Have you ever wanted to ask a question and did not know who to ask? Sometimes we might not even know what we really want to ask. The Louisiana Baptist Message felt it would be helpful to write a series of articles about counseling and family health issues. My plan is to pick different topics and the most frequently asked questions that I hear.
Have you ever wanted to ask a question and did not know who to ask? Sometimes we might not even know what we really want to ask. The Louisiana Baptist Message felt it would be helpful to write a series of articles about counseling and family health issues. My plan is to pick different topics and the most frequently asked questions that I hear.
My name is Gary Greene and I am the Director of Counseling at the Granberry Counseling Centers. Granberry is a ministry of the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home and Family Ministries.
Some of the topics that I will attempt to answer are things like what is Christian Counseling? What are the signs of depression? How can I beat feeling anxious? How can we improve communication skills in our marriage? How does the Bible tell us to resolve a conflict? How can we benefit from relaxation? How might we enrich our marriages? How can we parent better?
In this first column we are going to address the issue of what it takes to become a Licensed Counselor. On a regular basis I have calls from people who want to someday become a Professional Counselor in Louisiana. They ask questions like what are Professional Christian Counselors and what does it take to become one?
To the question of what is a Professional Christian Counselor. First, I believe a Professional Christian Counselor is a true integrationist. That is, we have a personal relationship with God’s Son and hold to the truth of the Word of God. And second we have professional clinical training. I believe that God’s Word has the answers to life’s problems. It is the right medicine. The problem is that it is a medicine that needs to be injected deep into the heart. Many are taking the right medicine and trying to rub it on topically. They are mystified as to why it did not fully work as they thought it would. The clinical training that a professional counselor gets is simply the hypodermic needle that potentially can get the right medicine to the right place where it can do what it is supposed to do.
The second part of the question is, what does a person have to do to become a Professional Counselor? Here is the short answer. Four years of college that culminates in a Bachelors degree and a Master’s and/or Doctorate degree, (two to five-plus additional years). The Master’s must have at least 48 hours graduate semesters in counseling-related field with specific Board-required courses. Then, beyond the graduate degree, the person must do an additional three year Post Graduate Internship, documenting a minimum of 3000 hours of experience. All this takes place while they are getting supervision over that three-year period. To sit in the chair of a professional counselor takes at minimum, nine years of hard work. On top of all this, a professional Christian Counselor must learn how to bring both his Christian resources and Clinical skill together to be the most effective counselor.
I look forward to our future topics on Counseling and Family Health. God’s Blessings!