Editor’s Be aware: Our July 2024 mini-series on the BCC Grace and Reality weblog gives biblical counselors a couple of extra instruments on your counseling toolbox. On this second article, Joe Hussung explains how confrontation can transfer the counseling dialog ahead. In different contributions to the sequence, Tim St. John shares three classes to information counselors in selecting homework that most accurately fits the present stage of counseling, and Keith Evans discusses utilizing versatility and number of prayer within the counseling room.
Confrontation is the work of each counselor. We should do it. Folks can’t change if they will’t see what’s flawed, and so they can’t see what’s flawed if nobody helps them to see it.[1] However this activity may also be formidable to many people. Every of us has a character, which probably lends us to at least one means of doing the work of confrontation. A few of us with a extra boisterous character might are inclined to naturally be extra direct within the confrontational work, whereas others of us (myself included) are typically extra timid and apprehensive to immediately confront and like a extra “backdoor” method. The reality is, wherever you fall in that spectrum, your confrontational type ought to replicate extra about what you’re listening to and who you’re listening to than it does about your character.[2]
Jesus, when He confronted, used a wide range of kinds to do that work. Contemplate His confrontation of the wealthy younger ruler vs. His confrontation of the Pharisees. In a single story, Jesus asks questions and leads the particular person to the conclusion He needs them to get to; within the different story, He calls them out immediately and, dare I say, offensively. Jesus appeared to cater His confrontational type to the particular person in entrance of Him and the aim His confrontation served. This must be instructive to us to each know who we’re and know the particular person in entrance of us nicely earlier than starting to confront. On this article, I share what differing confrontational kinds are inclined to do after which supply a phrase to assist in some cases.
Confrontation: What the Types Are likely to Do
Together with contemplating the particular person in entrance of us, we must also contemplate what completely different kinds are inclined to do to the dialog. Direct confrontation tends to maneuver the dialog to educating. There’s time for response, however the focus is on admonishment or correction—exhibiting the counselee the wrongness, hazard, and injury they’re doing or about to do.
That is extraordinarily essential and useful in sure circumstances. Once we take into consideration the phrase “confrontation,” we largely affiliate it with some of these moments of confrontation—God telling Cain that “your brother’s blood cries out to me from the bottom” (Gen. 4:10) or Samuel taking a look at David and saying, “You’re the man!” (2 Sam. 12:7). Each tales exhibit a really direct confrontation to critical, disastrous, and damaging sins. They aren’t meant to essentially garner lengthy discussions about motivation or circumstances however moderately to illicit confession and repentance. What maybe started as a dialogue can rapidly develop into a monologue.
Oblique confrontation is essentially used to garner partnership in tackling an issue. It’s asking probing questions to assist the counselee come to the conclusion that can be useful for his or her development in Christ. That is usually our “go-to” means of confrontation as a result of it feels a lot much less confrontational. Asking a query like, “What do you suppose God is telling you about the best way you expressed your feelings to your spouse?” appears extra inviting than, “You’re destroying your loved ones along with your harsh phrases!” Though Jesus definitely makes use of direct confrontation at occasions, He usually makes use of oblique confrontation as nicely. Jesus’ questions and instructions to the wealthy younger ruler by no means clearly spell out the issue. He by no means says, “Pal, you’re worshipping on the idol of possessions, and till you’re prepared to do away with them, you’ll by no means be saved.” As a substitute, He asks why he believes Jesus is sweet. He asks whether or not the younger man has saved all of the commandments. He doesn’t even appropriate the younger man when he says that he has, when everyone knows that he couldn’t have obeyed them to perfection. Jesus not directly confronts the wealthy younger ruler. He invitations him towards everlasting life by asking him to surrender all his possessions to achieve everlasting life, and the younger man walks away. Jesus by no means says, “Hey man, you have got made an idol out of cash!”
Many occasions in counseling, we wish each. We rightly need the readability of direct confrontation however need to be delicate that our confrontation doesn’t unintentionally offend. We might have a counselee who grew up in a tough and abusive residence the place they have been yelled at for each mistake. Maybe they battle with clinging to the hope that God loves them regardless of their failures, and we don’t need to pile on. I need to supply a phrase which will assist us to do barely greater than oblique questioning across the challenge however is much less daunting than immediately confronting. Let me be clear. Direct confrontation and oblique confrontation each have their place. They’re instruments for use in the correct circumstances. Maybe this is usually a third device to place into your device belt.
