COUNSELING CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST STUDENTS IN THE
Peterson and Nisenholz (1994) have noted that one of the primary objectives in the education of counselors is that they be made ready and able to work with a variety of clients. However, what can the counselor do when the client's belief system and values appear to be disparate from those which the counselor holds, and when the institution within which the counselor works does not easily lend itself to shifting the client to another counselor whose belief system is more compatible? This is precisely the situation in which many school counselors find themselves when counseling Christian fundamentalist students where fundamentalist is defined as a person who believes that the Bible is to be treated as the literal Word of God.
Since it is estimated that approximately 25 to 35 percent of Americans are evangelical, born-again Christians who believe that the Bible is to be taken literally (Eshleman, Cashion & Basirico, 1993), it can be seen that the situation has immediate significance for school counseling. The purpose of this paper is to determine what counseling techniques and/or theoretical perspectives might be amenable for use in these situations and which techniques/theories might not be applicable. Also, the paper will examine the ethical and legal dangers associated with these particular counseling situations.
Theories and Techniques: Those That Apply, Those That Do Not
Unfortunately, research on how school counselors should approach the situation of counseling Christian fundamentalist students has not been conducted. Indeed, in a search of three Dialog databases, the investigator could not find one article that directly addressed the topic. However, there are certain conceptual and theoretical writings that apply to this situation. For example, Jeske (1984), has noted that in Christian therapy, the therapist attempts to make sure that his/her selection of t...