Christian Counseling - Smoking and Depression

Recent research has found a link between smoking and depression. Those who smoke tend to be more depressed than non-smoking subjects.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/04/14/many-smokers-suffer-from-depression/12846.html

There are several ways to look at this research. One is that there is something about smoking that leads to depression. This is a common perception among those who are against smoking and want the government to set policy banning smoking.

However, another view, which seems closer potentially to the facts of the research is that people who smoke and people who are depressed have something in common. Freud would say that people who smoke potentially are "stuck" in the oral phase of development. The oral phase is when the child seeks gratification and soothing through the mouth. It is also a period when the child has great dependency needs. One could argue that people who smoke are attempting to sooth themselves through smoking. In addition, Freud and other psychodynamic theorists would suggest that people who become depressed have greater dependency needs than others. As a result, they become more Id, or desire driven, in their approach to daily life, seeking immediate gratification for their needs. This way of looking at the link between smoking and depression also then provides an explanation as to why people who are depressed and smoke have greater difficulty quitting smoking.

As more research is done in this area, keep an open mind as the research is correlational in nature. Remember, correlation does not imply causation. In other words, just because the rooster crows and the sun comes up does not mean that the rooster is causing the sun to come up. I will post further thoughts on this area of research as new findings become available.

Christian Counseling - Managing Your Emotions

What do you do when you want to get out of a bad mood or negative feeling? Learning about managing emotions begins in infancy when a parent picks up one who is crying, tickles an inattentive or smileless baby, ignores an angry expression, or feeds a fussy baby. Infants learn what behaviors are OK and not and how to get attention very quickly, which help them deal with emotions, like separation anxiety, loneliness, fear, etc.

It's a parental responsibility to teach children how to manage feelings. Too often it's avoided or not done well. The impatience of parents moves them to give quick directives to children--"Stop crying," "Don't give me any of your lip," "Stop whining," etc. Giving snippy directives doesn't help children, but gives temporary help to parents in managing their own emotion.

Raising children needs to include teaching them to identify feelings--anger, fear, surprise, happiness, etc. This gives them the self-understanding necessary so they can talk about their feelings. They learn to talk out their feelings rather than act out their feelings through negative behavior.

People also learn on their own helpful and harmful methods of controlling what they feel. Scripture talks about joy as coming primary from relationships with God and others. Spending time with trusted others can assuage troubled feelings, such as fear or loneliness. But so can substances, such as alcohol, food and drugs, or activities, like: fantasy, TV watching, shopping, sex and sports. These provide ways in which many manage their emotion that excite or calm them, both of which can produce a high that can lead to addiction. Obviously, not all of these are inappropriate or wrong, but because of the potential of abuse caution should be exercised. Substances and activities are easier and faster at altering moods than having to confront bad feelings and take action to correct them. This is especially true for those who have strong negative emotions, such as depression or anxiety, and don't know how to find relief any other way.

Talking out through confession is one help in managing emotions. Confession first requires a person to look within and confront the truth of what they feel and think--self-confession. Following this is other-confession; that is, talking with God and and others about the problem. Lastly, true confession results in changing one's behavior--repentance. This process is the best tool one can have in their armament to manage emotions.

What do you do to manage your emotions? What has harmed and helped you to effectively deal with difficult feelings? Please share your experiences or insights with our readers.

Christian Counseling - Client or Patient

When someone seeks therapy, the therapist will usually refer to person seeking therapy as their "client". Others refer to the therapy seeker as a "patient". One might think that the choice of words does not matter. However, the language we use to describe ourselves in relationship is important. Think about an adult child calling their mother "mommy". The term mommy brings with it certain images of dependence and has a child-like connotation. When an adult child speaks of their "mom", there is a sense of an adult relationship in the description. However, if the adult child uses the term "mother", their is an image conjured in the mind of distance and formality. So, the words we use to describe our relationships are important.

The term "patient" had been used for many years to describe the relationship of the person seeking therapy to the therapist. However, the word patient brings to mind our experiences with medical doctors. This relationship is more formal. There are many possible ways to view this relationship, but, a typical view is that of seeking advice from an expert or authority figure. Although this view is changing somewhat, many still feel inhibited in terms of disagreeing with their medical doctors.

