Danielle's Story: My Spiritual Experience

I am reminded of my adolescence period of life and spiritual journey reading Danielle’s story. Sadly, I have found many who grow up in Christian home with such religious rearing by adults and young children get negative spiritual life experiences resulting them to hinder come near to God. As I had very negative life experiences at a young age from the Church people, I find Danielle has experienced the same religious backgrounds which will affect her unless she fully restored and I would say personally come to know to God as I did. Until I came to know God, believed in Him and accepted Him as my savior on my own, I was living in disbelief of power of prayer and scripture. Prayer and scriptures were merely expressions of wish and well-written

Clients like her who come to counseling for help with their problems could become offended if biblical scriptures and prayer used during counseling. McMinn(2011) has stated clear guidelines in his textbook such as "praying for the client outside the session or silently in session, providing Scripture supported principles, avoiding overuse of spiritual practices, and avoiding becoming preachy, or overbearing, with the client." We all Christian counselor must be very cautious in implementing or utilizing the prayer and scripture in a counseling session with a client like Daniella. Before counseling a client like Daniella, a Christian counselor must carefully follow guidelines after acquiring extensive knowledge of the client’s situation before introducing the use of prayer into counseling. "Based on survey data, prayer appears to be a frequent but not routine part of Christian counseling and psychotherapy. Prayer is used with some but not all counseling clients, depending on the theoretical orientation of the counselor and the diagnosis of the client" (McMinn, 2011, p. 81). Honoring Daniella's spiritual level, as a wise Christian Counselor, I would instead offer a silent prayer in my heart during the session and intercede for her outside of the counseling session. Throughout sessions acknowledging the power of prayer, I would prefer to

"When counselors choose to use Scripture in counseling, it is important to consider the specific effects it might have on a client, based on a careful assessment of the client's needs, the therapeutic relationship, and ethical standards"(McMinn, 2011, p. 146). Foster parents had a right goal; wanted to see foster children grow in God; however, their inappropriate actions were harming to foster children. Though applying scriptures helps to establish a close relationship with client sometimes, and other times it distracts from a healthy therapeutic relationship if they have negative religious background and experiences. As McMinn stated, " To some extent, our understanding of God us affected by the ways our parents treated us." Since her foster parents forced Daniella to attend church and were using biblical scriptures as a punishment, I wouldn't even attempt to apply scriptures during therapy to build a healthy therapeutic relationship with her. I would also limit the use of scripture in