Counseling – Who Needs That? Podcast Episode

Welcome to Breaking Bread, a podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Today I’ve got Ted Witzig Jr. in the studio. Welcome, Ted. Hi, Matt. Glad to be here. Ted, we’ve got an unwelcome guest at our house right now. You do? Yeah. The flu bug. Oh my. Nasty stuff definitely kind of works its way through. Everybody’s on high alert wondering when the hammer’s going to fall, you know? Oh my. 

We can all relate to that. Our listeners all know exactly what that’s like. Yep. I know what the flu bug is like. Oh yeah. Right. And other physical ailments as well. But there are pains of other kinds that people are dealing with, aren’t there? There are, and particularly when it comes to emotional pain, relational pain, or feeling spiritually not in a good place with one’s spiritual walk. They definitely are present, and they can definitely affect how we feel and function.  

I’d like to have a conversation with you about counseling. Okay. A very large part of the vision here at ACCFS is to provide good Christian counseling. Yes. And so, we want to bring some clarity to that and speak to some of those issues. But is this a farfetched statement? The reality is that life is hard. Yes. And we will inevitably have ups and downs and some difficult things to process. For sure. 

The picture that the Scripture gives is of a traveler in a foreign land, and it also gives the picture of being in a battle, so it doesn’t give us the picture of Earth being Utopia. Again, our hearts ache for that, and what it’s really aching for is to be fulfilled in heaven. Would you walk us through just a little bit as we talk about counseling? 

What is receiving wise counsel? It is part of healthy, godly living and yeah, that doesn’t mean everybody has to go see a clinical therapist all the time, but the other part to that is interesting because if you weren’t able to see well, you’d go talk to the optometrist and get some glasses. 

If you had a plumbing problem, you’d call your plumber. The fascinating thing is people will have problems with low self-worth or panic attacks or difficulty in a marriage or with an addiction, and they’ll say, yeah, I guess I’m going to deal with this on my own. It’s interesting that to speak of my physical ailment of the flu bug or whatever, just so easily comes off my tongue, but there’s a topic on my heart right now. Maybe we’ll talk about it afterwards. Sure. But I wouldn’t think about sharing, necessarily, okay, and for appropriate reasons. But the point is. I would rather go to isolation. It tends to take me there. 

Sure. So, there’s something here. What is it about our minds and these things that we deal with, that we seem to react differently? Shame is an emotion that says to somebody that they are flawed, beyond help, not worthy of love. Satan loves to play on shame. He loves the emotion of shame because it’s a very isolating emotion and he in fact wants to cut us off from the very solutions that God wants to help us with. And that is through relationship, through counsel, through learning new ways to think about things. I notice when I say we had the flu bug or I need to get my eyes checked, it’s not an identity crisis for me to say that. I’ve got no threat to my identity. 

Right. But the other issue that I’m dealing with, Ted, when we struggle with something emotionally, spiritually, or something that trips us up, we often have the tendency to go to that place saying that I am flawed, and not in a way that’s just recognizing that we have strengths and weaknesses. 

I’m talking about something that says if people knew what you were feeling or thinking, then you’re just worthy of rejection and aren’t we so glad that God knows about this very thing and knew our temptation to shame, and then he provides a different out and that out is actually to come into the light, to come into relationship and experience grace. 

So, you’re very much linking that the health required in our lives and some of the things that we deal with really need to be worked out in a relationship. Need to be worked out in openness. Yeah. And that shame and isolation bit just works contrary to that. Oh, for sure. 

Yes, I want to deal with this, but I’m not going to seek any help. You know, and that’s just short-lived. Well, it generates this thought in me, Ted. It’s just things that I think about. Well, I’m not even sure how bad this is in my life. Yeah. Okay. I’m sure it could maybe get to a point where I would need counseling, but what I’m dealing with here maybe isn’t quite on that ticker. Yeah. And we don’t even know what that gauge is. That’s right. And you know what, that’s one of the wonderful reasons to have people in our life that we can bounce things off of to help gauge where things are at. 

People call us here at ACCFS all the time asking things like, my daughter is really sensitive about her weight. Is this normal or is this a problem? Does she have an eating disorder? Should we do something about it? You know, somebody will call in and say, you know, I’ve just been feeling discouraged. I don’t know if I’m depressed or not, but I’m just not able to shake this. How do I know? And one of the things that counsel can provide is perspective. We have a hard time individually with normality. What is normal, right? Yeah. Trying to figure it out. I mean, I know what my life looks like. 

