Time Out--Counseling As A Kind of Holy Huddle

I once had a cartoon on my office door of a doctor showing an X-ray to a patient and saying, “There’s nothing wrong with you that what’s right with you can’t fix.” 

I often reflect on that as I work with clients who come to me for help. Of course they have serious stresses and grave losses to name and lament, along with many wrongs they have suffered, often from childhood. But no one should be defined, limited or diagnosed only on the basis of their problems, but also appreciated for their strengths and their assets.

So my goal is to listen deeply to both what's wrong and what's right. I’m not the kind of doctor who has stethoscope- or x-ray-based insights into what’s going on in someone else’s life, nor do I have an array of pills to prescribe to help cure their ills. This makes me especially dependent on the insights clients bring with them to their sessions, and not just on whatever help or insights I may have to offer. 

Thus I always assume the "insider," who has actually lived their life and experienced their reality, knows more about themselves and their issues than I, the "outsider" ever can. An outsider's perspective can also be very helpful, but I attach priority importance to what clients have to say about themselves and their situation. And over the years I've become increasingly impressed with what's right with people, and with the wisdom they already have, but which may have become buried under the rubble of whatever is troubling them. 

Once clients get out from under some of their accumulated "rubble," I’ve learned that the most therapeutic things that happen in a 50-minute session aren’t based so much on the wisdom I can dispense (though I'm glad to offer whatever I feel may be remotely helpful) but rather the wisdom I can help the client put together for themselves. This represents the sort of help they might offer others who may come to them for help, assets they have gained through their own life experiences, through their own faith and their faith community, and through whatever connections they already have with supportive people in their lives. 

This is important because at the end of the day, or at the end of a session, that wisdom is what they have to take with them. They can't take me with them. I'm simply the coach, and our session is a kind of huddle. All of the successes, all of the positive changes in people's lives, are made on the field where the game is played and the touchdowns or goals are scored--and where the coach cannot go. 

So in my remaining part-time work as a part of FLRC, I’m deeply interested in encouraging clients to draw on their faith, hope and courage to survive and thrive on the field that represents their life, hopefully with the help of a team of supportive people with whom they live, work and interact.

As fellow teammates, coaches and cheerleaders, we can all be vitally important in the work of helping each other experience "hope, health and healing." But the person with the identified problem is the one who can, with God's help and the help of a caring community, do the most to make a winning difference.