The Truth about Overcoming Your Irrational Beliefs

As a counselor you find that people usually seek counseling because there is some form of unhappiness or disruption in their life.  Every person, no matter how young or old, seeks happiness first and foremost in their life.  This search can lead persons to attach to unhealthy forms of living, to seek out material or monetary happiness, or to search for happiness in persons, activities, entertainment, or ideologies.

Every human person has a yearning inside of them for something that is greater than themselves, something that in their mind will fulfill them.  This is the current human condition, this is the life we all experience, but as Christians we know that this was not always so.  Before the fall of Adam and Eve, we as humans experienced this happiness, we lived in paradise, and we had peace, because we were one with God.  But in typical human fashion we got in the way of God’s divine plan and we separated ourselves from God and the one thing that can truly bring us happiness.  So it makes sense that there is an insatiable longing or desire for happiness in our lives, because that one thing that we were meant to possess has been lost.  Because of this we will continue to search for happiness in our lives until we find it.  Unknown to some, is that we, as the pinnacle of creation, cannot be satisfied with those created things below us, but only by the Creator himself.  In the famous words of St. Augustine, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.””

So what does all this mean for the person who seeks counseling and for the counselor as well?  As counselors we are taught that dysfunction is often caused in our lives by irrational beliefs, faulty thinking, or self-defeating behaviors.  Throughout the course of our development we form beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world around us.  Ideally, these beliefs would be truthful, healthy, and rational. Unfortunately, through events and unfortunate circumstances we often begin to believe false, unhealthy, and irrational things about ourselves, others, and the world.  This shift from healthy to unhealthy, or from truth to falsehood can often come from the events in our lives or traumas.

Some of us as children may experience a moment in which our healthy beliefs are shattered or broken.  In this moment we no longer can believe that we are safe, good, or loveable, and this may be instilled through someone’s actions, words, or even random events or accidents.  From that point on we begin to believe this new “truth” that we have found, and these beliefs may be reinforced many times throughout our lives, even to the point of every interaction with others becoming a reinforcement of this false belief.

Our work as counselors is to help our clients come to a realization of the lies that they have been telling themselves or the false truths they have believed.  We attempt to bring the irrational into the rational or to dispute the lie with the truth.  So to echo the words of Pontius Pilot, “What is truth?”  For many, truth is just a factual reality or some even argue that truth is relative to the individual (Relativism), but as Christians we know truth is a person, the person of Jesus Christ.  Christ speaks to Thomas and to all humanity when he says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  (John 14:6)  So we know Christ, we know truth–end of story, right?  If only it were that easy.  The fullness of truth does lie in the person of Jesus Christ but it is our duty to continuously seek that truth in our lives– through prayer, meditation, scriptural or spiritual reading, and the sacraments.

As Christian Counselors we have the amazing opportunity to bring the truth into our work through the person of Jesus Christ.  If much of our pain and suffering comes from a separation from the truth it makes sense to work to reunite ourselves as close as humanly possible to that truth, to Jesus Christ.  What an amazing gift it is to have a God who is so ready to heal and pour His grace upon us if we just seek Him.  So we as Christian counselors have the immense duty to bring the Truth into our sessions, to help our clients find this Truth, and to assist in bringing healing into their lives through the person of Jesus Christ.

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By Patrick Metts, MA, LPC, Counselor Trinity Teen Solutions, Inc. a boarding school for troubled teen girls.

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