In this book published in 1996 by Tyndale House Publishers, McMinn (1996) talks about integrating psychology, theology, and spirituality.
The first two chapters talk about history and using religion in the counseling sessions, as well as psychological and spiritual health.According to McMinn (1996), we go through three stages to psychological and spiritual health.The stages are self-sufficiency, brokenness, and healing relationship. We start by doing things for ourselves, then we see our brokenness and sin, and finally we find a healing relationship with God.
He then talks about the disciplines that can be used in the therapy sessions to help a client.The disciplines McMinn (1996) discusses are prayer, scripture, sin, confession, forgiveness, and redemption. We can use prayer in many ways such as silent prayer for our clients, prayer in session with clients, using meditation or contemplative prayer in or out of the session, and praying for the client outside of the session.We need to make sure the client is ready for this intervention if we pray aloud with the client or we could do harm to the client and the relationship.Scripture can be used in many ways in a therapy session as well.
You can directly useScripture, you can use scripturally based strategies for counseling, you can use strategies that are not directly stated in Scripture but are not against Scripture, and you do not use any strategies that would be against what Scripture states.The use of Scripture must done carefully and only when the client is ready if using Scripture directly. The other methods can be integrated well from the start. We as counselors need to confront our client’s sin to help them become closer to God.Here are the methods for this: silence, pondering, questioning, and direct censure.
To use silencewe do not respond to the client and let them think things out themselves (McMinn, 1996).