If the doctor/patient dynamic is carried into a therapy relationship, it could be problematic in many ways. One, the "patient" may expect the therapist to prescribe a solution to their problems. Two, the patient may feel unable to disagree with the therapist. Either way can result in the patient becoming dependent on therapist or even resentful should the therapist's suggestions not prove as fruitful as hoped. In the end, the person in therapy needs to accept personal responsibility for the decisions in their life, even decisions that the therapist may have suggested. It is for these reasons that most therapists prefer the word "client" to describe their relationship with the person in therapy. The word client indicates a more collaborative relationship. As a client, the person may feel more free to disagree with or even reject certain interpretations the therapist might make. Finally, as a client, the person in therapy remains in control and responsible for the course that their life takes. My colleague, Dr. Frank Mancuso, uses a metaphor to describe therapy. He describes therapy as two people in a row boat, except the client is the only one with an oar. The therapist, while sitting in the boat, can offer observations, suggestions, etc. However, ultimately the course of the client's life is up to the client.

Christian Counseling - Fear Of Pain

Most people tend to avoid conflict because of their fear of pain; that is, the pain they may experience and/or cause another. Much of the pain that is feared is the result of the loss of an important relationship, a loss of control and change, about which some feel phobic.

It's easy to understand why many of those who have experienced traumatic, overwhelming and chronic pain desire to avoid even a remnant of pain. It's easy for most of us to emotionally conclude that pain is an enemy to be avoided whenever possible and that pain is just bad. Intellectually, we may conclude and give assent to the Bible's position, which says pain from trials and tribulations help build things like character and hope (Romans 5:3,4). In the end, most people are conflicted about the value and experience of pain.

II Corinthians 7:8-11 describes Paul's personal conflict with hurting the church by confronting their behavior. He clarifies for them, and us, the truth that there is good pain and bad pain (sorrow). The bad pain is worldly and leads to death and destruction, but good pain leads to repentance, salvation and healthy change. We are to avoid pointless, bad pain, but face and accept good pain. We are not to spare ourselves or others from good pain. Doing so is a disservice to people's spiritual growth and God who wants to strengthen our faith, love and hope. Why the path of pain for growth? It wouldn't much exist if we listened and followed instruction. God's chastisement of the Israelites in the Old Testament was the result of their failure to listen and follow the words of God given by the prophets. Therefore, pain is absolutely necessary because it opens our ears and leads us to new behaviors. One great life task is to be open to instruction and a second is to discern between good and bad pain and respond appropriately.

Meaningless, destructive, bad pain is to be avoided. It is pain caused by evil and human error, which is not what God wills or desires. We should seek to minimize it when possible. We are to hate evil (Proverbs 8:13) and take flight from it. We should seek to protect ourselves and others from any pain that is the result of evil. Yet, it's good to know when we turn to God He will endeavor to deliver us and make good use of bad circumstances. To illustrate, Joseph was sold as a slave by his brothers and caused bad pain to Joseph and his grieving father who was told he was killed by a beast. His brothers intended evil, but God, who had no desire for such an event, purposed to turn it around and use it to save their family from a coming famine. This He did by placing Joseph in a high position in Egypt who had authority over many resources, such as food. His family came to Egypt in search of food and God's plan was complete. God never wanted the evil to happen, He could have and would have created another situation that would have led to saving the family.

Good pain, on the other hand, is intended by God for the purpose of our change; our becoming like Jesus. We all need to cultivate an accepting attitude for this type of pain. Going further, we need to look for, turn to, encourage and embrace good pain. We need to have David's heart--"Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me; It is oil upon my head; do not let my head refuse it..."(Psalm 141:5). Solomon said it this way: "Reprove a wise man and he will love you" (Proverbs 9:8b) and "Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear" (Proverbs 25:12). Imagine, good pain is something we could look forward to, but only when we love the truth above all else, desire to be the best man or woman of God we can be and willing to pay any price to be Christlike.

Christian Counseling - Regret

We all have regrets. Different choices we wished we made. Paths we did not travel. Relationships in which we did not fully invest. Having regrets is not the problem necessarily. How we deal or manage those regrets is.

