Week 26

This week I had the opportunity to attend the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC) 2014 Conference in St. Louis, Missouri.

While I do not enjoy flying at all, I was motivated to make the trek by all of the amazing workshops they were offering.  Sometimes more than one workshop was being offered that I really wanted to take but they met at the same time.  Most of the workshops I attended were very interesting, although also highly frustrating.  While the AAPC is an organisation open to people of all faiths and beliefs, the workshops were not taught by people with interfaith competencies.  It was assumed that everyone in the room shared the presenter's faith and so language was put in a very Christian way.  I struggled with this repeatedly and spoke out against it often.  It was a very odd feeling to be the in a room with several hundred Christian counselors and feel like the black sheep.  I will be penning an open letter to the AAPC about this as soon as I finish up with my current terms final workload.

A few of the workshops I attenended include:

The Use of Dreams in Counseling & Spiritual Direction - Mary Fraser 

I really adore dream work and Ms. Fraser presented us with both a way to do dream work with individuals and with groups that I had not yet experienced.  I am excited to try these out with my Pagan group soon.  I am also considering trying to lead a weekly or biweekly dream group this fall.  Most of the ideas that Ms. Fraser presented came from her work with The Haden Dream Institute.  While it is Christian in focus, it sounds like an amazing place!    The Dream Mapping is particularly powerful tool that can help the dreamer make sense of their dream.  This works well for individual work.    They also have a handout about how to run a dream group that may be useful to some and a DVD that you can order about running your own dream group.

Spiritually Integrated Self-Care for Pastoral Psychotherapists - F. Gardiner Perry 

This course was... interesting.  Mr. Perry's presentation was not at all what I had expected.  His model for self care is unique in that it all takes place during the clinical hour.  The advantages to this method are that the clinician does not have to find time to schedule in self care around their already full schedules.  The down side is that he did not say that I should have a regularly scheduled spa day.  Bummer.  As Mr. Perry and the class interacted I became frustrated that everything was presented with the assumption that we were all Biblical scholars and Christians.  I spoke up and suggested that this could be taught in a multicultural way so that it could reach a larger audience and that just derailed the discussion completely.  Mr. Perry did change the language he used after a discussion about Paganism and the meaning of the word pastoral ensued, but there was definitely some hostility from part of the group.


Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Questioning - Jason Hays 

This would have been a really wonderful group to chat with, but unfortunately a tornado warning was announced and we were all moved down to the basement for our safety.  This was the second time this had happened in less than 24 hours.  I did make contact with two young men who are in a Christian seminary and wanted to know how to be a true advocate for GLBTQI (I stands for intersex) populations.  We were able to have a longer conversation at a gathering later on in the convention.  I was asked what do GLBTQI people want and need from their church?  What a huge question!!!

I said that we need true allies who are willing to put themselves on the line.  Don't just say nice things DO SOMETHING.  Help us get equal rights!  I also pointed out that many people have been hurt by a church that they grew up in.  They need some sort of healing so that they can let go of that pain and reconnect with their faith.  It is very complicated though and it means that you have to really connect with a person since everyone has a different situation.

Schizophrenia & Religiously Oriented Psychosis - Beth Toler 

This was the most interesting workshop I attended.  Ms. Toler presented a very compelling look at schizophrenia and left us with a lot to be hopeful for.  New treatments and medications are making recovery possible for more people than every before.  It gave me a lot to think about for the people in my own family who struggle with mental illness.  One of the biggest takeaways was how important it is to seek out early treatment in order to prevent lasting cognitive damage to the brain.  She showed us pictures of how the brain looks when it is in psychosis and the physical damage that psychosis causes.  While this is not cheerful news, that there is a novel computer based program that can help rebuild cognition.  I am guessing that it is very expensive and it is only offered in about eight clinics across the US.
Lastly, we were shown this amazing video from a TED talk by Eleanor Longden.  Ms. Longden has a schizophrenia history but has learned that the voices she hears are the parts of her that are needing to have an emotional state acknowledged and addressed in some manner.  It is fascinating.

I also had the opportunity to explain what Paganism means and what a Pagan seminary is like.  I was a bit surprised by how often people would ask me just what type of seminary Cherry Hill was.  Usually this led to a short and pleasant conversation with someone who has a genuine interest in learning about other faith systems. Sometimes I could see heads whip around to see who had uttered the word Pagan and used it to define themselves.  I experienced the most welcoming response to people from the NW and from the two other Unitarian Universalists that I met.

