Beyond Symptom Reduction Podcast Episode

The thing about it is a lot of times people look at counseling and be like, can you help me get rid of this pain? And then how long is this going to take Doc? I would say that as a Christian psychologist, I look more at this as symptom reduction is an important part of the journey and as that is addressed, it clears us up to be able to come into the second stage of counseling, which is going to really be about addressing and learning some key skills, some growth areas. It might be learning things like a Christ-centered self-worth and identity about those healthy boundaries, about how to form healthier relationships.  

Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Great to have everybody along. Great to have you here, Ted Witzig Jr. Welcome. It’s good to be with you, Matt. Ted, how long have you been a therapist? I started June 1st, 1997. So, a lot of water has gone under the bridge. Yes. Yeah. It’s hard to believe. 

In every profession, there are things that you learn in school and then there are things you learn from the job. Oh, yeah. And I’m sure you’ve got a myriad of those things. Let’s touch on one, this idea of symptom reduction as an objective for therapy and personal health as opposed to something deeper. 

Yeah. I want you to unpack that and your journey to how you came to realize this is such a critical matter in the work that you do. So, one of the things that I realized is that what brings people to counseling is pain and hurt or a symptom. Or something that disturbs them as human beings. 

I have to tell you; we rarely move off of our status quo without something either driving us to grow towards something or moving us away from something. Right? We want something further. I want to deepen my understanding of this. Or I want to be able to do this better. Or I have something over here that I want to move away from or I want it to stop or whatever. 

And neither is right nor wrong. So, I’m just saying that if somebody is having panic attacks, they want those to stop and I don’t blame them. Okay. And if somebody wants to grow in their ability to do good public speaking or to be more social in a situation, that could be a fine goal. But it’s interesting that in terms of counseling, human beings, but also our model of care in the United States particularly, but it’s probably true of other places, is to how do we get rid of the symptoms? Okay, how do we go from symptomatic to asymptomatic? 

So, from panic attacks to no panic attacks, clinical depression to no clinical depression. Post-traumatic stress to none, a problem with alcohol to no problem with alcohol. So, it’s that kind of reduction. And so, this is one of the matters of many that in your decades of experience you’ve come to see that patients tend to be more interested in symptom reduction than to something deeper. Is that true? Yeah. And so, I think one of the things at the start is that getting the symptoms out of the way is helpful. It’s good to do. But what happens though is that if we don’t look a little deeper than that, then we miss some really important things, fundamental things. 

Sometimes it’s A, what started those things off or B, how does God want us to take something that was bad or difficult and actually redeem it? And I think that’s a really important aspect of going through a difficult time even of suffering. The reality is that as a Christian counselor, I want to help people move from experiencing suffering and pain to less. The reduction of suffering is a key value for us, and ministering to people’s hurt, their griefs and those kinds of things. We also want to see these things through a biblical lens that says, how can this crucible of crisis or pressure or pain lead to maturity? 

How can that lead to greater vision for helping others or serve greater purposes. Now when somebody comes in and they have just experienced an excruciating loss, I don’t start out by saying, hey, what a great experience you’ve had, and this is going to be great. 

This is saying that there will be difficult times, but what you’re painting is a larger arc to the growth of a human being. That’s correct. And sometimes we take the off ramp too soon. And I’m curious what that looked like in your practice. How did this really become the lens you have towards symptom reduction as well as a deeper object of growth? How did that set in? Were there points of frustration?  

So, there are two things that I would say, one that I noticed is that my clients were super motivated when they were in pain. For example, when somebody was having panic attacks and I said, hey, I can get you in Thursday at two. They can find a way to get there on Thursday at two. And if you said, this is what I want you to do, they would be focused on that. And by the way, I’m no different than that. So, I want to be very careful about sounding like I have figured it out. Let me tell you what, when I have a pain, the first appointment my doctor has open, boom, I’m there. 

