Zulay said:
I like that spin on it all because you can give the proper insight on such a subject because you are actually in the field. I believe that as a counselor practices and does his/her job, they will have to make judgment calls. I want to make sure I am understanding what you said. I understand that as a police officer, therapist, or anyone within the social field, we should not ever judge, we should make an ethical decision based on theory, law, or whatever legally applies. So is it not ethical to have a discussion with a client who brings up the topic on religion? I personally don't entertain it in my field because it is what is best. I do lend my ear, listen and give facts based on law and city ordinances written by the City in which I work.
Hmmm. This is an interesting question. I think the answer is "maybe"?
First, this has turned out to be a very long post. So if you're going to read it, I'd suggest setting aside some time. The readers digest version is this; Remember, if you get nothing else out of this class (or this massive post); speaking the Truth as best you understand it, helping a client see that fire burns and water gets wet, is not judgment (unless you do it from a place of "I'm better than you.) In fact, in most circumstances, it's your job.
The big benefit of having a theory or law to make a decision from is that there's less risk of harming the client. So that's a significant plus and it's one of the reasons I have respect for those who choose to avoid personal disclosure in a therapeutic session. There are some schools of thought that allow for little or no personal talk with clients.
In my experience excellence in a therapeutic context is about learning to make truth and love work together. In conjunction these two things lead to health and healing 100% of the time as far as I can see. Separate from one another they are somewhere between useless and dangerous.
Truth without Love is easy to spot, because it typically is accompanied by awful pain. Take a look at the word "disillusion" How many of us wake up int he morning thinking "gee, I hope I get disillusioned today"? Usually no one, because most people don't like pain (if you do like pain, we should probably talk). Since most people do their best to avoid pain they'll generally also try to avoid disillusionment. And yet, look at the word. What does it mean? It means "to remove illusion." Well who doesn't want to see illusion fall away? Who doesn't want to see the truth? ... Unfortunately the answer is "all of us." Because the truth hurts. Sometimes horribly.
One of my favorite books (even though I haven't actually read it) is called "He's just not that into you." It's a great example of truth told without love. I think it's a universal human experience to discover the "he (or she)" isn't that into me after pining away for him (or her) and to feel totally awful about it.
The point is that truth told or discovered without love is often quite painful. When someone tells me a truth in a loveless way (and this has happened to all of us) I will typically react by experiencing shame (which is always about being seen) and then go to a place of defensive anger and denial. In fact, if you tell me the truth in a way that brings up shame I will actually be less likely to ever look at that area again.
Now let's look at Love without Truth. How many of us have ever made a decision based on love that we later came to regret??? (Pssst... if you're not raising your hand right now, reread the previous three paragraphs). Love in this context is "sticky," glomming on to anything. It can also be quite dangerous! All of us know someone or are someone whose fallen hopelessly in love with another person who turns out to be very different than what we were thinking at the time...
Effective counseling is learning to blend these two elements; to tell someone the (sometimes horrible) truth, and to do so in love. At the Meadows I'd get patients all the time who'd come in and say "my childhood was great. I have no trauma." This is someone who is in denial of a truth (most people with no trauma don't require multiple grams of cocaine a day), but needs to learn this in a context of love in order to have the opportunity to possibly accept it.
So does this make sense? Effective therapy is about teaching someone truth in a loving way. That's what we're learning here. These theories are useful in that they take human nature and attempt to distill it into some essential truths, which can then be shared with clients.
Also, is anyone else impressed that I've managed to get 1000 or so words into this post without actually answering Zulay's question?
So, for Zulay, the question of the appropriateness of discussion religion in therapy and it's relationship to judgment...
First, it's helpful to consider that religion might be thought of as a collective expression of man's attempt at grasping truth. It's an answer to the (existential) question "why am I here?" Some folks are keenly interested in going there in session. I know for me, this question was what drove me to a therapists office at the age of 22, and the experience of grappling with it nearly killed me.
One of the reasons I teach - one of the big ones actually - is that when i was going through school this discussion of discernment vs. judgment never happened - well, more likely it did and I ignored it because completely dropping what I perceived to be judgment but which most consider morality was so darn convenient. I loved to wage verbal war with absolutist students who wouldn't buy what I was sure was an obvious fact; "perception is reality." Never mind that Plato disproved this irrefutably while he was arguing with the sophists 4300 years ago, I was going to stick with it come hell or high water.
