The word “stalling” does not bring to mind pleasant experiences. No one wants to be in a plane that’s stalling. A stalling car may signify deeper engine problems. Expected progress on a team project stalls, forcing everyone to brainstorm and troubleshoot what went wrong.
The same happens in counseling and pastoral care. Your meetings with another church member or counselee have been going well, but you can sense the loss of momentum the moment your next session begins. You are revisiting old conversations and talking points. The counselee is not following through with the homework. There is less excitement about the possibility of seeing real change in their lives after years of feeling stuck.
Counseling is stalling.
That feeling of a counseling stall should not immediately raise alarm. Counseling tends to move through stages of progress and setbacks, and returning to square one should not automatically be interpreted as a failure on the counselor’s part. A counseling stall should be seen as an opportunity to step back and prayerfully examine the course of counseling.
Here are four areas that a counselor can examine as they seek to address a counseling stall.
Reconsider the Presenting Problem
Counseling tends to follow a regular initial pattern. Someone with a problem reaches out to a pastor, elder, or counselor to discuss a problem or an area of their life. The counselee’s self-assessment drives the initial conversations. If a counselee comes in wanting to talk about their anxiety, you are going to talk about their anxiety. If a couple wants to talk about their marriage and a lack of intimacy, you will explore more about that lack of intimacy.
But as anyone knows, human beings are often not very self-aware. Some counselees self-diagnose based on a podcast or online symptom research. Another person may want to talk about a part of human experience that we would identify as a “symptom” (anxiety, depression, worry, etc.) of other deeper issues within their lives. Or, some people may want counseling for one specific issue but choose to be less transparent about other areas of their lives that also contribute to the problem.
It is good practice for counselors to hold regular “state of the union” conversations in which counselors and counselees revisit why they are still meeting for counseling and what they hope to accomplish, so both parties stay on the same page. Yet, after several sessions, the counselor and the counselee may start to have different opinions about the counseling issue and what to do about it. For example, a counselee might seek counseling for aimlessness in their life, but the real issue may be undisciplined screen time and video games, coupled with liberal use of legal substances. A couple may want to talk about marital conflict, but both spouses may not be ready to change their pre-marriage lifestyles of evenings out with their friend groups and separate accounts for their funds.
If counseling stalls, you may want to reconsider the presenting problem.
Reflect upon the Structure of Counseling
Biblical counseling has many similarities with personal fitness. Real, lasting change (in counseling and at the gym) rarely happens with disconnected, disorganized spurts of activity. There is a reason why Paul draws a parallel between physical discipline and discipline unto godliness (1 Corinthians 9:24–27; 1 Timothy 4:7–8). Our God is not a God of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:26). The pattern of sowing and reaping applies to both the natural and spiritual life (Gal 6:7–9). After God uses the appointed means to bring forth spiritual life (Word and Spirit), the Christian life becomes a long exercise in following the blueprint for spiritual growth found in Scripture, as men and women of God are slowly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:17).
These principles have clear applications to counseling. The counseling process ought to draw its structure from a biblical framework for how people change. Following the pattern of the epistles, reflection upon biblical truth precedes their application. Things must be understood before they can be applied. Restoration follows genuine repentance. Biblical counselors allow these biblical impulses to inform the appropriate structure for counseling and the counseling issue. At the Institute for Reformed Biblical Counseling, we teach a “realization,” “transformation,” and “reformation” process that loosely follows the Heidelberg Catechism’s structure of “guilt,” “grace,” and “gratitude.”
If counseling is stalling, it may be worthwhile to revisit the structure of counseling. How would Scripture present a framework and process for addressing this counseling issue? What biblical themes or theological truths need to be embraced as God seeks to further transform this counselee into the image of Christ? What practical steps can the counselee begin to take that can begin the process of realignment between the counselee’s life and God’s will as it is revealed in Scripture?
