Artistic integrations: Theological foundations for case-level integration in contemporary Christian counseling

Trinity Journal, Fall 2002 by Greggo, Stephen P

ARTISTIC INTEGRATION:

THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS

FOR CASE-LEVEL INTEGRATION IN CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN COUNSELING*

I. SENSING THE CRITICAL ISSUE

Focus for a moment on a sample of counseling students investigating the integration of psychology and theology within a seminary or Christian graduate school setting.

A. Jodi came directly from college to seminary and has a bicultural background. She appears to be equally at home in Middle Eastern surroundings as she is here in the United States, having family ties in both regions of the world. Her future counseling ministry location and setting is, as of yet, undetermined.

B. Sarah will enter counseling as a second career when her children are invested elsewhere. A former career missionary with her husband, she burnt out within a fundamentalist mission organization. She now is shedding that rigid background with all its trappings, while struggling to maintain her solid biblical and theological roots.

C. Dan came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ through an InterVarsity group at college while completing a pre-med biology degree. After experiencing a personal family fracture - his father left his mother to marry a younger woman-he entered counseling himself. Now he is training to be a professional therapist.

I have no prophetic gift to predict with any precision the eventual counseling settings for this small sample of students. Yet, alumni with similar characteristics may reveal potential directions.

A. Isabelle uses her bicultural background while working in a Christian social service agency that facilitates international adoptions. She has a small private practice on the side.

B. Brenda draws from her own missionary experience working within a para-church organization to guide new staff through cross-cultural transitions. She does mental health evaluations on perspective staff, runs multicultural sensitivity training groups, and provides ongoing support to missionaries in the field, usually via e-mail.

C. Bruce is employed in a hospital with both inpatient and intensive outpatient programs. He interfaces daily with managed care monitoring systems, physicians, and other psychiatric personnel as he operates within a medical team practice model.

These professionals, graduates of a seminary-based counseling curriculum, cope with diverse challenges as they seek to implement their theological and counseling training. As a professor my challenge and concern for these students is to foster the internalization of an integration model during their educational experience under my mentoring that will enable them to offer distinctively Christian counseling. My aim is to equip them to function in their immediate unique settings and throughout the evolution that will occur in their counseling career journeys.

II. INTEGRATION IN CHANGING PRACTICE SETTINGS

The settings in which counseling services are offered today are distinct and diverse. Private outpatient practice continues to be the major vehicle for the delivery of a wide range of mental health services. Managed care oversight has impacted this setting dramatically as most third party payments are tied to provider panel participation. There are medical clinics with behavioral health services linked directly to primary care. Social service agencies, either church sponsored or publicly supported, offer a range of counseling options with a remedial and/or preventative emphasis. There are hybrid organizations everywhere and technology is not only increasing the options: it is redefining our definition of direct service as innovations emerge such as coaching, telemedicine, and internet counseling. Counselors trained to offer Christian counseling are moving into these diverse settings, and their working models of integration need to be flexible enough to fit these new service delivery systems.

In the past two decades, seminaries and graduate schools with an evangelical commitment have taken on the graduate training of counselors. Daniel Ayshire of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) reports that degree programs within member seminaries grew so dramatically during the last decade that some schools now graduate more professional counselors than pastors.1 In an article titled "Integration Training in the Seminary Crucible," Beck and Banks articulate four skill areas of special expertise that seminarytrained Christian counselors require: a proper use of hermeneutics; clear theological reasoning; informed use of psychological literature; and an appreciation of church history.2 Such skills are necessary if these graduates are going to provide mental health services acceptable and appropriate for a Christian constituency. In addition, there is still the need for most of these counselors to meet public professional certification criteria and practice standards. Educational programs seek to develop both helping skills and a defined knowledge base within students, while there are typically efforts intentionally to incorporate an integration model into the training. The models offered need to be functionally relevant to the eventual employment setting of the counseling practitioner.