The Canadian Patient

If I could do any job, and ambition and finances were not factors at all, two vocations that I would absolutely love are stand-up comedian and counselor. This post is about the counselor part.

Going into this DTS, I had heard that 90+% of the students will have experienced abuse and come from broken families. That sounds like the case here, except I would add you could also throw in problems with sex, drugs, and/or alcohol.

Here’s the story of one of my friends / classmates. I take confidentiality very seriously, except everyone reading this is 3,000 miles away and will certainly never meet her in person, so I think this is appropriate. We’ll call her G.

G’s parents separated when she was around age 13/14. She developed anorexia and bulimia. She was hospitalized for it at one point. She’s better now, but it still acts up when she’s stressed.

She’s had one four-month boyfriend and 2 one-week boyfriends. She likes a guy here, but she knows not to date right now. But she’s having a hard time being content in singleness.

She felt like a loner in middle school and high school. She currently feels disconnected with her roommates, but she says it’s getting better.

She’s very pretty, but she hates the way she looks. She’s convinced she’s ugly. A small part of it stems from when she was rejected for her looks by a guy she liked at age 13.

Her mom has MS and is in a wheel chair. Her dad is legally blind because of a drug addiction. They’re both on disability. She says her mom is controlling and doesn’t trust her. She doesn’t get along with her dad at all.

I am not in danger of having a savior complex. She has plenty of real help here. But I have no idea where I’d start if I were a counselor.
It’s happened a handful of times where I’ve had a “counselor-patient”-like relationship with somebody. I don’t actually look for that at all, but I must have just struck some people as trustworthy/wise/approachable. And when it happens, I mainly always just listen. And then at the end sometimes I throw in my two cents on something, and that normally proves to be a bit helpful, which is cool. But no one has ever reversed into being a completely well-adjusted person. So I want to get better at helping people. So I got a book another book on counseling. I’ve read Christian Counseling: A Comprehensive Guide by Gary Collins. It was very disappointing. So now I am awaiting The Professional Counselor: A Process Guide to Helping. And after that I'm going to get Counseling: How to Counsel Biblically by John MacArthur (or something like it).