After having yet another person ask whether there was any Christian counseling near me, I started doing some research. Great question. I just sublet to a therapist who self-identified as being a Christian counselor Four days in one city and one day in another city. He sub-sublet his office to another Christian counselor in my city. He explained to me that he was overwhelmed with referrals.
I’m puzzled on why counselors don’t flock to become Christians. After all, there does seem to be some money in it. I did some research in building a practice “Growing Your Practice” and found that finding a niche was really important in making a living. And yet, here is a niche ready for the making.
OK, now I was really puzzled and did a SEO analysis. Geekdom, alert, alert. SEO is another of way of finding out what is popular for people surfing the web. Christian counseling doesn’t have a huge following but it’s decent. Apparently, universities don’t do a great job of teaching Christian counseling. In fact, former students tell me that they experienced systematic discrimination if they revealed that they were Christians.
Gulp. This is just not a safe area where there is “systematic discrimination” by university professors. Getting training in Christian counseling may not be possible at secular universities. However, there is the other issue of the “Gospel Six-Shooter” when therapists use specific Bible verses to justify their beliefs. Can you imagine a Bible in one hand and a therapy book in the other hand? Whether it’s spiritual or secular arrogance, the result is still the same: bad therapy.
I suppose that everyone has their own brand of arrogance so does it make a whole lot of difference in which book that you follow? It really doesn’t make a difference except when there is Gospel Six Shooting Cowboy posing as your Christian counselor.