What is pastoral counseling and care like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You emailed a church you don’t go to just to complain about your parents?

Yep you need counseling.

I grew up in this church. My parents still attend, as does my brother. I was feeling upset about something (multiple levels of abuse going on in our family) and how hypocritical it is that they have this double perfect Christian act going on. In a bad moment I sent an email with very few details.

I am already in individual therapy for dealing with aforementioned abuse.

One thing that could in theory come of this, is an intervention, if that is what pastoral counseling can entail? My brother is abusive to his wife. I am hoping that maybe the pastor could speak to him.

[Anonymous]

It won't help, I'm sorry to say. This will be the pastor prostetyzing to you in some way.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, no. They just want you to pray it all away. Get a real health professional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, no. They just want you to pray it all away. Get a real health professional.

Sometimes pastoral counseling can be OK, sometimes not - e.g., my sibling was told they should gain weight. They were not underweight. Most people in the church were overweight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My church's policy is that the pastoral care team will meet you a maximum of twice in one calendar year for counseling. More than that, we can only assist in finding outside assistance.

This is really interesting. How does the church support people going through a hard time then? Expect other parishoners to be there? I mean...really hard things don't neatly fit into this calendar and the church is called to be the church.

Being the church doesn't mean doing everything that parishioners need even though you're not qualified. You wouldn't expect them to do surgery, would you? Some mental health issues require mental health professionals.

Absolutely you're correct. But let's look at a few examples:

- someone struggling with addiction comes to the church. The church refers them to IOP. But they need some help with accountability. Who does that? They need to feel cared for - whose dropping off meals or giving rides? Church is plenty qualified to do that, and deacons should be coordinating it or leading ministries that coordinate it.

- a domestically abused woman opens up to the pastor about her abuse. Absolutely she needs counseling. But does the church follow up and check up on her? Do they offer her resources from her benevolence fund if she needs to leave home? Let's say her husband is an upstanding church member from the outside. Does the church discipline him?

Not everything can be done by saying "Go see a counselor." Counselor's aren't magic and some problems aren't fixed in one fifty minute phone call a week.

What does church discipline look like? What would be an effective church punishment that would get an abuser to stop?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, no. They just want you to pray it all away. Get a real health professional.

Sometimes pastoral counseling can be OK, sometimes not - e.g., my sibling was told they should gain weight. They were not underweight. Most people in the church were overweight.

[Anonymous]

Everyone is speculating wildly because "pastoral counseling" is not standardized and church range widely across an extreme range of belief system and theories of life and mind.

[Anonymous]

OP, I think you need to distance from your family and the church too.

[Anonymous]

OP, your family’s church is not going to stage an intervention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I reached out to my parents' church regarding their behavior in an angry email and was surprised to hear back from their minister. The minister offered to call me. I wasn't expecting an actual response and am wondering if they actually provide family counseling? Are they actually qualified? I have attended couples and individual therapy before but don't want to get my hopes up.

We’ve gotten good counseling both before we married and a few times afterwards. However, we didn’t have any major issues and mostly just wanted to double check that we were considering all of our options and values.

[Anonymous]

My uncle and his wife did marriage counseling for the church. His wife ended up having an affair with the husband of the couple they were counseling. No, they are not qualified.