Sure. And so, just making that contact and saying, okay, this is what I’m dealing with. And having a little bit of perspective counseling brings that perspective. It certainly can and I can’t tell you how many people have sat across from me in my office, and it felt like they’re the only one that has ever dealt with this problem or this problem this bad. And it’s fascinating because they are oftentimes just convinced, they’re beyond help or beyond hope. And then when I’m able to look at them and say, you know what, actually let me tell you what this is and let me tell you what we do to help with that and let’s make this plan. 

And when we do that, their eyes go like, really? You know? Yeah. Really? So, I want to accent that point, Ted. You’re not surprised by what you hear. Each individual that comes has an individual and unique story. There’s no question about that. But at the same time, there’s nothing new under the sun either. 

Okay. I can guarantee you that if somebody comes into counseling, they’re not going to make their counselor fall off their chair. What we do in the counseling field is just study human beings and to study what God has created. And we not only study what God has created, we also study how the fall and those things have shifted and caused hurt and harm. 

And then what our job is to really focus on with God’s help is a redeeming process through those hard times. Okay. And I think that is a little bit of the difficulty. When it comes to medicine, somebody can explain it down to the cellular level. Yeah. And why I’m putting this medicine in my body, right? 

Like an antibiotic for an earache or something, penicillin or so on. But when it comes to emotions and thoughts, yeah. I mean, those are hard things to chase down, aren’t they? They are measuring love in a relationship, you know, measuring the attachment between a father and a son. 

You know, there are ways you can quantify them, but really there are a lot of things that are difficult to make tangible, and at the same time, they’re very, very real. Like somebody’s self-concept or somebody’s concept of God, how somebody feels about themselves, how they feel about how God feels towards them has profound effects on how they will relate to their family, how they relate at work. Right. And there is some overlap. I’d have to guess. I mean, I know between the thoughts, emotions, and then also the physical body. Right. Definitely heart, soul, mind and strength is some of the language God uses. Sure. 

But he has knit us and made us wonderfully in that between the physical, mental, and cognitive there’s a lot of interplay. There is, and it is fascinating. The more that medicine and psychology learn about the body and the mind and things like that, the more wonder there is because the interplay of our physical body and our emotions and our relationships and our spiritual walk, those come together in a way that we can’t fully understand. But at the same time, what’s happening in one of those areas can have a strong ripple effect into another area. And so, when we do counseling with people, we look at things in those four areas, how their physical health is, that could be anything from sleep to breathing, and relaxation. 

You know diet, those kinds of things to thought patterns and life experiences on the emotional side, relationships and how connected they are and their spiritual walk, and that that includes what they understand from the Word. But also again, like I mentioned, one’s God image, like how they picture God. So, as we counsel, we are very much touching on the spiritual wellbeing or that discipleship piece of people. Because let’s say somebody comes in and that they were in a grocery store and had a panic attack and they don’t know how we’re going to deal with those things. 

We’re going to try to help those symptoms go down so they can feel comfortable again. But also, through it we want them to not just be symptom free. God wants to do a redeeming work in that and do something that we can’t do of ourselves with it, but that someday he is going to be glorified, and people will be blessed because of what has occurred. 

Have you seen that full course where you’ve had a client in your office with a deep pain and need, and then over the course of years perhaps you see them in a spot where they are thriving for the Lord and in fact infecting others for the Lord? Yes. And I think that is one of the neatest things about this work is to walk with people through their journey and sometimes through really dark times, but then also to see God working in and through them. God can do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we could ask or think.  

Ted, you made a comment here a couple minutes back. You hinted to the growth of the field where the knowledge that the field has growing in. Yes. So, in your experience of X number of years or whatnot, there’s some real promise here too. We’re learning or understanding perhaps. Speak to that.  

Oh, I think that’s one of the most exciting things also is that just like people are very aware of new breakthroughs in medicine or in technology and things like that. The field of understanding human beings, how they process emotions, how to treat emotional disorders is also growing and things that a couple decades ago would’ve been considered just untreatable. Like you just live with it. There are treatments for that today. We’re not replacing the Scriptures for the textbook, are we? Oh, absolutely not. In fact, Scripture is our starting point. It is what gives us the worldview to understand all different kinds of things, and even particularly to understand suffering, to understand the fallenness of things, but to also understand what healthy godly living is. 

