As I wrap up my ANGER and PITY for Colorado Christian University (CCU), I wanted to impart some notes on a clinician’s take on a Biblical Worldview being so heavily integrated into clinical coursework and degree progression. (This post is going to be very polarizing, and I am okay with that. I am not silencing myself to make myself more palatable to those who are uncomfortable with me allowing my story to be told. I just can’t.)

Mind you, my clinical fields of expertise (as seen in the clients whose issues I was able to help them with and those I could not help very well with) are: addictions/substance use disorders, trauma (in all its beautiful presentations), and dissociative disorders.

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A list of my notes, with explanations to follow:

1. Biblical Worldviews aren’t helpful to most (if many) clientele.
2. Theology knowledge should not be a requirement of a clinical program.
3. Silencing marginalized students is harmful (if not unethical).
4. Allowing disabled and chronically ill students to be kicked out is horrific.
5. Pastoral counseling is so much different than what it is not.

Biblical Worldviews Aren’t Helpful to Most (If Many) Clientele

So I may be the only one who is upfront about this, and I may be in the minority of clinicans with this take. But as a trauma therapist and a damn good one at that, most of my clientele were coming to me with religious trauma and experiences from it.

What good would it do me to be a theologically trained counselor whose clinical experience is focused on integrating a Biblical Worldview? How is that going to be appropriate to my clientele who come to me, expecting a damn good therapist who isn’t going to assume that religion/faith/spirituality are the actual underlying issues?

How am I going to connect with traumatized people with religious trauma if all I really know how to do is preach some clinical stuff couched in theology? Is that really going to be the way to help the people whose hurts I am ready to walk with them through?

I want to work with the populations rejected by churches.

I was upfront about this in my admissions essay. I said my goal was to work in the Celebrate Recovery (CR) ministry as a pro bono clinical counselor who offered extra support to the ministry when a licensed counselor was needed. CR is a well regarded ministry and gets a lot of credit in addictions counseling circles, but CCU didn’t really read that my goal wasn’t to be in ministry, but rather, to offer services free of charge.

Maybe that’s one in the same to some people.

But to me, the beauty of being a clinical counselor in a recovery ministry is knowing more than the Biblical Worldview. I don’t expect people in CR to be faithful believers or even want someone to counsel them who might add to religious abuse or trauma.

My clientele were always those who wouldn’t be helped by Biblical principles.

I even doubled down on this when I made sure I could ethically counsel queer couples (but was then disappointed when the couples counseling training instructor had never read any research on polyamory or transgender issues in couples). To me, it was never that a Biblical Worldview was bad, just that it helps so few people in the end.

But you try explaining to CCU that it was their fault for thinking that you didn’t know what you wanted, and that your desire to be in ministry was greater than your desire to be the best goddamn trauma therapist. You try getting a Bible College to accept that fault.

They ultimately say, “You said you wanted to work in ministry.” Which is true, yes, and I never said I wanted to be a spiritual guide or Biblical leader. I simply just thought they could respect how I wanted to give back, and they wouldn’t think less of me for choosing a ministry that could benefit from pro bono or sliding scale rate services.

I often think back to the addictions counselor interview.

I first applied to CCU to be in their addictions counseling specialty. The interviewer heard me speak and seemed impressed at my knowledge. He reiterated what I was expressing in a way that, in retrospect, was kind of rude. I know it wasn’t mean. And, in an interview, to be impressed that someone has a firm “socio-biological model of addiction” is rude.

I didn’t lie about being experienced. They just somehow skimmed over it.

Biblical worldviews are harmful to the students, then, too. Because a program who is impressed that I’m intelligent and knowledgable in my field is offensive. That’s internalized misogyny that honestly should have caught my eye. I did refrain from selecting the addictions specialty track after that interview, though. Wasn’t worth it.

When I tried again to get my questions answered about the program, I was met again with stunned and shocked responses at my clinical knowledge and expertise.

I cannot say why this happened twice.

I just needed an answer, and it seemed impossible to gain from faculty.

Attending the program was something I knew was an uphill battle, and a program who won’t give me the damn answer to my questions is one I almost am more willing to investigate myself than accept is unqualified to take me on. (Pompous? Yes. True? Most definitely, it was proven through the university being exactly who they were.)

Theology Knowledge Should Not Be A Requirement of a Clinical Program

Considering I damn near got into this in my earlier point, let me backtrack.

