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Faculty Contribution
Linda Mintle Professor and Chair, Division of Behavioral Health, College of Osteopathic Medicine
ANSWERING THE CALL TO CHRISTIAN COUNSELING The popularity of the book, The Purpose Driven Life, highlighted the fact that most of us desire to fulfill our purpose on this earth. For me, that purpose began to take shape after the tragic loss of my older brother from a terrorist bomb on an airplane. Devastated by his unexpected death, I changed my college major from law to psychology. As a young adult, it was difficult for me to understand how a good God could allow such a bad thing to happen. I wanted answers; and while I believed that one day, all pain would be gone, I live on this side of eternity. Bad things do happen to good people, but how do we make sense of this and stay in positive mental health? I was raised in the church but had no real theology for suffering. Mental health problems were not discussed. I knew Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted and to proclaim freedom for the captive, but no one talked about what that looked like in everyday life. How does faith inform not only my life, but also my clinical practice? After my brother’s death, I immersed myself in the study of psychology, determined to find ways to help those who suffer. My secular professors made it clear that my faith had no place in the classroom of serious study. In their eyes, a belief in Jesus was for the delusional and the weak. I needed to drop my insistence that religion had value and awaken to their reality that humanity is capable of self-fulfillment and healing without God. Our narratives were very different. For me, the Christian world view supported the findings in psychology. Psychology helped me understand and navigate the grieving process. I also knew that without my faith, I could not have handled my brother’s death nor held on to the hope for a better day and eventual reunion. Psychology could only take me so far. It was helpful, but not life transforming. It taught me much in the practical realm and helped
work me through difficult relationships and events, but we are more than body and mind, walking through suffering also takes attending to the spirit. After the Fall, the rebellion of man plunged the world into brokenness and changed our natural human disposition. We are not fundamentally good, but in need of redemption, and we cannot find answers by solely turning inward. As lovers of self, this disordered love leads to pain, restlessness and psychological distress. The unredeemed human heart is wicked and the mind easily deceived. As Christians, we are not exempt from the natural causes of a fallen world or the progression of a poor environment or bad habits. Our world is full of disease, illness, violence, abuse, and all sorts of pain. Scripture tells us that even creation groans in this fallen state. In my profession, clinicians daily witness how much pain and suffering exists in peoples’ lives. At times, it feels overwhelming — a six-year-old beaten by his father, a ten-year old sexually abused by an uncle, a 13-year-old neglected by a drug addicted mom, an emaciated teenager who starves herself to 83 pounds and believes she is “fat,” a couple who grows apart and becomes emotionally distant believing there is no way back to love, and a daughter who finds her father hanging in his bedroom from an act of suicide. The stories go on and on and repeat in numerous versions. The emotional pain is real and the suffering immense. Sitting with people in emotional pain is a privilege that I don’t take lightly. People trust me with the most vulnerable parts of their lives. I do what I can and do help people because of my training. I have to be willing to be vulnerable, to sit with pain, and be compassionate to those who are hurting, but I also have to balance the pain of others with self and soul care. I can’t fix everyone and I certainly can’t make people change. At times, it is easy to grow weary,
