Undergraduate counseling courses are designed to introduce you to counseling concepts, but do not train you to be a professional therapist. Still, whether you are a licensed professional therapist offering counseling or a pastor in a local church doing premarital counseling with a couple you still need to uphold basic ethical guidelines.
Do a search for ethical codes by one of the major professional counseling organizations (Examples: American Psychological Association, American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, American Association of Christian Counselors). Read their ethical codes.
What similarities do you notice among the ethical codes of these professional organizations?
Confidentiality is very important. For what specific things are you compelled to break confidentiality?
Initial post should contain at least one reference to your reading using the APA Writing Style to cite your source.
PLEASE ONLY USE THE ASSIGNED TEXTBOOKS
Read Chapters 9 & 10 in People Skills BY Robert Bolton, the Grief Recovery Handbook James & Friedman, and Basic Counseling Techniques by Wayne Perry
Read: the book of Job; Job 1:22; Job 42:7
Job was a man in the bible that lost a lot. He had several reasons to mourn. Job is a man that we quickly associate with patience, longsuffering, and a pure life. We admire his dedication to the Lord amidst horrendous circumstances. If the enemy ever attacked anyone, he sure attacked Job. As helpers, caregivers, ministers, and social workers we can learn a lot from the story of Job. We can learn about how to make room for pain as we watch how Job responded in the midst of his trials and we can learn from Job’s three friends about how not to respond to pain.
You know the story of Job. I don’t have to tell you how Job ended up in despair, but just remember that in the end Job went from being the wealthiest man in the land with many children to losing everything including his children and even his own health. He sat with boils covering his body, covered in ashes. We find Job having an old fashioned pity party.
The big question is: “Did Job sin? Did he remain faithful? Did he let Satan get to him?” We find this answer in two different verses. Job 1:22 states: “Through all this Job did not sin or did he blame God.” Job 2:10 states: “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”
For most of us this answer may have always been the end of the story. If this is all that God wanted us to know about Job, then why are there 40 more chapters of this book? The book of Job tells us a thing or two about what it means to face trials and not sin. It teaches us what it looks like to cry out to God in the middle of our troubles, to face God, and to have God show up. It teaches us a lot about how much room God allows for expression of pain.
In Chapter 2 we read that when Job’s three friends heard about what had happened that they all came together to sympathize with him and comfort him. Verses 12-13 tells us: “When they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, they raised their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky. Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.”
We should hope that we have one friend who would be willing to weep and sit with us for one day. Job had three friends who wept, tore their clothes, and sat with him for seven days. These were not bad friends. They obviously loved and cared about Job. They may have not been the wisest friends, as we will see, but they were not uncaring.
If you really take time to read the words of Job’s friends, you may be surprised. Most, if not all, of their words hold truth. They give good advice. They demonstrate great knowledge about God. However, Job does not need advice. He does not need to know more about God. He needed more of God. He needed to meet God face to face.
Sometimes all of our “fixing”, all of our “advice”, just gets in the way of the person meeting God face to face. Sometimes the least wise advisors have the most to say and the wisest advisors have painstakingly learned to get out of the way. They have learned to make room for pain. Godly counselors have the confidence to get out of the way and make space for the growing intimate relationship between the other person and God.
The book of Job makes it clear, as we have already seen, that Job did not sin through all of this. So, what did he do? Did he just sit there “taking it like a man”? No, Job poured his heart out to God. And sometimes it was not pretty.
In verse 3:3-5 Job says: “Let the day perish on which I was to be born, and the night which said, ‘A boy is conceived.’ May that day be darkness; Let not God above care for it, nor light shine on it. Let darkness and black gloom claim it; let a cloud settle on it; Let the blackness of the day terrify it.”
Wow! If someone said these words to us we would be very concerned for them. Job is in deep mourning and he is not hiding it. In verse 7:11 Job states: “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.”
Job is saying that he is going to be honest. He is not going to hide himself. He is going to risk vulnerability. God has allowed him to be taken to a place where Job has nothing to lose. He might as well let it all hang out. He doesn’t just let his feelings float out to just anyone who is listening. He directs his frustrations toward God.
Job’s friends are aghast at how he is talking to God. Perhaps, we, too, are a little uncomfortable with such raw emotion being exposed to our Lord and Savior. We forget that Jesus honors our vulnerability. When Mary wept at the feet of Jesus and washed his feet with her tears she was revealing her vulnerability to Jesus. She was expressing her desire to be close to him. Her search for intimacy with her Lord blessed and honored Jesus. He, in turn, gave honor to her in front of the men that were watching. Job, too, is revealing his vulnerability. He, too, is searching for the face of God. And, just as with Mary, God will give honor to Job’s pursuit. Let us not be like Job’s friends or like the men that watched as Mary knelt before Jesus, and turn our noses up at such desperate need for the Savior.
We may be uncomfortable and feel that Job is being disrespectful. Indeed, some expressions of anger may not be pleasing to the Lord. However, we read in 12:13 that Job still worships God: “With Him are wisdom and might; To Him belong counsel and understanding.” Job continues to be honest while still worshipping God as the maker of all things.
Then, in Chapter 38 God shows up.
God allowed Satan to tug at the life of Job. God retrieved Job’s attention. Now they were standing face to face. To be sure when God shows up He shows up with a heavy hand. Job was honest, angry, and frustrated. God shows up with a boom right back. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.” (Job 38:4).
You may be getting worried that Job went too far with God. If you stop here, you miss the seeing the whole picture as well as the significant lessons of the end of the book. Most of us remember that God restores Job’s wealth and then some as well as giving him more seven more sons and three more daughters, who were said to be the most beautiful in the land. God also expresses displeasure with Job’s friends. In Job 42:7 God says to Eliphaz, one of Job’s three friends: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.” A professor at seminary pointed out something about a tiny word in this verse. Do you notice the word “of” right before the word “Me”? The verse says that God is angry because Job’s friends have not spoken “of” God as Job has. The professor, a Hebrew scholar, says that this word in the Hebrew is more often translated as the preposition “to”.
One little word can make a very big difference in such a sentence. Read it again after this seemingly minor change. “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken to Me what is right as My servant Job.” If these two words are interchangeable in the Hebrew language, then the meaning of the verse seems clear. Job did not just talk about God, as his friends did. He talked TO God.
God wants us to talk to Him. He lets us stumble through battles until we are so desperate that we turn and FACE him. He welcomes our expressions of emotions, even emotions that are not so pretty. He wants us to reveal all of ourselves to Him so that He can have access to all of ourselves.
Let us be comfortable enough with the talking TO God that some people need to do in order to get closcixer to walking WITH God.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|