I have attended two different schools in my pursuit of clinical licensure and the ability to practice ethically and legally (and three total programs leading to clinical licensure) and both were Christian Colleges who presented a doctrinal statement and a Christian worldview to their students. The other one, Grand Canyon University (GCU), presented the Biblical Worldview/doctrine as a University stance but not required for clinical programs. In fact, GCU was very clear to state, “We only require doctrinal statement adherence for our school of theology and seminary programs.” Which made sense.

Likewise, when CCU complained back at me that I should’ve known an evangelical, highly conservative, Christian university was going to embed a theological degree into all their programs, as well, I was stunned. This was not the norm or my experience. One example going against theirs is enough to prove their logical argument is a logical fallacy, honestly.

Dare I say, my experience at GCU proved my point that CCU wasn’t truthful about themselves or what they stood to create in the world. GCU was okay with being a college first and Christian second. CCU made similar claims that were ultimately disproven by their polices, procedures, and coursework. Simply put, they aren’t honest.

Theology is a requirement of CCU programs.

Every degree matriculation (at least at the Masters level) requires the student to take two theological courses. They are “Spiritual Formulations of (insert degree title)” and “Theology Principles for (insert degree title/profession name)”. They sound fluffy.

They are actually at the crux of where the school said I should’ve known it was “that type” of school with programs. But honestly, 4 credits of 60-64 that are theology wasn’t enough in a mathematical or statistical sense to convince me. In fact, CCU is firm in saying they aren’t pastoral counseling due to their only requiring 4 theology credits in a degree.

(Though try explaining to them that the argument breaks down real quick. They don’t really like hearing that they misrepresent themselves. It’s offensive. Oh well.)

To me, these courses seemed jocular, really.

But my point isn’t that the content was funny, just that it’s funny to say your program is both not pastoral while also holding firm that people must have working theological knowledge and be able to present other theological stances in a respectable way.

That’s really not relevant for counseling. Or any field, I would imagine.

Maybe in ministry it’s needed. But damn, if you go into a business meeting and say, “I can answer all the data analysis by relating it directly to the Bible,” you might get laughed out.

Theology as a university requirement meant that those classes and their content should never influence my ability to achieve or succeed in a clinical degree. And why was I firm that these weren’t representative of their program? Aside from the aforementioned argument from CCU that CCU requiring 4 credits is not the same as theology training?

CCU stated (in some fashion), “We are not a pastoral counseling program. We are a clinical mental health counseling program. The theology sequence is a university requirement we cannot override.” To me, this seemed similar to things I’d heard at other schools or in a capacity at least of university classes sometimes being antithetical and backwards to a program’s goal and target student population. It seemed average.

If you’re feeling like this was a chaos of bad mixed messages, trust me, it gets worse.

(I will later get into the nuances of why this statement on theology being a university requirement and the program not being a pastoral counseling program was not the honest presentation CCU believed themselves to be. But hang on while I first get to why theology is not clinically indicated. This is a very bumpy ride, folx, and you’re on it.)

To me, as a woman who has survived domestic violence (a story sequence I am still too afraid will eat me alive if I share it), I can speak DIRECTLY to the discriminatory practices and policies theological backings in counseling and interventions provide and create.

In fact, it was through theologically backed counseling that I was silenced into submission. It was through this type of intervention that my abuser gained support and resources to further push me into depression and get denied help. These interventions are made in ways that people in bad situations are further harmed through them.

Like I will gladly proclaim, if I had been made more aware (if it were more clearly presented and understood) that CCU was a Bible College whose (marketed as clinical) pastoral counseling program was theologically based and was designed for missionaries, I never would’ve attended. I have a good rationale. It’s fine. I should’ve been allowed to make that choice on my own, without feeling forced out of a school that admitted me.

I’ll be as bold to say, I never should have been accepted. That’s on them.

I can illuminate so clearly why I shouldn’t have been accepted. But ultimately, the fact is, they didn’t do their job to prevent accepted students who were a mismatch from attending when the screening tools failed. I hold CCU responsible for their interview process that did not allow me to recieve honest answers on the concerns I really had.

Theology in a clinical setting can be used in non-discriminatory ways and practices, and often the issue is that even the ways that don’t seem abusive/violent/tone deaf are.

I have no issue with a school who wants to produce theologians. But that’s not clinical.