Think about the regrets that you have had in your life. When you think about the road not taken, does it end up with you getting hit by a bus? Of course not! When we think about the paths that we wished we had taken, it always ends up with life being better than it is today. However, that life is merely a fantasy. As with all fantasies, the more time we spend in the fantasy world, the less time we have to spend in the actual world trying to make our lives better.

One way of approaching this would be to examine your regrets and the better life you would have if you had chosen that path. Ask yourself, what would actually be better if I had made a different choice? Chances are, those things that would be better are missing from your present day life. Is there a way to make changes in your life today to move you closer to what you imagined in your fantasy? If so, we are all better served by trying to make actual change in our lives today rather than living in fantasy.

Remember, though, that there are times when the real world will never meet the fantasy world. For instance, if you grew up with a terrible mother or father, the regret or wish that you had a different childhood or better parent will not go away. We need to grieve and learn to accept the sometimes terrible experiences that life brings us. However, even in that case, we can examine the difference that having a better childhood would have made in our lives today. Then we can purpose to begin to fill in those gaps.

Christian Counseling - Love: The Road To Life

Have you ever been tempted to give up on love? Most of us have, especially when we are devastated by unrequited love. It happens we find it difficult to trust others and believe we need to protect ourselves from the pain of loss. It happens when we play it safe. We may temped to move on from it when we experience diminishing romantic feelings. This occurs after 17 months of a relationship when oxytocin (the love hormone) ceases to produced by our bodies.

It can also happen when we forget how awesomely important love is to human and spiritual life. Forgetting is more likely to happen to men because we are cursed with the obsessive worry and pursuit of work and providing for the family. It is less likely to happen to women because they are cursed with a very deep and painful longing for relationship (Genesis 3:16-19).

Sometimes we need to go back to the basics, like the former, famous coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, would say to his players after a loss, "This is a football." You can't play the game without it. So too, you can't be a Christian without love. This is love (agape-behaviors based upon decisions, not feelings), and its extreme importance (quoted from my article - "Stages of Spiritual Development" that can be found on our website at cccrd.org):

The fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10).
The goal of our instruction (I Timothy 1:5).
The source of life (I John 4:7).
The perfect bond of unity (Colossians 3:14).
The calling card of evangelism (John 13:35).
The essential characteristic of maturity (I Corinthians 13:13).
The new (John 13:34) and greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36,37).
The proof that we are, and hallmark of being, a Christian (I John 4:7-12).
Synonymous with God ( I John 4:16).
The evidence of our love is obedience to Christ (John 14:15).
It covers all transgressions (Proverbs 10:12).
It is incapable of doing wrong (Romans 13:10).
The most powerful force in forgiveness and reconciliation (II Corinthians 5:18,19).
It is the only thing we should owe to others (Romans 13:8).
God's lovingkindness is everlasting (Isaiah 54:8).

Don't give in to the temptation to give up on love. Life without love is like life without God. Instead, seek to understand Ephesians 3:17-19: "...that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." Lastly, seek to consistently express love and freely give it away.

Christian Counseling - Words: The Language Of The Heart

Victorian era novelist, George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans) once said, "Watch your own speech, and notice how it is guided by your less conscious purposes." What we say reveals who we are. Even simple, everyday speech errors tell us something about what's going on in our hearts and minds.

Matthew 12:34-37 says it this way:
"'...For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of
judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."'

What a standard God holds us to--"every careless word." What He is saying is every spoken word is very important for it reveals something about our inner hearts and minds, even that which is outside of conscious awareness. Every word is a window into one's soul, the essence of the person. Scary, huh? Yet, for those who deeply want to know themselves this is a main road of travel leading to the sure destination of self-understanding.

"Every careless word" also implies that we can and need to carefully listen to every single word people say and not quickly or prematurely dismiss their words as only a "slip of the tongue." We can trust that every word reveals some part of the heart. For example, on the presidential campaign trail Senator Obama revealed to Joe the plumber that he didn't want to (yet, going to) penalize the rich, but that "spreading the wealth is good for everybody." In an unprepared moment he unwittingly allowed us to see what is in his heart--a socialist philosophy, at the least.

