Christian Counselor Directory Blog

Please note that this article addresses women who are abuse victims. While I realize that men can also be victims of abuse, my focus is on women for the sake of simplicity. Anyone who is abused, male or female, should be cautious about the advice they receive for handling the problem.

It is so sad when a person struggling with an abusive relationship, seeks help from clergy or Christian friends, only to be told that they need to “try harder,” or “be the bigger person,” or “overlook an offense,” or “forgive,” or “turn the other cheek,” etc. When a person, particularly a woman, seeks help from the church for domestic violence, addiction, pornography issues, or emotional neglect and abuse problems in her marriage, so often the church gives pat answers, throws a few verses at the problem, promises to pray for her, and/or sends her on her way.

Oftentimes, the pastor or an elder or some sort of lay counselor in the church may step in and offer Christian counseling to the couple, only to offer the same type of pat answers and short-term solutions as mentioned above. Be very careful and forewarned if you are struggling with severe spousal difficulties and you seek help from the Church. Realize that incompetency can exist in the Church just as often as it can occur within secular sources.

My advice for Christian women seeking real help for serious marital problems is to be very circumspect with the type of help she receives. More often than not, I have heard of complete ineptitude on the part of the Church. In fact, the Church has been known to actually hurt a victimized woman by:

• minimizing the abuse; 
• reinforcing the manipulative husband’s tactics by not holding him accountable or minimizing 
• what he does to cause damage in the relationship;
• invalidating the woman’s feelings, causing her even further victimization; 
• blaming her and telling her to try harder to not “cause her brother to stumble,” i.e. that she is somehow responsible for his behavior; by telling her to submit and that God would hold him accountable for his poor behavior and that she just needs to trust God more; 
• telling her to pray more often, keep her mouth shut, be more meek, hold her tongue more 
• often, etc. 

The damage caused to a woman receiving this type of advice in an abusive or addictive marriage will only cause an increase in poor behavior because now the husband has been further emboldened to continue in his unsavory ways, unchecked, while the woman feels completely demoralized and helpless.

The types of assistance the church needs to give a woman seeking help for serious marital issues should be firm, direct, truth-seeking, validating, and grace-filled. When a person seeks counsel from their church, they are looking for spiritual help.

Many times people feel pretty desperate by the time they are willing to actually go to a pastor and ask for help. It takes a lot to just get the words out of one’s mouth, particularly with matters of a personal and private nature. The last thing a woman needs to receive from a church leader is minimization and invalidation of the seriousness of her situation.

If a woman is being sinned against and she is looking for pastoral help, then the best approach the pastor can take is to apply accountability to the husband and provide support to the wife.

When a pastor treats an abusive husband as if his abusive or addictive behavior is no big deal and is partially the wife’s responsibility, then the pastor has actually contributed to the abusive behavior; enabled it; and most likely helped it to increase.

A woman who is trying to get help for herself may end up having to be her own best advocate.

My advice for a woman in an abusive or addictive relationship is as follows:

• Seek help from people who are trained in the area that you are dealing with.
• Trust your internal “instincts” about the advice you are receiving.
• A good counselor will validate you and reflect back to you your input to the point that you feel understood.
• Always remember that you are not responsible for another person’s behaviors, choices, or character.
• Ask the person you are seeking counsel from what their background is and philosophy is for dealing with abuse and addiction problems in families.
• Understand that you do not need to be nicer when dealing with an abuser or addict, you need to set boundaries – for yourself. What will or will you no longer tolerate? 
• If at first you don’t succeed in finding good counsel for your situation, keep trying until you do. A good counselor will speak truth and will not cause you to feel confused or invalidated. 
• A good counselor will show empathy and understanding and will have a definite plan of action to resolve your problem.
• Be aware that often couples counseling will not work with abusers. Abusers are master manipulators and will most likely manipulate the counselor. This can happen both in the Church and in secular settings.
• Remember, you cannot change anyone but yourself.

Are you a Christian struggling to overcome an addiction, abuse issue, the effects of a dysfunctional family, or some other stronghold in your life that keeps you personally ensnared? If you find yourself questioning God and wondering where he is during these trying times, then this article is written for you.