I know CCU loves to point to Jesus as “wonderful counselor” to dispute this. And to me, he was a carpenter. He didn’t know anything about proper clinical interventions if he ran into someone that was so unlike him or unfamiliar to him. He knew the Bible. It’s not clinical.

I can write pages about the Woman at the Well and how she’s my hero.

I can explain in books how Jesus and I would probably get into a lot of fights.

And ultimately, it hasn’t stopped my faith. It sometimes strengthens it.

But clinically, I am beholden to not impose my viewpoint, wordview, or biases onto the client – whether that is directly or indirectly. (I read the ASERVIC insert/addition to the ACA code of ethics, and it is rent-free in my head. Plus the hypocricy is hilariously stunning to me. CCU has everyone read the ASERVIC guidelines. CCU does not follow any of them.)

By proposing to students that the “proper” (read: this is done as the ethical teaching method/presentation of) clinical interventions and skills must incude theology knowledge and reasoning is to communicate that clients “need” theology. It creates a dilemma for students who, as aforementioned, have experienced religious trauma/abuse and are not a fan (and much stronger oppositions) of Biblical Worldviews and statements.

Theology in a clinical program limits the clinician to really only be able to work with faith-based clientele. Or at least those whose view of religion is neutral at worst.

It doesn’t train the clinician to counsel a variety of clients and issues.

It actually prevents clinicans from experiencing their passions or skills, dare I say.

Because, as explained, the interviewers seemed unaware of what to do when someone who was overqualified and too good slipped through the screening process. Teaching people low-level interventions and techniques means these clinicians may not ever be able to get to a competency point where they can focus on a specialty area.

It’s why so many clinicians will say they treat almost every diagnosis.

Not because they necessarily mean they are experts. Rather, to me, as a clinician, it speaks to a lack of training on how to pick specialties and focus areas of skill. Most of these people are newer to the field. They didn’t get the chance to learn how to find the diagnoses they are more skilled at, whether it was from an educational lack of training on how to present this, or whether it came from outside of that sphere of influence.

To me, if you clinically have more than, say, three or four areas of specialty, then you probably need to reassess your skills. I don’t mean specific diagnoses. I mean, when you look at the DSM (a book which needs to burn in a firey pit), there are categories of diagnostics. To me, it makes sense you would have three or four of these.

Most often, what clinical internships teach us (or are meant to teach us) is which diagnostic areas we are better or not so great at. When you cannot pick an area, it’s okay, but I would almost recommend then thinking about which clientele connected with you the best and were the most helped by you. It’s okay to be selfish in this regard.

Choosing clinical areas of expertise is about being upfront to clients.

A counseling program who isn’t upfront to students represents a fundamental misunderstanding of clinical boundaries, and how to teach guidelines of clincial practice.

Silencing Marginalized Students is Harmful (If Not Unethical)

I was not welcomed in CCU. Not directly, per se. More in the sense of, I could tell I didn’t belong and was not wanted there. I am very perceptive. And I can tell those things.

CCU was very funny about this when I talked to them.

I won’t try to quote them (lest I fail and make a fool of myself). Yet, I will paraphrase and attempt to neutrally summarize their argument (while then proceeding to offer my rebuttal and feedback to how that’s not clinically indicated as successful or ethical).

Essentially, this was their argument:

Well, we think it’s great when students and professors disagree. We can all learn more from being uncomfortable with each other than agreeing. I think it’s great to have students challenge professors or come to office hours to gain skills on how to better present their argument to us. We just want a solid, academic argument for your viewpoint.

I have so many thoughts. And none are PG-rated.

But for the sake of wanting this “dissertation” to be accessible to many, I’ll try.

I’ll try to explain it with this, because the message sounds really nice: The messaging communicates a disdain to support and protect marginalized students, suggesting instead that it is the job of the discriminated to fight against those who are harming them and learn better how to manage in a victim-blaming world. It isn’t healthy education.

See, while the response sounded diplomatic and reasonable, I know what it means.

It’s an approved way to allow a Bible College to discriminate internally and put the onus on the student to do better while being further discriminated. A person’s marginalized status may not be “ethical” or “okay” to ask someone to disclose. AND if your school is so hell-bent on silencing the marginalized/victimized/fighty survivors, it would be helpful.

Because sure, it would be publically admitting CCU discriminates.

AND it would prevent people from being discriminated against and having no recourse.