Confrontation: A Phrase to Assist
A phrase that has been useful for me in counseling is, “On the one hand…Then again….Is that honest?” This phrase is supposed to take issues now we have heard the counselee say or heard about them doing and place them in entrance of the counselee for them to debate with you. On this means, it’s an empathic kind of confrontation.[3] It takes empathy, our understanding of the counselee, and makes use of that understanding to assist them see an issue extra clearly. An instance from my life, have been you counseling me, could possibly be, “On the one hand, Joe, you’re saying that you just actually wish to drop pounds. You’re about to show 40, and well being must be extra in your radar display. And but, then again, you advised me that final night time you ate two or three of these Oreo snack luggage within the child’s snack drawer. Is that honest?” This phrase highlights a really actual dissonance between what I would like (at the very least what I say I would like) and habits that’s counter-intuitive to that finish objective. It doesn’t chide me for my late-night snacking, nevertheless it additionally doesn’t beat across the bush. It clearly states one thing you, because the counselor, see within the life and/or coronary heart of the counselee, places it earlier than them, after which asks for suggestions. This phrase can be utilized for various discrepancies chances are you’ll hear in your counselee’s perspective, the best way they’re treating others, or perhaps a sin that’s inflicting extra hurt than they notice.
Listed here are some examples of ways in which I’ve used this phrase:
“On the one hand, you say that you’d moderately be given a head’s up a few exhausting dialog that’s developing, however then again, you get annoyed when you’re given one and compelled to dread the exhausting dialog all weekend. Are you able to assist me perceive that higher?”
“On the one hand, you’re saying that you’re high-quality that your spouse went away with the ladies on trip, however then again, you look extraordinarily indignant and put out by the inconvenience of all of it. Is that honest? Am I studying that flawed?”
“On the one hand, you say you suppose it’s high-quality to idiot round along with your girlfriend, however then again, God’s Phrase says in Colossians 3:5 that sexual immorality is one thing to be put to dying. How do you reconcile these two issues?”
This phrase, “On the one hand…Then again,” may also help you immediately draw consideration to one thing you see taking place with the counselee whereas staying in a spot that strikes the dialog towards discussing or clarifying your learn on the state of affairs.
Conclusion
Confrontation could be exhausting—for a few of us, greater than others. I hope this potential “third device” for our confrontational toolbox may also help make the daring confronters probably extra collaborative of their work of confrontation and embolden a few of us extra timid confronters to be extra clear and direct with what we see as coronary heart points in our counseling circumstances. I hope that each one of us, it doesn’t matter what device we pull out, will pull out the one that the majority displays Christ’s coronary heart in confrontation— “What does this particular person have to see (about himself, God, others, life, fact, change) that he doesn’t see, and how can I assist him see it?”[4]
Questions for Reflection
- What’s your default means of confronting in counseling? Do you have got one?
- What are some ways in which your default confrontational type could also be hindering the counsel you’re giving?
- How are you going to broaden that confrontational type to elicit extra dialog and transfer towards extra dialogue as an alternative of much less?
[1] There are definitely presenting points that don’t want confrontation in essentially the most fundamental sense (correction) however moderately a unique kind of confrontation that helps orient, course of exhausting issues, and cope with different points associated to dwelling in a damaged world.
[2] Bettler makes the argument that our type (on this case, quantity and “exuberance”) ought to match the state of affairs in addition to the particular person we’re counseling greater than our character and tendencies. David Powilson, “25 Years of Biblical Counseling: An Interview with Jay Adams and John Bettler,” Journal of Biblical Counseling 12:1, 9.
[3] This sort of confrontational building of “On the one hand…then again…” is talked about in Expertise for Efficient Counseling: Sbanotto, Gingrich, and Gingrich, Expertise for Efficient Counseling: A Religion-based Integration, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Tutorial, 2016), 199-200.
[4] Paul Tripp, Devices within the Redeemer’s Palms: Folks in Want of Change Serving to Folks in Want of Change (Phillipsburg, PA, P&R, 2002), 223.