The thing that happens as that relief starts to come, the need to do the homework to follow up, those kinds of things start to become less important. Hey, life is getting back to normal. It’s going well enough and I’m getting back into normal grooves and great, I’m glad I’m not hurting. 

What starts to emerge right then is that some other things become clearer. Some of the things that we need to address are gaps in skills that need to be grown. Well, guess what? They’re likely not there because they’re hard in some way, or they make you deal with some things that you’d rather avoid. Well, it’s interesting that pain is motivating, which is not hard to understand. Yeah. But once that pain or symptom is reduced, we really let off the gas. That’s right. 

And the thing about it is, a lot of times people will look at counseling and be like okay, session number one, can you help me get rid of this pain? And then how long is this going to take, doc? Yes. Okay. And we have this because it’s never a good time to deal with any of these things, right? 

And so sometimes what we want is the fastest fix that we can get, and we want it to move us along really fast. I do. Yeah. I’m no different than this. And I would say that as a Christian psychologist, I look more at this that symptom reduction or dealing with a problematic relational thing or whatever is an important part of the journey. 

I’m not trying to minimize that at all. I think it is an important part of the journey. I would say it this way that as that is addressed, it clears us up to be able to come into the second stage of counseling, which is going to really be about addressing and learning some key skills, some growth areas. It might be learning things like a Christ-centered self-worth and identity, healthy boundaries, and about how to form healthier relationships. And that takes some time.  

So, I’m curious, and this is just shooting from the hip here. Do you think most people are blind to the needs of the second half of the journey or resistant? Yep. Do you know what? I’m sure it can be both. I’m sure it is. I’m just curious. I’m going to say it this way. I think what happens is that many times we learn to live with ourselves and our tendencies, whatever they are. Maybe it’s passivity in relationships. Maybe it’s egotism in relation, maybe it’s feeling inferior, maybe it’s not having a certain skillset or communication. 

And then what happens is we say, that’s just how it is. It’s just going to be that way because what motivates a lot of people when they think about it this way is that their pain threshold has to get high enough that they reach out. It’s interesting because sometimes I’ll talk to somebody and they’re asking me for some advice and I’ll say, well, have you ever considered doing some couples counseling? And they’ll say, are we that bad? And I’m like, whoa, that’s the wrong way to look at this. Yeah. Whoa, but they’re looking at it through a symptom mindset. 

They’re looking at it through the first half. Yeah. And looking at it that we have to be bad in order to grow. Yeah. All right. So, Ted, I know you well enough to know that you’ve probably broken this down in some ways. Right? I mean, you’ve thought about it enough. You’ve seen people take the off ramp too soon. 

Yeah. You see when the pressure is off. You know? And that second half doesn’t get worked on like you like. Yep. So, I’m curious what some of those nuanced lenses are. Yep. How are you thinking about that? I’ve broken it into four questions that I like to ask. These aren’t perfect questions. You can go lots of different directions, but the four questions that I ask myself and others are, can you say that your predominant outlook on life is joy? Okay? That’s number one. Number two, are your relationships healthy and satisfying? Number three. Is your relationship with God unhindered and growing? And number four, do you know what your spiritual gifts and talents are and are you actively engaged in using them?  

So, can we dig into them a little bit more? Yeah. Take one at a time. I just go into them, and I’ll say, so like when I’m asking that first question, is your predominant outlook on life joy. It doesn’t mean you don’t have sad emotions or have up or down feelings, but it really means are you living a life that you can say you’re living the abundance in Jesus Christ. It just means that you have a sense of hope, you have a joy that goes beyond circumstances. It doesn’t mean you’re not affected by circumstances; you are affected as Christians. 

We are, but I would have these three sub-questions. Okay. Number one, are you able to say that you’re living an abundant life in Christ? Number two, do you have the skills to adequately address the ups and downs of life, the stressors and strains, the joys and sorrows, because we’re going to experience those things. Do you have adequate skills to address those as they come up and keep on going? And then third, is your outlook on this life. Are you living here in this life in light of the next life? And so, as believers, we have dual vision, not double vision. That’ll make you dizzy.  