Because now that I got them to hear that I was discriminated against, they only care that I was misled by them, and that must be my fault and not theirs. Can’t be on them, can it?

Silencing students of marginalized backgrounds, statuses, and identities is a hallmark of a Bible College (and a traditional pastoral counseling or seminary/MDiv adjacent program). CCU may disagree that they are giving students glorified MDiv degrees, but when a program encompasses systemic failures of similar programs and is housed in a school that would be pretty thrilled to be allowed to do that? Sounds a little suspect to me.

Hear hooves? Call it a horse. If it’s a horse, don’t call it a zebra.

People can argue me all day on the technical differences between a clinical mental health counseling (CMHC) degre and an MDiv degree. I am aware of how they differ, actually.

I heard the mathematical (and somewhat offensive further logical) argument from CCU – An MDiv is 90 theology credits. Our CMHC program only requires 4 theology credits, and we don’t even require students to be Christian! We even let people disagree with Jesus existing!

There’s a reason I’m not an MDiv. And it had everything to do with theology.

I didn’t actually care that I could pass the theology requirements. I am a goddamn brillant woman with very astute academic writing. I could get an MDiv (if I cared to) because it’s not like I fundamentally disagree with most of the theology. In fact, I am really good at presenting my argument in a factual and academically posed manner to not offend.

The reason I didn’t pursue an MDiv was entirely because I didn’t want to study theology and be asked to present theological arguments in every course I was taking.

I know how MDiv holders are, even the really cool and nice ones whose opinions are still a little out there for me but respect me for who I am more than how we’re different. My dad has an MDiv and I can tell you, he’s a great person to talk to when I’m distressed. But also, I wanted more than just the clinical offerings allowed through pastoral counseling.

I actually got into a different dilemma when faced with a Bible College who held all the policies and systemic injustices of a traditional seminary, and I wanted to be myself.

My voice was silenced because no one actually truly wanted to hear the story of me as a person or an individual. I was typed immediately as this highly liberal woman who was not going to listen to anyone. It’s funny how I am assumed to not hear them, when it seems they respond by expressing very blatantly how they refuse to hear and see me.

I was (almost) never asked to share my story, and I would be heartbroken as people would engage in discussion boards with each other, asking questions of intrigue. I tried to make friends, and most of them didn’t seem interested in me. I was frequently asked to help them problem-solve their lives and woes. It seemed like they didn’t care, though.

My voice as a marginalized woman with an array of boldness was diminished in value.

I was marginalized somehow in being openly queer, deconstructed, and liberal. I still fail to understand why I was characterized as someone who couldn’t listen. It seemed false to how I was being talked to and how people were presenting things to me in the program.

They say they’re not pastoral. And yet, the girl who would be treated the same way by a pastoral program is failing to see the difference. I wanted to feel okay (maybe for once) as a marginalized person in Christian (and sometimes societial) spaces. I played myself.

Marginalized voices are part of the beauty of a CMHC program.

I want to hear all about your story and what drew you to help others in this way. Tell me the messy, gross, ugly parts of you. Let me be your friend who loves you through those.

And yet, my position and experiences were too much, somehow, to be asked about.

But silencing marginalized voices and saying it’s okay because “we learn when we disagree and are uncomfortable” is great… until the people in power are not okay being uncomfortable or recieving maticulously crafted feedback and responses.

I knew this was going to happen. I did specifically call out CCU for this. They guffawed. I expected nothing less from such a horrid community of misleading staff members.

It was not when the dean met me and I got to calm HIM down for being a bully to me in my grievance that he understood I am way too good for CCU. He was there defensively attacking me for being firm in myself. I am a clinician. So I know how to calm down fighty men, I say to him, “I see you, and I hear you, and I know you are doing your best.”

Because at the end of the day, we’re all people.

He respected me for taking the higher moral ground. I didn’t have to. He knew it. He knew there was no reason I needed to be kind or considerate. And still, I will go down as being the girl who, in the middle of asking for a full tuition refund due to misleading and inconsistent marketing/promotional materials, had to counsel the dean of the program.

But to me, this was exactly the posture I needed to take.

Because a fighty young woman who is not about it when it comes to discriminating against marginalized communities and then blaming those you hurt, is exactly the type of person who barely gets a day in front of a Bible College to be heard, seen, and known.

