Category: Counselling

Simple is not the same as simplistic

Whenever a diagnostic category begins to blinker us, or even to blind us to the many other things going on in a person’s life, we have mis-stepped. Our detailed engagement with a person’s problem won’t be a sign of sophisticated understanding. It may in fact be a sign that our thinking has become simplistic. We have reduced this person to their diagnosis and we have lost sight of all the other things – especially the spiritual realities – that are also true of them.

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Growing in care

How easy is it, for some of us, to assume that a piece of advice – or a thoughtful Bible study – that helped one person, is bound to help another? So, we whip it out, unthinkingly, hoping to play a trump card that solves the problem and sends the person away rejoicing in the Lord, so we can get on with our day.

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