Bible in Matthew 5:3 says that ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ This means that the people who seek spiritual enlightenment are the ones who will see heaven.