Maybe I don’t respect CCU any more than the mental health community at large. And yet, they respect me for meeting them where they were at in a moment of not being professionally equipped or trained to respond appropriately and reasonably to me.

I sent a whole letter (it was a blog post, mind you) and I know he didn’t read it.

He only read my email, stating that the program misrepresented itself.

I can’t change that CCU doesn’t understand, and I cannot change that I took the liberty to allow the dean to process my whole narrative by sending it ahead of time with the note, “I wanted to send this to you. I don’t think it’s fair to blindsight you,” and he didn’t.

My thought is really to get at – if you are going to be a clinical degree, discriminating against a large potential of students/future clinicians is bad. I may know how to handle people who destroy me and make me angry (that I’d totally fist fight), but that’s not an appropriate ask or demand of a clinical student in your program. It’s really not.

Margnalized students (for any reason they are marginalized) deserve fair treatment.

I may be okay with the ridicule. (On some level, anyway. I’m mostly not.)

But I don’t think it’s okay to tell clinicians they should expect to be disrespected. That’s a horrible thing to teach students. We should teach students their worth and value. We should be teaching clinicians that they should demand respect and dignity from all.

Silencing the marginalized from sharing their story is effectively silencing and preventing a clinical program from being able to service a whole world rather than a pre-designated community or client base. It seems ethically and educationally irrational to assume not.

Allowing Disabled and Chronically Ill Students to Be Kicked Out Is Horrific

The argument about discrimination against disabled and chronically ill students is more formally a subset of the marginalized students argument. But it needs its time.

This deserves a specific call-out because, as stated earlier, this is an engrained part of a specific feature of systemic failures of MDiv and seminary programs. (It even is a systemic failure of public service and publicly funded personnel.) I think we deserve a standalone.

The disability community and the chronically ill community are often discriminated against in such stupid and microagressive ways, that presenting these to a college as acts of discrimination requires a competent disability resource office. When there isn’t one, or they are bad at their job, I argue in addition that the school is ill-equipped to train clinical staff or future clinicians. How discriminatory to assume clinicians can’t be disabled.

That’s a systemic failure of many programs in Bible Colleges, more broadly.

Sure, some private schools also have a really stupid disability office that seems to not really understand what a “reasonable accomodation” is. But most of them are at least willing to work with you when the accomodation needs to be upgraded for a course.

I have personally experienced a disability causing me to need an extra four to six weeks to complete and turn in coursework. The school (Southern New Hampshire University; SNHU) was very kind and helped me fill out the forms. The professor was so funny about it, going, “Yeah, cool, whatever, just get well, ok?” (We love an economics homie.)

I expected complete chaos. And yet, the world moved on.

Bible Colleges are rude and incompetent at handling disability needs or medical dilemmas, and it’s even for a medical issue they’re obnoxiously rude. I’d hate to have experienced a disability crisis at a Bible College. Ugh. Would not have gone well.

With SNHU, I think I sent them an email two weeks before the course closed (and after a solid five weeks of ghosting the damn course shell) in a frenzied panic, saying, “Oh my gosh, my mental health sucks right now, so sorry, what can I do to make up half an economics course I missed that I kind of still have the documents for?” (This, if unclear, is heavily paraphrased, and probably not exactly what you should say to a school.)

With CCU, I heavily communicated being deathly ill and being unable to figure out what was going on. This was my mistake. Apparently, they do not care if you have a pressing medical dilemma (undiagnosed MRSA), it is your fault that you couldn’t get better. I was informed, very rudely, “Well, you went too long not posting in the course, so there’s nothing that you can say to us to override department policy on this.”

Now, you may be thinking, isn’t that a little harsh?

Well, yes, it is a little harsh. But there was so much more to this procedure that was so wrong. The school therefore didn’t allow me to extend the course deadlines or even have a way to not have the “W” count against my GPA requirement. They were saying it was policy that I should’ve known within two days that my illness was severe.

I wonder how many people can predict the severity of their illness in the first two days.

A school that has a minimal understanding of disability (including neurodivergence as a valid subtype of disability) and chronic illness is not great. They showed minimal core competencies by assuming all illnesses and ailments could be covered by a policy that made sense to 99% of cases they could encounter. My 1% dilemma meant nothing.

CCU was unable to ethically and reasonably respond to a medical emergency.

I know it was a wild story. I too was ready to throw some hands, considering my illness went undiagnosed for so long and got so bad because of medical malpractice.