One of the UU's I connected with was Reverend Doctor Monica L. Cummings.  She just joined the board of the AAPC and has a radio program called Power Up with Rev Monica.  Power Up aims to reach youth and young adults of color and help them connect to a faith system that embraces and empowers them. You can listen to her first broadcast about patience online at www.wgtd.org 

Spring Blessings (even if it doesn't' feel like spring yet in your neck of the woods)

Holly

Week 17

            You may recall that a few weeks ago I posted that I had messed up with an inmate I was working with and allowed them to try to call someone that they were restricted from contacting.  I felt really bad about the situation and wrote to the inmate to let them know that I wasn’t happy that they had used me to get around the rules and restriction of the correctional facility.  I let the inmate know that I would be happy to talk to the inmate about any concerns they have over the welfare of their child.

            A few days later I received a return letter from the inmate asking to speak with me and explain the situation.  I was able to call the inmate in, and we did speak about the legalities of contacting the other parent.  As we talked I realized that the inmate believed, or wanted me to believe, that they were innocent of the child sexual abuse charges.  I asked how they got to be in prison if they were not guilty and a long story came involving their own sexual abuse history, post traumatic stress disorder, and lie detector tests.  

            If the story I was told is true, then it is incredibly tragic that this person is serving time in prison.  I can see how it might have happened, but my built in bullshit detector was going off as I listened.  It got me thinking about lying in counseling settings.  One of the inmates that I meet with regularly recently apologized to me for a lie that they had told me for past several months.  Another is racked with guilt about lying about their crime to the other inmates so that they won’t be hurt.  Interestingly, all three are serving time for crimes against children.

            Why would inmates choose to lie to their chaplain or pastoral counselor?  Jeffery Kottlersuggests that people lie to counselors in order to avoid shame, disappointing the counselor, don’t understand how counseling works, or are living in a reality of their own making.  I would add that some people lie in order to manipulate their counselor and fulfill a need for self perceived grandiosity.     

            Lying in counseling is such a tricky thing.  It can certainly slow down therapy if the client is honest about what is going on in their head.  While many lies are actually omissions, they do delay or alter the therapeutic process.  Karen Kleimen expressed it well in an article in Psychology Today.

People in therapy lie about all kinds of things. It can feel like another form of self-preservation, but it is a huge impediment. It is at best, a distraction and at worst, a manipulative deception that will prolong your pain. Lies of omission will either drastically postpone valuable therapeutic work or it can totally derail the process. 

            In a blog post, therapist CindyBlank-Edelman writes about the way that she approaches the issue lying with her clients.  Blank-Edelman takes a compassionate approach and lets clients know that if they feel like they need to lie to her that she is OK with wit.  She says, “In my opinion, if clients are lying to me then it points to a major challenge they face in their lives. For whatever reason, they feel like they can’t be honest about who they are.” 

            This may be true in the case of the inmate who sexually abused their child.  It could be that the pain of acknowledging sexually violating their own child is too much to bare at this time.  If that is the case, then I don’t see how this inmate can heal their own traumas and manage to move forward as someone who won’t become a repeat offender.  

            I’ve been wondering if knowing an inmate is lying to me should change the way that I respond to them.  Does someone who lies, perhaps in elaborate ways, revoke their right to a certain level of compassionate care?  It doesn’t seem like they are, but I also realize that I can set a limit to what I am willing to listen to.   In my work as a correctional facility chaplain,  it is important that I keep my focus on promoting prosocial skills and behaviors in the people I work with.  Because of this I feel like the issue of lying takes on a larger importance.

            There are generally thought to be four types of lies.  White lies that are to spare another’s feelings, beneficial lies that are necessary for the greater good, deceptive lies that are told to hurt other people, and deceptive lies that either a creation of false information or withholding of information that is useful to others.  In the case of the inmate who apologized for the lie that they had been sharing with me in counseling, the lie would fall under the deceptive lie.  The inmate who wanted me to help them make the inappropriate phone call may also have been telling me a deceptive lie. 

            It’s a bit of an odd situation to not know for sure, but for now I will assume that if it was a lie, that it came from a place of deep emotional fear and damage, and should be held gently while the underlying problem is addressed.  Perhaps in time the truth can come forward.  I will also question things that don’t make sense and when I hear inconsistencies in the story. 

            It should be pointed out that most of the people I work with do not come in and lie to me.  Many come to see a chaplain because they are in real pain and need someone to share it with and perhaps hold some of it to help them cope.  I am very happy to help people in these times, and if a lie slips into this time together, it likely doesn’t affect the quality of our interaction.

The trouble with lying and deceiving

is that their efficiency depends entirely upon

 a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.

-Hannah Arendt

Sources:

http://theunboundedspirit.com/types-of-lies-and-liars/

http://blank-edelman.com/blog/2012/06/secrets-and-lies-in-therapy/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/isnt-what-i-expected/201302/lying-in-therapy

http://www.psychotherapy.net/article/jeffrey-kottler-psychotherapy