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I believe that most people can offer some degree of counsel, if they have a degree of compassion. Having used professional counselors and chewed the ears of a few friends, I have to admit sometimes the friends help me more sometimes. Bishops offering counseling? I think they can help to some degree. True, they aren’t trained, but like I say compassion is the main thing, probably followed by tact and diplomacy.
The harder, deeper problems probably need professional counseling. Our bishop actually suggested a professional marriage counselor to a couple I know. If they had taken his advice on that, I believe they might still be together and not divorcing. But they didn’t and things deteriorated.
Oh and the best therapist I ever came across? LDS. Head and shoulders above the rest. (Although my last therapistwas excellent too.) I am still stunned by his intuition – he guessed a couple of things about me without me even telling him, e.g. my family situation. Unfortunately, he isn’t based round here.
My family has some additional needs that make me leery of bothering the church leadership, so I don’t. I know our branch president is a compassionate sort, but I don’t feel that the help he could give us is worth his time, the time spent from his family, and our resources. Since coming here, I realized that “social currency” and “leadership roulette” are real concepts that no one at church talks about – and I don’t want to spend social currency or deal with unforeseen church circumstances. Plus, my husband gets a lot of flack for being a stay-at-home dad sometimes in EQ (not so much in this branch) – so he is also essentially leery of being told that everything would work out if he just went to work full time. Adopting specific descriptions for physical and mental health have helped us identify common pitfalls shared by these groups of people and allowed us to revise our expectations of each other. It has helped us to develop better communication protocols and draw closer together.
Some days (and hours) are better than others. The struggle is real and painful sometimes. We have our fair share of silences, fierce words, and misunderstandings. BUT, we reach out one more time, find words to bridge the communication gaps, and show love towards each other.
AmyJ wrote:
Some days (and hours) are better than others. The struggle is real and painful sometimes. We have our fair share of silences, fierce words, and misunderstandings. BUT, we reach out one more time, find words to bridge the communication gaps, and show love towards each other.
Amen!
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