RELATIONSHIP-FOCUSED COUNSELING

REFLECTION ON:
PERSONAL COUNSELING STYLE

RELATIONSHIP-FOCUSED COUNSELING

INTRODUCTION

The quality of relationship has always appeared to me essential to any type of human interaction. I have discovered it through my own brokeness and this has been confirmed in my ministry as a priest. The evidence continues to accumulate to verify that relationship is of utmost importance in counseling.

I believe that one of the gifts I have as a pastoral counselor is to offer a meaningful relationship to brothers and sisters in distress. As St Paul says, we endeavor to become all things to all people so that we might save some. This is possible because of the relationship we have with God “who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

Therefore my basic attitude is the fact that counseling may incorporate a wide variety of methods and techniques, and indeed it has to, but the essential component is the therapeutic relationship between the therapist and the counselee. And this is my approach. I consider myself to be a relationship-focused therapist.

In this paper, I have attempted to clarify my understanding of this approach and to identify different strategies I have learnt from this course that are relevant to this approach.


THE PASTORAL COUNSELING RELATIONSHIP

From the beginning of my counseling training to the present moment, I have noticed that many therapists agree on the importance of therapeutic relationship, even though they might have different educational backgrounds and subscribe to different schools of psychotherapy. Wherever psychotherapy is accepted as a significant entriprise, this statement is wildely subscribed to. Based on this finding and through my personal experience, I have come to consider myself as a relationship-focused counselor.
My convictions are embodied in C.H. Patterson’s statement, “the human relationship is the most powerful psychological behavior modifier known to man”. This seems to fit the sense of who I feel I am and who I am called to be in the world.

Understanding of individuals:
This leads to the necessity for understanding individuals. As both a man of faith and a clinically trained counselor, I look to the teaching of Jesus as well as the contribution of human sciences for a better understanding of people.

Jesus of Nazareth presented the most profound demonstration of how to enter meaningful relationships with God and people. Religion was to Christ a matter of active relationship. Indeed he summed up all scriptures in terms of relationship when he said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these commandements all the Law and Prophets hang.” In this approach Jesus appears to be the incarnation of the pastoral counselor’s ideal as a therapist.The Gospel accounts of his life give an amazing record of one who had a unique insight into the needs and problems of people. “Jesus knew what was in everyone…he was a friend of sinners…insisting on the necessity of correcting inner attitudes, Jesus was never willing to accept emphasis on external behavior. He was vitally concerned with what was going on in the depths of people”. In so doing, he emphasized a sacred element in personality.
From the perspective of relationship-focused therapy, this understanding of individuals can be summarized in the following points: “… Individuals have intrinsic worth and dignity… Individuals have supreme value... Individuals have needs… Individuals have goals… Individuals relate to one another… Individuals have problems… Individuals have freedom… Individuals grow through love…Individuals have access to divine relationship.”

An Ecclectic view of Counseling:
Since no one school of thought or philosophy has an adequate and comprehensive concept of human personality from the Christian point of view, it is essential for me to draw from various sources and to develop an amalgamation that serves the purpose of this ministry. Therefore, in this relationship-focused therapy, I am an ecclectic counselor. I assume that a composite of what is best from many sources might reasonably work out well.

How am I going to reconcile different counseling theories in my practice? I have in mind two things and will apply them to every technique employed: (1) how will this affect the relationship, and (2) will it contribute to the therapeutic objective? Having said this, I will use different techniques according to problems presented by the client: for the same client I might use two or three approaches, according to various problems he (she) might have. I might use behavior therapy as a strategy to try to reduce his/her obsessive-compulsive symptoms and in other times I would use cognitive approach to attack some of his /her irrational thoughts. I might also use different techniques at different stages of counseling.With a client with a relationship problem or an unfinished business where an empty chair technique might be well indicated, I might not use it at the beginning just to allow ourselves to create an atmosphere of safety before using it.
One of my favored approaches is Gestalt’s. I see myself using a lot his approach on dream analysis as well as his technique of empty chair in the future given the African context I will be working in. However I will need further training in this approach.