Biblical counselors should be particularly attentive to the structure of counseling in active situations and with counselees prone to instability in life. Each meeting can feel like a “restart” of counseling when something new happens at home or at work in between sessions. The lack of self-control or immaturity of counselees can lead to counseling being dragged from crisis to crisis, new counseling issue to new counseling issue, session after session. If a counselor feels like their head is constantly spinning, or like they are spinning their tires in counseling, it may be worthwhile to step back and reassess the structure of counseling.
Remember Christ
Readers should already be aware that biblical counseling requires an essential ingredient—the Bible! Biblical counselors share with counselees the wisdom and insight the Scriptures offer for their lives. Over the course of many weeks, a counselor may share many passages and biblical truths—about God, the world, man, wisdom, sin, the Christian life, and more.
And yet, our biblical counseling—even with all our Bible content—can drift into being “less-than-biblical.” We see this principle in Jesus’s interactions with the Pharisees in John 5. As Jesus explains to the Pharisees the various “witnesses” to his ministry, our Great Teacher points out a fundamental flaw in their hermeneutic and approach to Scripture:
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39–40)
Biblical counselors can inadvertently make the same critical error Jesus exposes in the Pharisees’ approach to the Bible. Over many sessions, a counselor and counselee may explore together many biblical passages on marriage, conflict, communication, anger, lust, and other practical issues of life. But these truths, infallible and trustworthy, have full effect only insofar as the counselee embraces and treasures the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Scriptures are not ultimately a Christian version of a self-help book or clinical diagnostic tool, but the Word of God that bears witness to God’s wonderful work in salvation. Even if biblical counselors share many helpful and pertinent passages with their counselees, these truths lose their transformative power when disconnected from conversations that exalt Christ for everyone in the counseling room to see.
If you feel your counseling beginning to lose momentum, is it possible that you have spent more time using the Scriptures to try to solve your counselee’s problems on your own, without pointing your counselee to Christ? Biblical counselors are not the ultimate healer of souls, and our counseling must follow the intuitions of the Apostle Phillip in knowing what to do when our counselees need to see Jesus (John 12:21).
If your counseling is stalling, remember Christ, and then go to Christ together with your counselee.
Reevaluate the Counselee’s Commitment
As this article begins to reach its conclusion, it important to identify one final and unfortunate reason why counseling may be stalling. Biblical counselors must remember that faithfulness in counseling is ultimately judged by our efforts to embody and communicate the compassionate counsel and care of Christ contained within the Scriptures. The results of counseling, then, are often entirely out of our control, and dependent upon the sovereign plan and work of God within the counselee by the Holy Spirit, as well as the counselee’s willingness and desires to change.
Here, we encounter that mysterious interaction between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility in counseling. The testimony of the prophets and apostles should sober counselors as they remember that it is entirely possible that our counseling commission from God may include bringing a Word from the Lord that does not reveal the truth but conceals the truth in hardening the sinful heart. Like Isaiah, we may have appointments with individuals who are destined to hear, but not understand, see, but not perceive (Isaiah 6:9). At the same time, these individuals willingly disobey and disregard the Word, “as they were destined to do” (1 Peter 2:8).
These principles remind counselors to assess all progress in counseling from a biblical perspective. Pastors and counselors should be quick to analyze their own potential mistakes or missteps throughout the counseling process. They demonstrate care through laboring with great effort to understand the experience of their counselees and structure counseling in a way most conducive to the presenting problem. A counselor’s first thought should be, “How can I better serve this counselee?”
But repeated stalls in counseling may be a signal that counselors must take seriously. Some counselees may struggle with commitment to counseling not from malicious intent but from other factors that are limiting their ability to focus on counseling. It is also possible that counselees are struggling to make progress in change because the counselee does not want to change. After initial sessions of data gathering and sharing their story, the counselee begins to reveal by their actions, posture, and words that they are not interested in change.
If counseling is stalling, it may be worth carefully exploring the counselee’s commitment to counseling.
Conclusion
Stalling is not a pleasant experience, but it is not an insurmountable obstacle for those regularly engaged in pastoral care and counseling. Pastors and counselors must be ready for times when counseling loses momentum and endures through seasons of ups and downs, and the four potential causes presented above can give counselors a framework for navigating what to do when counseling stalls.
