From Counseling to Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Life Time of Caring for Others ( Part I)

My memory is fuzzy when I think about the first person I ever provided care and counseling for, but I believe it was my childhood friend who suffered from some type of mental challenge. I knew he was different but I was not sure in the 6th grade what the difference was. I just knew he was more vulnerable and tender than I was and that he needed sensitivity and care. I just thought of it as a special kind of frienship back then.......... But in highschool it became more obvious to me that I was a counselor to others. In my highschool year book, where my classmates wrote notes and signed their names, many of the entries would say something like," Thanks so much for talking to me that night about my problems," or " Thanks for being there for me that day when I was struggling." And I remember being this kind of friend. I just thought it was what you were supposed to do. I had been raised in a Christian church and was taught that our main responsibility was to "care for others-to minister to others." My Father did it all the time. He helped people. He helped them with their problems, with their children, with their faith, with their finances, with their housing, with their self esteem and self worth. He was definitely a care provider--not just a counselor, but a social worker and financial advisor as well. Was this his profession? No. He was a self employed owner of a small business and also a Real Estate Salesperson and Stock Broker. But he was a committed Christian and in his mind and later on in mine, this is what you did. You "ministered to others" in whatever way they needed. So following his lead I did this at church Youth Group and at Young Life ( A Christian Highschool Organization.) Truth be told I just did it wherever I went. I never thought about it. It was just who I was.........Then came college. I kept doing it. The first Christian Group I joined was Campus Crusade for Christ. They called it "Discipling Others." This was a bit more than just caring for them, and loving them, and accepting them--it had a teaching component to it where you also taught others about the Faith and would gently try to lead them into the Faith. So I continued ministering to my friends in this way. The second Christian Organization I joined was the BSU (Baptist Student Union.) They too were about ministering to others and caring for others, but I still did not think of it as counseling. Then I took introductory psychology and learned about counseling and psychotherapy. I clearly remember a course in Humanistic Psychology where I learned about Humanistic Psychotherapy ( Carl Rogers, etc.), and I talked with my professor after class about it. But this way of caring for others again was just who I was and I did not think about it as "doing" anything other than being a caring friend. It just happened naturally. Through the BSU I had opportunities to travel and speak and meet with different highschool church youth groups around the state, and I continued caring for the teenagers I would meet at those times. I was also a Summer Youth Minister each summer of college and would spend the summer months in several different churches offering care and support to the youth I got to know. My job was to form meaningful relationships with these teens and to care for them, love them, and guide them. Again, it all came quite naturally. I would visit them in their homes or talk to them after a youth group meeting, and sometimes they would just drop by my office "to chat." But relationship building was what it was all about. Now I was getting to be known in the BSU as the guy you went to if you had a problem. As I recall, several indeed did come to me for such care. One in particular was a friend struggling with a major problem. We talked together for several nights and he finally made a decision he needed to make. Our campus minister at the BSU heard about these late night meetings and said as far as he was concerned, "I could hang out a shingle!" That was the first time that I consciously thought, " I am a counselor and I have been counseling my friend." " So maybe I will become a marriage and family therapist," I thought. I thought this because other than ministers who counseled their parishoners, this was the only other counseling profession I knew about, and that was because I was a sociology major concentrating in marriage and family studies............But that didn't happen. Instead I worked as a youth minister in a church for a year after college graduation, got married, and decided I wanted to be a minister. In seminary I took a couple of pastoral care and counseling courses and applied those in my work with college students where I was a campus minister intern. I would meet with the students in groups and one and one, and they would talk with me about whatever was bothering them, whatever problems they were facing, and where they needed care and support. The old "ministering to others" became pastoral care and counseling. In my next post I will talk about how I continued to learn about and practice pastoral care and counseling in seminary and beyond.