To me, that speaks to an inability to clinically train students. The school seemed to communicate that my disability status was my issue. If your school cannot service the disability commmunity, perhaps you as a school need to reconsider how you are screening students and what metrics people like me are able to pass undetected through.

I never realized that a school needed so much evidence you had a disability when they were a clinical program who should be aware of common medical malpractices.

This represents an inability to teach neurodiverse affirming clinical interventions.

Clinically, neurodiverse affirming counseling and psychology are desired.

Most clientele and agencies, both group and private, desire a clinician who is able to provide services in an affirming manner. The average client doesn’t want to feel like they are bad somehow for needing counseling in the first place. To me, clinically, a program who disallows disability is a program who cannot ethically counsel disability communities.

Maybe that’s too far.

And also, I don’t care if it is.

Telling disabled students they are only acceptable to the program if they can maintain masking status or able-bodied appearances is discriminatory. This was the message of their polices and practices. I shouldn’t be expected to know what to do when the medical system discriminates against me. It’s not my responsibility to prove it. And maybe this is a failure of one specfic program, and not Bible Colleges as a whole. (I am willing to hold possible that maybe not all programs are so biased and discriminatory toward people.)

Just, to me, this is a common practice in churches and pastoral circles.

So take it for what you will, but being discriminatory toward disabled students makes the program a failure in my eyes. It disallows amazing and talented students the chance to be trained as clinicians. It creates too many barriers they don’t need added to them.

Pastoral Counseling Is So Much Different Than What It Is Not

To start, I will present working (and easily Google-able) defintions for three terms that often get all jumbled up with each other: pastoral counseling, clinical counseling, and non-clinical counseling. I may provide a comparision and contrast analysis of them.

Pastoral counseling is defined as: “Pastoral Counseling is a unique form of psychotherapy which uses spiritual resources as well as psychological understanding for healing and growth. It is provided by certified pastoral counselors, who are not only mental health professionals but who have also had in-depth religious and/or theological training.”

Clinical counseling is defined as: “Clinical counseling is a branch of clinical psychology that helps people as they navigate emotional or mental health difficulties. Clinical counseling can also be considered part of professional counseling and social work fields.”

Non-clinical counseling is defined under: “Non-clinical services are therapeutic, but relate to providing resource information, education, screening, and support until appropriate referrals can be made to primary care or formalized health care services.”

CCU is a pastoral counseling degree. They focus on spiritual interventions and background while providing in-depth theological training. They allow students to engage in learning psychology and counseling techniques, all while being expected to adhere to theological stances and trainings throughout those, even at equal course grade value.

CCU will state, “Pastoral counseling is so different. They can’t diagnose, assess, or treat mental health disorders.” This is a gross mischaracterization of pastoral counseling. In fact, what they are really saying is, that would be allowing pastors to overstep their role. A fact which I do agree with, and find argumentatively useless in assessing what they are.

Maybe it’s unfair to assume that an MDiv is the same as pastoral counseling (fair enough), and still, pastoral counseling would not be offered in a program that is not anticipating counselors to assume a pastoral role (which often is why the theological training is necessary for them). To me, a school cannot both say that “Well, you should’ve known what we were because you wanted to be in ministry” while then saying “That doesn’t make us like an MDiv program or even a pastoral counseling degree with licensure”.

Clinical counseling is often very based in research and science. It frequently allows for discussion of spirituality and its benefits. Yet, that tends to be one topic in maybe a course or two throughout the program. It is rarely a hallmark of the program or its core feature.

Clinical counseling is more about being able to assess, diagnose, and treat. Yes, it is often assumed pastoral counselors cannot do this. Yet, definitionally, the distinugishing feature is in how they perform those and what backings or evidence they use to defend their interventions and techniques to treat and help people through their distress and turmoil.

In a clinical counseling degree, the focus is often based around how to differentiate diagnoses, practice diagnostic metrics, formulate treatment plans, and even going as far as allowing the student to perform mock sessions with an outside buddy for the professor to assess. It would not be recommended to do this between classmates, or to have the basis of the mock session not be provided through a script or predetermined.

Pastoral counseling programs generally fall into using the non-clinical interventions, where people use resources, education, and support. This was never really my issue with the program I attended. I knew they weren’t providing much more than pastoral counseling, but stating “We are not a pastoral counseling program” is a boldfaced lie.