So, at the end of the day, that is one of the things that makes Christian counseling different than other kinds of counseling, and that is, it starts fundamentally with the Scripture and to what the Scripture speaks to directly, we directly apply. And where it speaks in principle, we apply those principles. 

And so, by no means do we intend at any time to say, oh, hey, you know what? Whatever the theory of the day is, that’s going to be our end all. No, the Scripture is our beginning and ending. God has also been providing in the area of counseling and insight into how to help people deal with depression and anxiety and trauma and addiction, and that those are areas that he wants to see lives renewed. 

I think maybe to counter a point that some might have. Well, I think this is something I just need to work out by myself. Sure. Okay. And we have that speaking to that isolation thing. God wants us to help one another. Yeah. Is that true? Am I picking up on a narrative of the Word? 

Yes. In fact, God has given us a stewardship of our lives, of our body, our mind, our relationships, our spiritual walk. But then as part of that stewardship, as we work with that, part of it is to be members one of another. Yeah. Part of it is to exhort and encourage one another to lift up the fallen and to remind each other. 

And so, I think one of the beautiful things about the Scripture is that yes, we are to be responsible for what is in our control, okay? But we are also to be part of a body that cares for a church body and families that care for one another. And in so doing we help each other through those ups and downs because some of the time, Matt, I’m going to be the one that’s encouraging you, but some of the time you’re going to be the one that’s encouraging me. And that isn’t by accident, that’s by design. That’s how God designed his church to function. Ted, can you give us a little taste of what counseling looks like.  

The first thing I want to do is to know their story. I want to know what brings them there. I’m going to ask about their life. And then we’re going to put together a plan. We’re going to identify the issues they want to address, and we’re going to put a plan around it. I’m going to give them options for different ways to go. I think it’s very important that people understand that counseling is a process, not generally a moment. It is a collaboration and in that, I would tell people that I am not looking for any one session to be the fix or the cure. I believe that God works in the process of growth, just like with a flower. It doesn’t go from seed to fully flowered plant in one step. It is a process. 

And that’s how counseling works. The counselor is not a seer with the answer as much as a person who comes along and walks in life with a person. Yes. And you know, there are times when people need specific information that they don’t have, they just don’t know how, they don’t understand something. We can give them information. 

So that’s very helpful for people. The flip side though is there are sometimes problems that we don’t know how it’s going to work out or how we’re going to fix it or things of that nature, but what’s wonderful is that we can trust that God will help us see one step at a time through it. 

And that’s marvelous. And that sounds just like God, that at the end of this process you would see there were enough gaps that God must have stepped in and done his thing. Absolutely. To get this thing to where it’s at. Absolutely. It’s still this back and forth between therapist and client. And then we’re always wanting to connect back to what’s going on outside of the office to that person, support network, their family, their accountability people, their minister, their physician, whoever’s in that network. So, engaging this larger spectrum of helpers. Yes, that’s correct. 

Alright. Ted, I know from experience that reaching out might be the most difficult. Right. Sure. It can be making that call. Yeah. And it’s not that we can remedy that, but maybe a little bit of clarity. Yeah. What does it look like in this agency? How would that ball get rolling? 

Yeah. So, if somebody has a question and they’re not sure what they need. They’re not sure if this needs counseling or do I just need to read a book? Or is this normal or whatever. They can call into Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services and just ask to talk to a counselor. 

And what they’ll do is set up a 30-minute time spot where the counselor and the caller will talk for 30 minutes. It’s a free call. They can call and we’ll just talk about what’s going on. Let’s say it is a mom wanting to know if this child’s anger is normal, abnormal? How should I parent? 

And during that half an hour, we’re going to hear about that child, we’re going to hear what the mom’s tried, all those different things. And then by the end of that, we’re going to give the person some next steps. Okay? And those next steps can be everything from a referral to a counselor, point them to some resources, all different kinds of things. 

What I would like people to understand is that while often oftentimes it feels like that first call is so difficult, the people here on this side, we do this. Every day, all day, and we are ready and willing to take those phone calls. Our goal is to hear what’s going on and try to help them to effectively address it. 