The use of Christian resources has also drawn particularly my attention. Being people of faith and given the fact that some clients would come to us aware of our view of life, it would be unfortunate not to utilize these resources. Without imposing our faith or religious practices on any body, I wouldn’t hesitate using these resources when appropriate and needed. I have in mind three important resources namely Confession and forgiveness, prayer and scriptures. Here am alluding to people from my parish community whom I know well the faith and belief.

In Confession, a person verbalizes to another the evil he or she believes resides within and thereby places it in the external world. As Otto Rank says: “verbalization, which constitutes the only emotional expression in the therapeutic situation, is not only a symbolic substitute for action or emotion but also actually represents a rejection (putting out) of parts of the ego.”

Accessing God’s forgiveness is undoubtedly one of the most powerful experiences my ministerial counseling can facilitate. For people who really believe that God has forgiven them can have the burden of guilt lifted and the fear at the heart of guilt extinguished.

As for prayer, though it can be misused in counseling and be an easy solution to problems, it remains, however, a very efficient way through which clients can express to God the frustrations they might bear or the sense of injustice they might be experiencing. As a relationship-focused counselor, I could encourage clients to pour out their souls before God. I would then become a sort of third party in such a process.

Similarly, the Bible can be used as both a sword and a shield, depending on situations. Willian Hulme illustrates how the Bible can be used constructively in counseling situations. “After the client has related an insigh, the pastor, instead of restating that insight, may on occasion correlate the insight with a reference from the Bible. If the client appears to show a genuine interest in the correlation, the pastor may write the reference on a card at the close of the session. Pastors must restrain themselves from overdoing this kind of biblical correlation or it will give the impression of preaching.”
I am sure that both of us will feel at home within this context.

Relationship:
What is the goal of the relationship in counseling? The relationship is used to help resolve the conflicts within the client’s relationship to self, to others, or to God. Our assumption is that “emotional difficulties are usually rooted in problems in interpersonal relationships. Conversely, people are mentally healthy to the extend to which they are aware of and able to handle their interpersonal relationships.”
That is why for this approach it is important that pastoral counselors enter a relationship with a religious perspective. For me God’s love is involved in the relationship, undergirding both me and the client. Of course I should try to provide the kind of interpersonal relationship that does not obscure, but rather magnifies and illumines the relationship God offers individuals.

Characteristics:
In this approach, in terms of attitudes, I use Rogers’s approach to counseling. For his attitudes in counseling have attracted me and seem to correspond to the way I see my relationship with the client. As he says: “the essential qualifications for the counselor lie primarily in the realm of attitudes, emotions, and insight, rather than in the intellect.”
Therefore essential attitudes for the relationship-centered pastoral counselor include empathy, permissiveness, acceptance, flexibility, spontaneity, specificity, confrontation, and self-disclosure.

How is the relationship used in counseling?
As a counselor and a man of God, I try to help clients realize their personal worth in God’s sight. Hopefully by becoming aware of of the respect, concern, and Christian love I have for them, many clients may come to know something of God’s love.

I see myself trying to establish a rapport with clients. Rapport has been definied as “a condition of mutual understanding and concern about common objectives.” In fact the principal purpose of rapport techniques is to build a relationship bridge. When two person’s main concerns and objectives are in accord, they are said to be en rapport. So counselors may speak of having good rapport with individuals when they feel that they have convinced these clients of their goodwill and have earned their confidence. I find this very important because people cannot communicate the deep, intimate aspect of their lives to another person unless they have a feeling of security, confidence, and trust on the others. Though, it is incorrect to assume that rapport can be established easily and early in the counseling, it is something to be sought and nurtured.

Nevertheless the responsibility for creating the ideal pastoral counseling relationship rests with me, as a counselor. It is my task to facilitate the development of a working relationship characterized by mutual liking, trust, and respect.