To me, non-clinical counseling is the foundational coursework in a pastoral counseling program, which was ultimately my annoyance. Mock counseling sessions were to be between two students, paired up at the beginning by choosing each other. The students were simply told the severity of their dilemma to present. Guidance was provided as such, “Give your fellow classmate a dilemma that is a 3 of 10 for emotional severity; don’t expect your classmate to be at a level to handle something more than that right now.”

The funny thing was, and of course I would not oblige the things told to me in confidence, most of the classmates didn’t really understand what an emotional rating scale meant. I was asked to counsel someone through experiencing a life altering piece of information and now wanting more help on how to trust themselves going forward and growing.

To me, that’s more like a 6 out of 10. It may not seem that obvious. But that’s why it wasn’t really a clinical program, in my eyes. Students were not given clear instructions on example situations to use or express. It’s why it seemed like a weird assignment, really.

Non-clinical interventions were the beginning foundations. Being asked at week two in a course in the first semester to provide clinical interventions to someone with a textbook that provided theories, and not interventions was ridiculous. I could not understand how the person in front of me could come up with advice or things to say. If I hadn’t been experienced in interventions, I likely would have said, “Well, my theory tells me that what you’re experiencing is — and my best assumption is that, that is the underlying issue.”

The problem with thinking clinical skills are the same as theories is that it shows a lack of understanding on clinical techniques, best practices, and even ways to build skills.

Theories teach us how to analyze an issue. They simply give us some information on how to conceptualize a client’s dilemma. I can’t counsel someone with a theory. I need to know the actual interventions, which are specific to dilemma or diagnosis over theory, majority of the time, when really placed in a clinical setting with diverse issues and clients.

To me, clinical counseling provides a case conceptualization ahead of time.

It’s about being able to read someone’s dilemma and use theories and interventions to formulate a treatment plan for even just one session of issues. Courses, in a more clinical sense, should really be focused on diagnostic subset, or issue with interventions and techniques presented alongside case conceptualizations and theories. They can be useful, both theories and interventions, but need to be used in tandem if both are chosen.

Clinical counseling heralds the idea that you don’t need to have all the answers ahead of time, but that you should be able to observe a diagnostic evaluation and a presenting issue and know appropriate interventions. Interventions can be things like: teaching coping skills, helping a client process trauma or grief, asking a client to narrate their story from the third person, using play therapy or art therapy modalities, and so on so forth.

Modalities of treatment get confused with theories all the time. Theories are the big types of movements in counseling that allowed for new modalities to be created. Modalities are often the parts that provide direct interventions or skills. Theories mostly help allow the clinician to decide how to conceptualize and define disorders and diagnosing methods. It is not safe to assume that having a good knowledge of theory is good counseling.

Pastoral counseling allows for students to present theories as interventions.

It allows pyschoeducation (loosely covered in the non-clinical definition as both education and therapeutic) to be seen as an intervention method. While I see nothing wrong with allowing for some psychoeducation or discussion of methods to the client, focusing on using just psychoeducation as a primary intervention technique is bad counseling.

Pastoral counseling then encourages responding to questions about the psychoeducation with scripture or spiritual responses. This even is in asking the client why they reacted.

I have spent a lot of time thinking through my connection to religion and how my religious trauma get conflated all the time. A counselor who responds to my reactions to their psychoeducation by saying I am not reacting appropriately is someone who I can tell is pastorally trained, even if their clinical skills are okay. I don’t care if someone is a pastoral counselor. I can respect that pastoral counselors can get clinical supervision and training and encompass all of the broad array of requirements the field demands.

Still, the issue stands, pastoral counseling prevents students from being able to see the difference in clinical and non-clinical interventions, as well as often creating students whose experience of counseling is frequently mischaracterizing the reality of the field.

Pastoral counselors often attend programs who encourage performing practicum and internship requirements for a ministry or another spiritual organization or location.

This is fine, in a general sense. But honestly, I’ll be blunt: most of the people who are going to a counselor defining themselves as part of a church or ministry are people whose dilemmas and issues often don’t reach diagnostic significance or even promote a need to have crisis management and intervention training and techniques. It means that there are a lot of counselors whose understanding of counseling is maybe that people don’t really understand what mental health is, or even get experience training a range of not only client and diagnoses, but, most importantly, diagnosis severity levels.

I love my faith. I am bold and brash and would fight Jesus in a boxing ring.

