Janet showed up in Dr. Guy Richardson’s counseling office anxious, depressed, discouraged and burdened with feelings of failure. Fellow believers had loved her and encouraged her with Bible verses like “Be anxious for nothing,” but after months of trying to change, she felt guilty because she hadn’t pulled out of her anxiety and depression.
That’s when Dr. Richardson asked Janet several seemingly random questions, after which he encouraged her to seek further medical evaluation. Janet came back to Dr. Richardson two weeks later with a different countenance. It turned out that her thyroid was not functioning adequately (which can cause increased anxiety or depression), so when prescribed medication by her doctor, Janet felt truly different starting the very next day. Her problems, which she (and others) had assumed were primarily spiritual, had proven to be interwoven with psychological and biological aspects. With the biological piece addressed, she was freer to work on the other aspects of her situation.
Dr. Richardson tells the story of Janet (not her real name) to illustrate the importance of the “clinically competent” aspect of the Master of Arts in Counseling program offered by RTS. “There are various levels at which things may be going on, and it takes adequate training about both God’s Word and God’s world to perceive them,” observes Dr. Richardson.
“Our learning about general revelation is subservient to the special revelation of the Bible, but learning about general revelation is God’s gift to us and important as we work out how to live in obedience to God’s commands, especially when we consider the complexity and uniqueness of each person as being made in the image of God.”
Dr. James Hurley, longtime RTS Jackson professor with earned doctorates in both theology and counseling, adds, “Our biblical, Reformed worldview stresses that all the world is under the Lordship of Christ. As Christ’s servants, we want to treat the whole person.” Dr. Scott Coupland, professor of counseling at RTS Orlando, concurs: “To be holistic and biblically responsible, our approach to people’s problems must be based on an awareness of the whole person, not just as spiritual beings, but also taking into account biological, psychological and social aspects of what it means to be human as well. I don’t think that we have a scalpel sharp enough to know where one element of our being ends and another starts.”
To illustrate the importance of learning from God’s gift of general revelation as well as God’s special revelation in the Bible, Dr. Richardson uses an analogy. “While the Bible commands us to feed the poor, it says nothing about how or what to cook,” he observes. “We have to learn from other sources — from general revelation, if you will — how to do those things.”
According to Dr. Richardson, “We already learn from general revelation to minister in the church. “God instructs us in Proverbs 22:6 to ‘train up our children,’ and to help apply this, nearly all Sunday school curricula take advantage of things we have learned from developmental psychology about how children learn and effective techniques for training children in age-appropriate ways. It should be the same in counseling. As Christian counselors, we should see every level of our being under the authority of and through the eyes of Scripture, even as we learn by studying God’s creation many things that can help us apply His instructions given to us for life.”“Learning about general revelation is God’s gift to us.” Dr. Guy Richardson
Trained Christian counselors strengthen many church ministries at a point of need. “Busy pastors have limited time to disciple their flocks, and many are hard-pressed to deal with complex problems with the physical, psychological, social and spiritual aspects such as Janet’s.” says Dr. Richardson. “That is the point at which specialized training in counseling can really make a difference.”
The RTS Master of Arts in Counseling program teaches prospective counselors to be both biblically faithful and clinically competent counselors, prepared to address the complex issues facing many of their clients. The rigorous curriculum includes numerous Bible and theology classes especially oriented for counselors, along with counseling classes.
But MAC students do not learn only in the classroom. Each student receives extensive experience with real clients (at least 400 clock hours with individuals, couples, groups or families in face-to-face counseling) either in RTS’s on-campus clinics or in partnership with approved service sites. Each student also receives over 160 additional hours of direct supervision of clinic work by experienced counselors with specialized training.
Even the interactive aspect of studying and training together in such an intensive cohort has great benefit in the personal development of the students as they prepare to be Christian counselors. Evidence of the quality of the RTS training program at both the Jackson and Orlando campuses is demonstrated by the 100 percent pass rate thus far on national exams by RTS counseling graduates, qualifying them to pursue licensure in most states as professional counselors to serve in the church and the community at large.
The goal of the RTS Master of Arts in Counseling program is to bring “every thought captive to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5), using that knowledge to “do good to all men, especially the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). In doing this, graduates will be trained to be biblically faithful and clinically competent counselors effectively serving the suffering Janets of the world.