Here I consider four essential dimensions:
1. Communication, both verbal and nonverbal
2. Security, including emotional distance.
3. My status as a therapist and the patient’s status which should be democratic or equalitarian.

I see the need, for myself, to continue cultivating the skills required for each of these dimensions.

To summarize these attitudes, Leona E. Tyler gives a powerful statement when she states that: “If constructive change of any sort is to occur during the counseling process, it is not enough that the counselor know what (she) is trying to accomplish and use appropriate techniques at each stage. (She) must be willing to…become an important part of the client’s life-to use the counseling relationship itself as therapy.”

Therefore given the great importance of relationship in my counseling approach, I try to use examples and techniques that emphasize the similarities between me and client and de-emphasize the differences. Thus I could build a stronger relationship as a way of bridging the sense of distance that client might have felt because of differences they believed to be present.


WHY DOES THIS APPROACH APPEAL TO ME
Coming from Africa where human relationship has priority over everything else, this understanding of counseling is more than useful in that context and I see myself using it.
Relationship gives a sense of belonging, of being accepted and loved as we are. It provides a feeling of being in harmony with self and with others.

I would like to mention here the African notion of “Ubuntu”. This is a very difficult term to render in western languages. It speaks of the very essence of being human. When we want to give high praise to someone we often say: so and so has ubuntu.Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. YOU HAVE GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH PEOPLE. We believe a person is a person through other persons. So it is not I think therefore I am, it is rather: I am human because I belong. I participate, I share. A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for she or he has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished.
Harmony, friendships and community are great goods. However SOCIAL HARMONY is for us the greatest good. Everything that undermines this is to be avoided.

So, strengthening human development in this perspective is done through taking care of people’s needs of connectedness with society. And good relationship, at any level would be of great help.

Certain types of people will benefit the most from this approach. These are people with issues of the SELF: a lack of self-confidence, which emerges from an inability to believe in one’s self, those with fear of being nobody, or feel that their being is essentially ignored, or have a sense of not belonging to anywhere. Because their relationships are colored by fear and despair, therapy that focuses on quality-relationship would educate them through consistent nurturing love. For one can only be loved into love. The relationship-focused therapy would help them see the resolution of their problem already within themselves. It would help them journey from imprisonment of self through an atmosphere of acceptance of self as unique and sacred.

Relationship-focused therapy poses the problem of postcounseling contacts and mutual overdependence. By the time the counseling situation is ready to be terminated, the relationship might have come to have a great meaning especially for clients so that termination may arise some anxiety. People often regret leaving situations that have been satisfying or rewarding. This has been my experience. It looks as if it were a marital divorce. Therefore it needs special attention and care.

CONCLUSION

This reflection has helped me understand that I can utilize the pastoral counseling relationship to bring about positive change in clients through observation, listening, communication, empathy and positive regard.

Though we believe that it is the relationship that heals, we aknoweldge at the same time the necessity for using different counseling techiques to help us foster that relationship and facilitate growth. That is why I also describe myself as an ecclectic counselor.

Given the importance of relationship in Africa and given also my natural inclination towards nurturing relationship, this aapproach fits my being. It seems to give me a sense of who I am and who I am called to be.



BIBLIOGRAPHY
Patterson C.H, Relationship Counseling and Psychotherapy, New York: Harper and Row, 1974.

Richard Dayringer, The Heart of Pastoral Counseling, Healing Through Relationship, Revised Edition, New York: Haworth Press, 1998.

Ross Snyder, A Ministry of Meanings and Relationship, Pastoral Psychology 2 (December 1960).

William E. Hulme, Counseling and Theology, Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1956.

Carl R. Rogers., The Clinical Treatment of the problem Child, New york : Houghton Miffin., 1939

Lawrence M. Brammer and Everett. Shostrom, Therapeutic Psychology, Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ : Prentice-Hall, 1968.

Leona E. Tyler, The Work of the Counselor, New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1953.