One of my favorite co-workers ever, Doug, was 72 years old and too stubborn to retire. He was a family therapist at The Meadows for the offender sex addiction group. These were some pretty challenging clients, and their families (particularly their spouses) could be a handful too. On his wall he had a sign that read
"There really is nothing you must do.
There really is no one you must please.
There really is nowhere you must go...
But...
Sometimes it helps to remember
That fire burns
And water gets wet."
What it means is that actions have consequences. And that, folks, that's a timeless Truth. There's no getting around it - believe me, I've tried and tried and tried... It's also the central truth that we teach our clients. Consider REBT as an example. The central tenet is that if I change my thoughts, it will change my emotions, which will in turn change my behavior. That means that I am ultimately responsible for my thoughts, which means I'm responsible for my feelings, which means I'm responsible for my behavior, which means - darn it! - my mother-in-law is off the hook. Get it? Actions have consequences.
So I would posit that every therapy session that's in any way useful (which requires that the clinician have a model based on truth and deliver it in love) is existential in nature. Ultimately counseling is about teaching clients that at some level they must take responsibility.
I think I mentioned this earlier, but the world religion comes from the Latin word relegare, which means "to bind" as in to bind together. A person's religion is what binds their world together. I would also argue that much of counseling is religious in nature. Every human being on this earth has a higher power, a thing or things around which they organize their lives. It might be their mother (one subtle but common example might be "I'll never be like her!"), it might be the opposite sex, it might be the Buddha (well, technically that's not a good example since Buddha never claimed to be God), it might be their checkbook (I heard once that if you're wondering what you're higher power is, you check register will tell you) or it might be beer.
Just as an example, how many of you reading this would change your higher power if I wrote a really compelling post? Anyone? Usually most of us are pretty set in this part of our thinking. In fact, history is full of names of people who've gone to fiery, excruciating deaths to avoid changing or even speaking against their Higher Power.
Does this apply to addiction? I think it may... Think about the case of the terminal alcoholic, the person who drinks until they die. Is this not one of the best examples of zealotry we can find in modern culture? This is a really hard way to go! Of course there's jaundice, where the skin turns yellow because the liver has stopped removing toxins from the blood. But that's just getting started. After jaundice we have esophageal hemorrhaging, wherein the patient gushes blood out of the bodies major orifices. Acute pancreatitis happens as well, which is when the pancreas, which secretes the most powerful of the stomach acids - bile - starts leaking acid into the stomach cavity. This is supposedly one of the most painful experiences a human can have – supposedly more painful than childbirth…
And that's before you die. Do you know that when the medical team does an autopsy of an alcoholic they have to wear special masks because when they take off the scull to examine the brain the smell of alcohol is so pungent that most folks – even these professionals - will get sick?
It's all quite horrifying to be sure. But… let's consider it from another angle for a moment. Is this not, in some respects, absolutely incredible dedication? The alcoholic who drinks until they die is someone who is willing to go to a grizzly, miserable death rather than surrender booze. How many of us have something in our lives that we're that dedicated to? How many of us would walk through that for our religion, whatever it may be? I bet there are some reading this who would, but not many (By the way, my thanks to the three of you who've actually gotten this far in the post ;-))
This incidentally, is a big part of why AA works. Alcoholism has been around since ancient Greece – that's the earliest record we have of it. The most successful treatment program prior to AA was the sanitarium. Lock 'em up and throw away the key. That's the farthest medical science had got with the chronic alcoholic prior to the late 1930's. So why did AA work where so many others had failed? Because Bill and Bob, the two guys who founded the program, were alcoholics themselves and understood first-hand that their higher power had been booze, and they needed to find a different one. To this day AA doesn't tell the alcoholic which Higher Power they need to believe in, but they've stuck to the idea that they need to find a new one because the booze doesn't work.
So, does religion have a place in counseling? Directly or tangentially, I think it does (though it probably depends on how you define the word). Sometimes it's as simple as helping the client understand what their religion really is. Other times it's being open and taking some risks with the client, sharing some of my own experiences and mistakes, is what's necessary
Man, that was a long post. My fingers are tired! ;-)
By the way, I should mention that much of this comes from Pia Mellody's work, and I'm pretty sure she got a bunch of it from Cloud and Townsend. There's a bit that comes from Lou Marzeles' "Life for the Reality Impaired" also.
