The counseling process is often stereotyped in the media, and inaccurate representations of the helping profession add to inherent resistance individuals and families experience when considering pursuing help.  Consider a recent dialogue from the sitcom “30 Rock:”

Liz (played by Tina Fey): Jack, what makes a guy get bored in a dating situation?

Jack (played by Alec Baldwin): That’s an excellent question.  The answer is: questions like that.

Liz: This long distance is hard.  And now Carl and I haven’t talked in like five days.  And my other stuff is still unresolved.

Jack: I get it, Lemmon.  You need to see a therapist, someone you can dump your problems on and then get on with your “life.” 

Liz: I’m trying.  I just can’t find someone I like.  I mean, have you ever been to a shrink?

Jack: No, I believe that when you have a problem you talk it over with your priest or your tailor or the mute elevator porter at your men’s club.  Then you take that problem and you crush it with your mind vise.  But for lesser beings like girly-haired men and people who need glasses therapy can help. 

                In asserting that therapy is for “girly-haired men and people who need glasses,” Jack is communicating (in addition to other prejudices) that therapy is for a certain type of weaker person who is not strong enough to crush his or her problems in a “mind vise.”  On the show, the outlandish ego and pride of Baldwin’s character is what makes him so funny.  However, the sad reality is that many individuals share his perspective on counseling.  Unfortunately, seeking help for one’s problems is often viewed as a sign of weakness or inferiority.  Many of us have been raised to believe that you “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” “pray harder,” “have more quiet times,” “just have more faith,” or “push on through and get over it” in order to conquer your problems.  However, life is just not that simple.

             Scripture confirms that our human weakness is an opportunity for God to demonstrate his strength.  Paul writes of God’s work in his own life, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).  When viewing our suffering and struggles in this light, the counseling process (or seeking help from others in any form) can be a means through which the sufficiency of God’s grace and the power of Christ’s resurrection rest upon us.  God has created us for community, for sharing both joys and burdens.  He even expects that we would confess our sins to one another in order to experience forgiveness.  We need each other, and though it might not seem like it, there are people out there who will listen, understand, and help you work through the mess in your life (and we ALL have mess in our lives).  Therapy is not merely “dumping problems out and then getting over it,” as Jack described above.  The counseling process is a way of encountering the mercy of Christ in ways you may never have experienced.  The bottom line is this: you don’t have to crush your problems in your mind vise.  It just might help to talk to someone.

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