Dual vision is to see this life in light of that life. What are some skill sets to help with that? Yeah, so two things. One is we spend a lot of time with people helping them understand their self-talk and helping them understand how their self-talk and their beliefs about life in the world and how they’re interpreting things impact their moods and behaviors. 

This comes right out of that proverb, for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And most of the time, we’re blind to our own self-talk because it’s just the ongoing chatter. We don’t sometimes step back and say, oh, wait a minute, that’s not helpful at all. And there are a lot of different tools we have to help shift that self-talk to things that are ground in the truth of the Word which gives us a lot of hope. We’re not talking about Pollyanna stuff like everybody likes me. Everybody’s for me. We’re not talking about that.  

Well, if you go back to this threshold of pain, okay. When my pain is really high, then I’m motivated to address it. Really, you’re calling us to a discernment of self-awareness to say, you know what? I’m not as healthy as I can be at the moment. I’m not in pain like I was but I’m not experiencing the joy that is normative. We want to get back to normal, don’t we? Yeah. And you’re resetting what normal should be for a believer. Yeah. And I think the thing is that it’s a growth model mindset. And by the way, it’s okay when somebody’s experiencing deep loss or grief or an illness or something they have to attend to. We want to help people there. What I’m talking about is when people get to hear they’re okay. Let’s just go back to getting out of the suffering and go back to normal life. 

What we want is normal life, but we want to see it through a biblical lens. And one of those, again, is my predominant outlook on life joy? Well, a normal life without joy is not a normal life. That’s an important lesson. Yeah. And that’s actually worth thinking about. Let’s take the next one. So, are my relationships healthy and satisfying? That’s pretty broad but here’s the thing. If somebody has repetitive problems in certain kinds of relationships. They have a really hard time with trust, or they can’t deal with authority or marital issues are in the way or things like that. 

So, what we’re looking at number one is just the capacity to have close attachment bonds with key people in life. So, it’s the ability to have connected attachments, relationships by their nature. We will oftentimes have seasons, transitions, communication challenges and things like that. So, we have to be able to navigate with these things. So, you know, it’s much different when you’re a parent dealing with a 5-year-old versus a 15-year-old versus a 30-year-old. Those are very different relationships and so we have to navigate that over time. We’re trying to find places and people where I can be really transparent, where I can know and be known. Okay. And then also, how do I say no to unhealthy things and let in healthy things? Yeah. Because if we don’t do those then we have more pain in store for other people in our lives or for ourselves. 

That’s exactly right. So, that’s when you go back to that question, are my relationships healthy and satisfying? Again, they’re not going to be always perfect, but the goal is to be able to inhabit those as good as possible. That’s good. Let’s go to the third one. The third one, is my relationship with God unhindered and growing? So, you’ll hear two pieces in that. There’s an assumption that a person has a personal relationship with God, but the unhindered part is about whether there are barriers between me and the Lord? And those could be in these different categories. 

First of all, am I living an overcoming life in Christ or am I in bondage to sin in some way? Okay. Again, as human beings, we’re going to wrestle with different things and sometimes the things that beset us, but I think the key here is that we are living an overcoming life as opposed to one where sin is running rampant or overrunning us. That will be a hindrance. 

Another hindrance is where people have an unhealthy view of God. Their God image has distortions to it. And God image distortions are often things that have developed because of life experiences or hurts in relationships or not having key relationships that teach us about who God is. And so, what happens is sometimes people have a picture of God that leads to pulling away from him instead of going toward him. 

So, we really want to deal with those things as well. So, that’s a couple examples of things that hinder relationships. There could be other things like priorities out of whack, you know, time management that’s not in place, but when I say growing, I’m not looking at it like there’s a certain checklist that you have to do. I would say personally that somebody seeking to grow in their walk with Christ would be perhaps in spiritual disciplines in their community and just how they live that out. 

