Counselors Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Church and Mental Health

Christian Suicide Prevention Ministry

posted on January 13, 2020

RemedyLIVE is a 24/7 suicide prevention chat center via phone, web, and texting. They are committed to serving teens and young adults. There are certainly other suicide prevention hotlines nationally and locally, but this organization is specifically based on Christian beliefs.

If you are interested in other resources beyond RemedyLIVE, check out the ones we have listed on our mental health resources page. This is an alternative for teens who want to talk to someone who is struggling with suicidal thoughts.

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Pastors and Secondary Trauma [Video]

posted on October 2, 2019

Secondary traumatic stress is defined by The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), a leading research and innovator in therapeutic techniques on childhood and family trauma, as “the emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another… For therapists, child welfare workers, case managers, and other helping professionals involved in the care of traumatized children and their families, the essential act of listening to trauma stories may take an emotional toll that compromises professional functioning and diminishes quality of life.”

At a later time, we will talk about how you can help develop resiliency, identify secondary trauma, and how to prevent it. For now, take a look at this video by Leah Warshawski that explains secondary trauma… even if she doesn’t know she’s describing it.

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Religious OCD (Scrupulosity)

posted on September 25, 2019

You probably know about and have a basic idea of what Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is, but you may not know that there are different forms of it.

One of the forms is called Religious OCD, also known as Scrupulosity, and Wikipedia describes it as below:

Scrupulosity is characterized by pathological guilt about moral or religious issues.

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Is Drinking Alcohol A Sin?

posted on June 4, 2019

This is one of those questions that as a youth pastor, I was faced with multiple times. Now as a clinical with a special focus on mental health and substance use co-occurring treatment, I address this from the standpoint of when it becomes a problem. The question is, is drinking alcohol a sin?

The interesting thing about doing this article is that I learned more in the process about Christianity than I did about the mental health side of things. What originally was going to be a thoughtful piece about the original article has become much more.

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Drug Free Workplace Handout [Free Resource]

posted on February 27, 2019

Part of a complete substance abuse treatment program for a community is not only to do direct individual and group counseling as well as psychiatric medication, but preventative services. Sometimes this is presentations for communities at a library or school, but one often neglected area is in the workplace.

Did you know:

59 million adults struggle with binge drinking every month?
$78,000,000,000 is spent because of substance misuse.
The workplace is the perfect place to help employees and their families with prevention and recovery through insurance, respite, and treatment supports.

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Prayer As A Coping Skill

posted on December 26, 2018

Prayer is one of the essential tools a Christian needs to learn in their journey with God. Throughout the last two thousand years, we have seen prayer take many forms, including praying in tongues, breath prayers, intercessory prayer, healing or thanksgiving, and prayers for salvation, to name a few. But for counseling, we see prayers used in a clinical environment as a coping skill.

We will explore a couple of ways that counselors can utilize prayer in their counseling session and how pastors can use it to promote better mental health.

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Pastors Ask: Where Do Professionals See Faith In Their Practice?

posted on August 21, 2017

Pastor: “I have always heard that you cannot be a Christian in our counseling sessions which makes me not want to refer anyone to counseling. Is this true?”

Faith and spirituality play a crucial role in the therapeutic process. If we have defined what mental health is, we need to now look at the collaboration of the Church and pastors with professionals. It is my belief the two organizations can walk together and do more for people who struggle with mental health than either can do by themselves.