Solution-focused Pastoral Counseling: An Effective Short-term Approach for Getting People Back on Track - Tapa dura

This groundbreaking book, now updated and expanded, furthers its original, effective, time-saving approach that benefits pastors overtaxed by counseling demands. Dr. Charles Kollar presents a departure in pastoral counseling, showing that counseling need not be long-term or depend on psychological manipulation to produce dramatic results. In most cases, the solution lies with the counselees themselves. Using the tested methods found in Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling, pastors, apart from counselors, will be well equipped to help their counselees discover a solution and put it in motion speedily and productively.SFPC is short-term---typically one to five sessions, in which the counselor seeks to create solutions with---not for---the counselee. The focus is on the possibility of life without the problem through an understanding of what is different when the problem does not occur or is less intrusive. The goal is healthy change, sooner rather than later, by helping the counselee see and work on the solution with God's activity already present in his or her life.The solution-focused approach does not require the counselor to be a highly trained psychological expert. It requires biblically based sensitivity and common sense. Yet this approach also recognizes its limitations and understands that there are situations in which other professional and/or medical help is required.

Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling introduces a fresh, effective, and time-saving approach that will benefit pastors overtaxed by counseling demands. Dr. Charles A. Kollar shows that counseling need not be long-term to produce dramatic results. In most cases, the solution lies with the counselees themselves. Pastors, apart from therapists, are well equipped to help the counselees discover it and put it in motion speedily and productively. Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling shifts the emphasis from the problem to the strengths, vision, and practical solutions that lie within the individual. Stressing that God is already active in the counselee, Dr. Kollar first lays the theological and theoretical groundwork for short-term counseling. Then he shows how to apply theory to practical, short-term sessions that help people get back on track in their marriage, family living, and other aspects of life. Kollar recognizes that there is a time to refer to a Christian specialist, but he warns against today's ready-referral mindset. What is generally needed, he believes, is neither professional help nor long-term counseling, but a new paradigm based on Christian identity. Like "new wineskins," Christians are fashioned not for the old wine of problem-oriented therapy, but the new wine of God's life-changing grace.