And maybe even helping us see what normal should be as a believer because we do want to get back to normal. Yes. But sometimes we don’t know what normal is. That’s one of my big takeaways here. Yeah. We don’t know what normal is for a believer in process. Yes. And we are the healthiest people when we are in process with Christ. That’s right. So, if we have this idea that we’ve arrived or this is the limit of my spiritual growth or this is all that I go with Jesus, then we’re missing out on the Christian human experience for sure.  

The fourth thing is knowing what my spiritual gifts and talents are and am I actively involved in using them? So, one of the things that I’ve found is that people know other people have spiritual gifts and talents. Okay. And so, to be able to know their own is one of the parts of this. Can I know and see that as a gift the Holy Spirit has given me in my life? And then, am I using them? 

So, those two pieces; do I know them, and do I use them? So why is this important? First of all, it’s because above all these things, to be able to live our lives for the glory of God and for the kingdom of God makes even the mundane into something meaningful. Number two, to be able to see that the resources I have, whether that’s my time, actual resources, my station in life, the people I’m around, my vocation, and the stage of life is a stewardship. This is a stewardship. And so, if one of our listeners is a mom of young children, that’s where they are and that’s their stewardship for their time. And if somebody else is a 75-year-old who is looking back and seeing a variety of different things. 

They have a stewardship of knowledge and of a place in life. We all have a stewardship. And I think that stewardship mindset is really important. And then the last piece of this is to be able to own the fact that we are blessed to be part of God’s design. Living this out for him means that we have a very meaningful existence. A ditch that people will run into is that they have to be the best at something in order to be a steward of something. Okay. And we have to get rid of that mindset. We have to get rid of the mindset that I have to be known for something, or I have to be the best at something. The reality is we need to use what we have for his glory. 

I love that. And this category to me means living as we were created to live Absolutely. Living as we were created to live. Yep. And I love to look to the animal kingdom for that. You watch a bird and it’s just operating according to the specs of the Creator. And a creator knows how his or her creative thing should operate. 

I mean, talk to any manufacturer. Yeah. And they’re going to scratch their heads at the people who buy their stuff and use it for a different purpose. Yeah. It’s like, that’s not what I created it for. Yeah. So, the intent of the creator is huge. And you’re really calling us back to God’s intention for us, which has something to do with spiritual gifting. Yeah. Whereby we can find vocation in him in terms of living out purposes. So, your view and perspective that living a healthy life and moving on from symptom reduction is going to be living as God created you to live. That’s correct. And I think part of that is I see this progression, and it goes along with the mission phrase that we use here at ACCFS and our mission phrase says this, helping the hurting, nurturing hope, encouraging growth.  

And if you think about it, often when people come into our counseling rooms, they come in because of some kind of pain and understandably so. We want to help reduce that. But as we do, as we move them out of that panic, that OCD, that struggle with something, as that’s coming down, we want to move over into nurturing hope. We want them to develop their identity in Christ, learn those healthy boundaries, those communication skills, their understanding of a healthy God image. And then we want them to move over into encouraging growth so that they are doing several things. 

One is they’re living according to the Creator’s design for them at their life stage, who they are and then also that they then get to be part of the solution. And over there is often where people are in this third stage, in this encouraging growth stage. It’s often where people are able to see then how what they’ve gone through, even if that thing was not good in itself, how there is some way that they can be part of God’s hands and feet ministering to other people down over here. 

And that’s a really cool thing. I like that, Ted. Thanks. And as I summarize, this is some of what I’ve learned. As humans we are highly motivated by pain. And we’re willing to find answers and put in hard work to reduce the symptoms with the intention of getting back to normal. 

Okay. So, this is the tweak. Yeah. As humans, we want to get back to normal, and we think we’re back to normal. But what you’ve cast is a vision for a new normal and whatever ails us in life. A new normal is in store whereby we live into these things, joy, relationships, and living with God according to his design. Yeah. And that is God’s intention with pain reduction, therapy, healing, and growth. Thanks a lot.