Sometimes, Christians falsely believe that their Christian life follows a formula. If I do a supposedly good thing, then God will bless me. If I try really really hard to be a good person, then God will reward me.

Sometimes, it appears to those walking “in righteousness” that the people who couldn’t care less about God seem to get all the breaks, money, children, good relationships, nice homes, nice jobs, or whatever it is we keep praying for and never seem to obtain. We start doubting the existence of God altogether because life is not following our preconceived formula of how life should work.

It may seem like a rude awakening for us, mere mortals, but God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). What we deem valuable, God may find irrelevant. While we keep looking for temporary comfort, reprieve from pain, human accolades, or some other lesser ideal, God is working on our hearts. Perhaps our strongholds serve a purpose in our lives that God has set up, and he uses these weaknesses for his ends. Remember the Apostle Paul who prayed three times for God to remove a “thorn in his flesh,” and God said, “no, my grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9).

Recovery requires grace. It is essential that you develop grace for yourself, learning to forgive yourself for being weak, for failing, for messing up, for causing problems, for not getting it right. You may never get “it” 100% right and you need to give yourself grace no matter what. What is grace? Grace is bigger than mercy. While mercy reduces the punishment we must face for our insurrections, grace eliminates punishment altogether. Grace involves forgiveness and more.
According to the Old Testament, grace means deliverance from enemies, affliction, or adversity; it also involves daily wisdom, preservation and forgiveness. In the New Testament, grace means salvation in Christ.

On a human level, we can only give ourselves grace to a limited degree. We do this by taking ourselves “off the hook.” We don’t require ourselves to be any more than we are. I think we assume that somehow we’re supposed to be able to do so much more than is realistic or even necessary.

One verse that I find very helpful to keep myself in a proper perspective is, 1 Peter 2:25, which reminds us that we are all like sheep, have gone astray, and need a shepherd. We cannot do recovery without the great shepherd. We are best served by taking our recovery out of our hands and surrendering our lives to God, asking him to take the lead.
For those struggling with some serious recovery issues, who can’t seem to stop smoking, using, enabling, being abused, abusing, etc., help and wisdom can be found in Scripture. For the Christian, God’s word has power. God gave us his word to provide us with the “food” we need for our souls, to sustain us.

My personal journey with OCD, in the form of intrusive thoughts, began when I was only 11 years old. These thoughts would get “stuck” in my head and would play over and over again. This became increasingly stressful. My temporary solution was to go through my own personal ritual which made things better for awhile. This was not a permanent solution and the thoughts always resurfaced. At this age, I had no idea how to verbalize the mental pain I was in and I didn’t want people to think I was “crazy”, so I suffered in silence. I noticed that these thoughts would occur more often during times of stress or when I was fatigued.

I was told one time by a well-meaning therapist that I should just avoid getting under stress. Really? What universe was she from? As everyone knows, that’s easier said than done if not impossible. Now I know that advice like “live a healthy lifestyle” didn’t work, as I was a committed bodybuilder who practiced very healthy eating, exercise and other healthy principles. Additionally, advice such as trying to “control” unwanted thoughts only ended up backfiring. In fact, popular “coping strategies” I was so eagerly given did little to help me. The truth is that coping skills stop working even though helpful at first. I tried many other recommended solutions, but in time, these too failed to control the unwanted thoughts adequately.

Fast-forward many years, I now have a somewhat symptom free life. And now when these unwanted thoughts raise their ugly head, I am well prepared for what to do. I feel my suffering has made me more uniquely qualified to help my own clients with this disorder. I start by helping them understand that intrusive thoughts are quite common among people. Often times they immediately begin to feel better when they learn that these “sticky thoughts” are through no fault, personality detect or mental illness of their own.

Now you know why as a therapist I have taken a personal interest in helping people find the solutions that I wish I had found at a young age. The right customized solution that really helps in changing the way the brain works can make all the difference in how one feels. The therapies that I have found work best with my clients are EMDR, exposure therapy and a customizable plan based on their particular symptom set. Finding a therapist that uses the latest evidence based treatment is paramount in getting on the road to recovery. How do I know? Because I truly get it!