I would fight a lot of systems of power and oppression that aren’t religious, too.

Thing being, I know what the distinction is among pastoral and clinical counseling and what constitutes clinical and non-clinical interventions. I don’t need to prove to anyone that I am experienced and well-equipped to treat really severe disorders and ailments.

***

To me, my fight has been and always will be: if you misrepresent yourself, especially as a university and a program, even if it is through inconsistent messaging or unclear writing that could be blamed on the student; it is my ethical duty as a clinician to stand up against these things, and if I can solve it, propose a solution to remedy what is going on.

So I presented my final note on this instance of a fight well had.

I presented my firm, thorough, and nuanced take on my review of the progam (as well as its requirements) and position as a clinician and one day, maybe clinical educator. Because if I can help the next generation and class of clinicians get better treatment, isn’t that at the end of the day the best advocacy there is? Standing up for yourself when you weren’t?

And perhaps these critiques are all too brash, too bold, too sudden.

Maybe I am just one person who cares too much. And maybe that’s okay. Because I love advocacy efforts and being allowed to vocalize who I am. Being silenced was harsh and unfair to my growth as a clinician. I wish that I had this post to walk me through the failings of CCU when I first applied, was misunderstood, and was accepted but confused as could be when the program was marketed to be so different than the school itself.

Misreprentation is when you present something to be something it is not, and in the case of Bible College deans, it is furthermore often accompanied by victim blaming, which can be seen in feeling that evidence presented to the contrary is an affront to the person and that the victim of the falsehood is expected to comfort them through the distress.

But, as CCU’s dean of the CMHC program said, in a tone and demeanor you would think I am making up if I were to type it (but it’s okay, some people are really just charictures of the architype of themselves in the worst ways possible), “CCU is not respected by the clinical mental health field at large.” And maybe I agree. But like I said, if someone could’ve answered the damn question to alleviate my confusion way earlier than me being a year into classes, I never would have attended. I was very clear about that.

But utlimately, I know that I had to go through his shennagins and mockery of a grievance meeting if I wanted any shot at getting him to hear my feedback. So when I made it through the dumbest 45 minutes of my adult life, I figured maybe he would be willing to take a thank-you email that responded to him (like an adult, even if he cannot be an adult), I could sneak in the damn thing he wouldn’t just let me tell him.

And I provided clear, concise, feedback and a revised program statement:

CCU’s Clinical Mental Health Counseling program integrates theological practices with clinical knowledge. The degree builds up a rigorous understanding of Biblical principles in a clinical setting and is designed for the ministry leaders who want clinical training while maintaining the needed theological disciplines and backgrounds. We encourage non-ministry leaders to take part, but would like to be upfront in stating that CCU as a university is firm on integrating theological practices. If this brings up any questions, we encourage you to talk to (insert name of faculty advisor) to gain a better understanding of how our program is unique so you can better be prepared. Please take this into consideration before applying to our program, and know we have your best interests at heart.

So, really, if you take nothing more, and have scrolled to the bottom and want a takeaway (and I am providing one, perhaps, if it is not more a summary of a novel insert):

I experienced a program that was the archetype of itself in the most horrendous manner I could have imagined. I have presented my findings and report on it to allow anyone in CCU to really experience the splendor of this. I was a neurodivergent human who was mischaracterized by the staff, who mischaracterized themselves, who then I realized mistakenly admitted me, and I figured I could finish the program, until I realized how much of their mistake in admitting me was actually causing me to fail. When I explained to a lot of people my dilemma, I didn’t ever want to say that I knew I shouldn’t have been accepted or admitted in the first place. Not because I cared, but because it would involve explaining to a lot of dumb people my C-PTSD and narrative. Because the school thought I was complaining about who they were. I was complaining that they mischaracterized themselves and I applied, got in by some fluke, and their bad mischaracterization made me unable to get answers from any faculty on how to explain their program. So this post is a lot of things, and it is also my best attempt to explain why a program was so bad. And why I was so willing to take a meeting with a dean who I knew I wouldn’t like if it meant, by some even dumber fluke, I could present my stance in a kind and compassionate way hearing how he needed things presented, as well as standing firm on my ground. I did present the above statement to CCU, and if it gets posted there, know that was my ticket into Heaven and automatic pathway to Sainthood. It is the best thing I have done.

XOXO,

Dorothy B