Insight-oriented therapists, like myself, say we need to listen with a third ear. It means we are looking beyond the spoken words to intended meanings, conscious or not, and saying what has not been said. To illustrate, a woman who says her husband is selfish can mean several things. "Selfish" may be an accurate descriptor, but one other possible understanding is, "I feel rejected because he doesn't give me the time of day." If she has a history of being neglected or abandoned in her relationships, then the third ear has picked up an accurate and important interpretation. To properly discern, first listen to the spoken words and then evaluate what underlies the words by watching nonverbal communication and searching a person's history. When you find matches and consistences in two of these areas, you can have reasonable confidence in the accuracy of your view; in three of these areas, you can be very confident.

We all need to practice listening to every actual and intended word coming from ourselves and others, especially those close to us. Doing so helps us check out our beliefs about them, assist in identifying thoughts and feelings and deepen all our relationships. All of us want to be understood and most of us value self-understanding. We fear and treasure those who have this developed ability.

Christian Counseling - Good Article on Pornography

Recently, there was an interesting article on the problem of pornography. It appeared on the National Review website. Click on the following link to view the article:

http://article.nationalreview.com/429884/getting-serious-about-pornography/anonymous?page=1

The article discusses the impact of pornography on both men and marriage. For men, the objectification of women has a tremendous impact on how they deal in relationships. The article also describes the personal experiences of the author. The author, described as a female psychologist, details how her husband's addiction to pornography led to his abandonment of the marriage. In addition, the article makes a compelling argument that there is much more in common between pornography addiction and drug addiction in terms of cost: financial, emotional, spiritual, and relational.

Christian Counseling - Resistance In Therapy And Life

It has been said by some prominent writers in the field of psychology that the most time consuming and costly part of therapy is client resistance. I would add, it's the most painful part of living. What we resist takes incalculable personal resources. What we fight extends our time in having to deal with those problems and, thereby, increases our pain because we don't accept them. We need to choose our battles by discerning which things to resist and not.

Generally, resistance is a conscious or unconscious defense against change. In treatment, clients resist a therapist's interpretations about what or why things are happening to them and recommendations for recovery and healing. Resistances can be observed in a client's words and/or behaviors. For sure, decisions not to follow a therapist's suggestions is a client right and responsibility. However, when there is a pattern or a frequency of deciding against therapeutic direction it's either an issue of the therapist not being in touch with the client or it's client resistance. Resistance is a red flag. It signals there is something important beyond the defense that needs to be understood. Think about it in this way--a person doesn't build a fort unless there is something valuable to protect. The question is what is being protected?

Resistance is something we all have in varying degrees about different issues. At the root of resistance is fear. People resist an idea or person that is a perceived threat. If it's a real threat it's a good form of resistance (we resist the devil and temptation), but if it's an imaginary threat it's a negative form of resistance (refusing to admit to being angry with God because He'd be angry and chastise us). At the top of the list of things people fear and see as a threat are: change, loss of control, failure, imperfection, overwhelming feelings (anxiety, grief, anger, guilt, etc.), conflict, rejection and not being liked. Some fear good things, like: success, praise, intimacy and being the center of attention.

Psychological resistance is synonymous with spiritual resistance or, as the Bible says it, being stiff-necked or hard of heart. The prophet Jeremiah was sent to the Israelites to point this out in the hope they would turn back to God. But they refused. They consciously resisted Jeremiah, God and change.

People can learn to manage the fear that leads to resistance. Being willing to own one's fear and resistance is the first step. The motivation that assists one in owning them is the deep desire to become more Christlike; to be a better man or woman, husband or wife, parent, coworker, etc. Another step is expecting and allowing brokenness, humbling and trials to be a part of one's life. We don't resist them, but face them, learn what we can and allow ourselves to be transformed by them. We take up the same attitude of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, who admitted His resistance in not wanting to suffer and die, but willingly placed His life in the Father's hands.

We all would love a life without conflict, but that's reserved for the next world, after God establishes a new heaven and earth (Revelation 21). In this world, people can either fight change or do something that strongly goes against the grain of feeling and logic--turn toward and embrace our resistances and welcome the process of change. Such is required for healing.