What Does Professional Christian Counseling Mean?

Christian counseling, also known as Christian psychology and biblical counseling, is the combination of your faith with the principles to improve your relationships and, in some cases, your mental health. 

This therapy is approached through biblical teachings to help deal with present life challenges.

5 Tenets of Professional Christian Counseling

Professional Christian counseling must model the character of Jesus Christ in whatever they and whatever they counsel unbelievers and believers. 

Here are the 5 tenets a professional Christian counselor must embody:

Faith

Faith is also an important tenet of the five professional Christian counseling tenets.

This is important because you need spiritual resources like worship, prayer, and faith to have effective Christian counseling.

Faith also makes counselors have faith in God that God can work in the life of sinful and troubled people.

Honor

As a Christian counselor working with people that are hurt, you must do so with integrity and honor.

As a professional Christian counselor, you must uphold a therapeutic alliance and a good counselor code of ethics. 

Importantly, it would be best to treat your clients with the respect they deserve and treat them as your fellow Christian.

Love

The first and the most important tenet of professional Christian counseling is love. 

As Christian counselors, you are meant to carry the burdens of others. In times of suffering and challenges for people, you are meant to care for them and carry these burdens as though it is yours.

Compassion

Compassion is a necessity for all Christian counselors because you will have to encounter the true selves of your clients, which include their bad and good parts of life, in a situation where you are seeing the worst part of a person, or someone is uncovering their deepest shame to you. 

As a counselor, you must exhibit overwhelming compassion because they are also created in God's image like you.

Humility 

The last of the five tenets is humility because a humble heart is the core of professional Christian counseling. 

To show care to people who come to you from their places of vulnerability and struggle, you must depict a humble life as Christ.

What Are the Goals of Professional Christian Counseling?

Christians have various issues and challenges, so as a Christian counselor, you need to set a wide range of goals to meet your clients' demands. 

Here below are the most common issues and goals of professional Christian counseling:

Conquering Marital Problems 

One of the goals of professional Christian counseling is to conquer marital problems because marriages place a great deal of sacrament on.

In the Christian faith, any form of divorce is not an option, and when a couple enters a marriage, they need to commit to honor and love another for life. 

So as a professional counselor, you are expected to encourage couples to work through any problem together rather than giving up their marriages.

The truth is there is no marriage without problems, but these problems can have a serious impact on the couple's relationship. 

The problems can include communication problems, infidelity, addiction, and conflict. 

Therefore, the purpose of professional Christian counseling is to help couples to repair their damaged union.

Coping With Parenting Challenges

To be sincere with you, raising children is not easy; you will experience ups and downs as a parent. 

In cases where raising a child looks challenging, then that is where you come in as a Christian counselor. 

A professional Christian counselor will guide you on your parenting journey.

However, in cases where the parenting challenges are deep, like having physical ailments, eating disorders, or learning disabilities, you may not be in the best position to take the job as a Christian counselor; you can refer them to a therapist.

Christian counseling can also come in when you are unable to identify your child's needs. 

Counselors will teach you the techniques to deal with parenting pressures.

Recovering From Grief & Loss 

This is also one of the goals of professional Christian counseling because the death of a loved one can be heartbreaking, and the grieving can last for a long time. 

But as a counselor, this is the best time your client will lean on you on their faith to help them get through this trying time.

Healing From Substance Abuse & Addiction

Conclusion

The goal of professional Christian counseling is to use faith-based principles and instructions to help people better in their issues of life. 

These professionals also teach coping skills so that their clients can adjust to any changes in their lives.

Resources 

https://truett.edu/academics/schools/psychology-biblical-counseling/five-tenets-of-professional-christian-counseling/

https://cairn.edu/5-characteristics-of-a-good-christian-counselor/

http://www.livingwellcfc.com/christian-counseling/

https://www.therapytribe.com/therapy/christian-counseling/