If that’s counseling with a clinical counselor, great. Let’s get that set up. If that is, hey, you know what? I think it would be good if you read this or develop this with an accountability partner. We’ll help them do that. But I think that sense of not knowing what to even asking for or not knowing what they need and that’s where people feel like they have to know the answer before they start in. In actuality, because Ted, sometimes we don’t have the vocabulary to even explain what we’re dealing with. For sure. Sometimes people just say, I don’t know what’s wrong, I just don’t, I just don’t feel joy and I don’t like it, but I don’t know what to do. 

You know, that’s okay. That’s okay. We’ll help you figure that out. Have you experienced where people have found visible relief just by making that engagement? Oh, for sure. We haven’t even gone through the process if you’ve already laid out. Right. We haven’t even got to that end, but just like, okay, that felt good. 

Yeah. I just want to assure people that they will be accepted. Okay. They will be listened to, okay? They’ll be given options for a plan, and then they can choose. Your counselor will accept you where you’re at, and I think that, again, is the modeling of Jesus when he met the woman at the well, or the woman caught in adultery or Nicodemus. In each of those cases, he met them right where they were at. His vocabulary, his approach to them shifted to who they are. And our goal is to make sure that we help the clients from where they’re at.  

Ted, we can’t escape that there’s money on people’s minds. Right. Okay, sure. This is going to cost something. I expect that when I go to the doctor and pay for my prescription and it’s pretty easy. Like a comparison, an economic comparison. Okay, I got this for that price. Right. We can make that evaluation. Sure. And so sometimes I think we, with trepidation, go into this, do I need counseling? What is it going to cost? How is that going to work? Could you briefly walk through what that looks like.  

Sure. Certainly, it’s going to be different if talking to a support person that you just know in your family or at church to working with a mental health professional. It is absolutely acceptable and encouraged to find out what the costs are. Some places that provide counseling may accept medical insurance. Other places like our center uses a sliding fee scale based on family income and so the goal is to make sure that you understand the financial arrangements and that they’ll work for you. Here at our center, we try to make sure that people are paying as much as they are able because we believe it’s part of good stewardship and the investment that they need to have for themselves. And at the same time, we also realize that finances are one of the top stressors for people getting counseling. So that’s one of the blessings that we have here as a non-profit center that’s been donation funded, is that we’re able to provide rates for people that they can actually get the counseling they need rather than not being able to afford it or it becomes a stressor that is overwhelming in itself. And Ted, the money that we use here at the agency to supplement that sliding fee scale is a fund called the Brothers Keeper Fund. 

Brothers Keeper Fund. Maybe say a word about that. Yes. So, one of the neat opportunities that we have for people to donate to ACCFS is to the Brothers Keepers Fund where they can help offset the cost of counseling for people in counseling. And so, let’s imagine it’s a young couple. They’ve got a couple kids, they are cash strapped to begin with, and now the wife is dealing with some postpartum depression. The Brothers Keeper Fund allows people to be able to offset the cost of counseling so that couple can get the help that they need so that finances do not sink them. And then what’s really neat is God is going to help them through this and maybe down the road they’re going to turn around and they’re going to help somebody else to go through counseling, or maybe they’re going to serve God in another capacity. God takes care of those details.  

But what’s really special is if you think about investing in something, think about what an investment helping somebody get past an addiction is. With my donation to this fund, I am helping a person with an addiction. I’m helping his spouse and family. Absolutely. The ripple effects of this person being at a good place in their life. Now when we start to talk in vocabulary, we see that payback, that payoff is a pretty exciting thing to be a part of. Ted, I think you’ve brought some clarity around the mission of counseling that goes out of this agency, and I trust our listeners that you can catch the hope. 

Maybe you’ve seen yourself in some of the things that have been said here or have others in your life that you would encourage. But again, the basic take home here is we’re broken. And the beauty of the hope of the gospel absolutely is that Christ redeems this brokenness and very frequently it’s through his hands and feet, which is the church. 

That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. Because I believe in his power to do that in the lives of people just like you and me. That’s exciting, Ted, and to our listeners, thank you for being with us. We hope ACCFS can be a blessing to you. And to be further encouraged, please use our website at accounseling.org or perhaps you would like to talk with our clinical staff. If so, don’t hesitate to call 309-263-5536. Have a blessed day.