A multi-speaker YouTube discussion advising listeners how to find an appropriate counselor or therapist. Speakers recommend clarifying the problem, choosing clinicians based on personal compatibility and demonstrated competency, searching for specialists when needed (e.g., sex therapy, trauma, addiction), reviewing clinician profiles/licenses, and considering both individual therapy and group programs (such as Pure Desire) as complementary options.
So let's jump into that how for a lot of people, this is new territory. It's not something they've got much familiarity with. How do we go about finding a good counselor? And in addition, how do we know if we need a biblical counselor, a therapist, a sex addiction therapist, a sexual trauma assessment treatment professional? There's a lot of titles and acronyms out there.
You got it.
How would you guide someone to know where to start?
I think that's a great question. Think of it this way. You're going to need another individual to help you, right? If you can just simplify it in that framework. There's a lot of different disciplines out there. There's coaching, there's spiritual direction, there's therapy, right? And within therapy there's a lot of different veins of how can individual mental health therapy, addiction, trauma, addiction, you know, so there's a lot of different spectrums of individuals that could help you. It's not always going to look the same for everybody. I think there's a couple criterias that first of all, just compatibility that you feel like the person. You know, I always say likability creates some form of credibility. So if you just can't stand the person's personality or the individual's tone of voice, or they just, you know, it may not even be them. It's just how it resonates with you. It's okay to turn the page. But I do think competency is really important as well. My mechanic happened to be a person of faith, but I don't have to go to a Christian mechanic. I go to someone who's competent to know how to help my car run better. For some of our listeners, that may not work for you, you may say, wait a minute, I only go to biblical mechanics, right? Or Christian mechanics or whatever. I have maybe a different framework for that. But I'm just saying competency on what we're working with is really important to me because I think truth is truth, no matter where the source comes from. It's either true or it isn't true. And I think God's the source of all truth. So I would just say that making sure that the individual is competent. I have found that not everybody doing religious counseling always has a level of competency. That's what I appreciate about pure desire as an organization. I'll say this as a board member as well as a donor. I love to give back to an organization where we value competency and we're clinically informed as well as being biblically Christ centered. And I think that's really good. But those are two things I look for. Connection, competency. And does this seem to. What have you heard?
Well, because I think that you can have biblical counselors that are also credentialed in certain areas and have that. You can have that overlap. But I think when I think of this question, as well as non biblical.
Counselors who are healthy and have that.
Absolutely. My therapist is not a biblical counselor, but he happens to be a Christian. And so you may run into that. But I think for you it's like, what are you looking for and what are you most comfortable with? If you are comfortable with going to a biblical counselor and you want to better understand, like how the principles of scripture relate to your life or how to become a better husband and serve your wife, whatever it may be, that's one thing. But if you know that you're experiencing depression and you have trauma in your life and there's significant reactions that you're having, I think that it's okay to look for a specific specialty or focus of somebody. And that's what's so great about. There's this thing Rodney, called Google. You go on and you can type in.
John, put that on my Rodney's Tool page, would you please, John?
That's a real thing.
I've heard about it. Exactly. Oh, it's a real thing.
Almost like the secret menu here. But you can type in like sex therapist or you can type in. Unless you have accountability software. Think of someone else searching that for you. But you could also do trauma or you could. Whatever it may be. And so I think that that is a really simple step. But if you know that there's significant hurdles you're running into, ask the question of what am I comfortable with and what specialty or focus do I want this therapy to have? And then pursue people who have that.
Yeah. The truth is there are a lot of acronyms out there and we joke about it and you may not know initially what those different words and letters mean, but it is worth your time, I think, to explore it a little bit.
Absolutely.
Because as Trevor's pointing out, if we recognize there's a specific area we'd like help, just like in the medical profession. Yeah. There's value in going to your general practice doctor up front or maybe get a recommendation. But if you've got severe foot pain or back pain or an earache, at some point you need to sit with someone that. That's their area of specialty.
Exactly right.
And I think that's what we've seen just in therapy. And counseling that if someone has been not only specifically trained in that area, but works extensively with that population, they're just going to have a whole lot more insight to bring that a general practitioner, though they mean well and they're for you, they may just not have the level of insights that you want. And so if you find, you know, you Google someone and you see they've got all these letters behind their name, you can look them up, you can see where that training's from. And I would say. And we'll get into this more in another question, but. But there are different types of training. And some I think we would. We would affirm and say, man, that's really solid. But there are others, if you read just a little bit about, you'd be like, that feels like a very bigger sexual health than I am looking for. I don't think that's the kind of therapist I want. So don't let the. Just like in the medical field, there's a abbreviation for everything for doctors too. But you probably have figured out what a lot of them are because you know what you're looking for. And so take a little bit of time, do some homework. And I think you'll find that there are some pretty clear distinctions you can figure out fairly quickly and then go. The other thing I'd say is when you think you've maybe found someone, almost every therapist or counselor has a profile page that will describe their education, their licensures, their trainings. And you could glance through that and probably get a pretty good sense of, wow, this person really knows what they're doing.
You went to Oregon State University? I don't think I can do that.
I think the kind of training they got resonates well with what I'm looking for versus maybe you see someone else. And the titles are like, well, I don't even understand half that. I don't think this is what I'm looking for. And that'd be okay to then keep looking.
And Nick, I did not have a Pure Desire group 26 years ago. And so for me, everything I work through, like my arousal template, we work through that with my therapist. But I would have loved to have a community of other men that I'm navigating this with and a curriculum that's helping me even understand that at a different level together. So, you know, for me, I had to learn. You know, I thought everybody needed a therapist at one point. Not everybody does does, but boy, there's sure benefit. But if you can do both, if you can do group work and therapy.
Work.
Boy, together, I think they can. They can really be great.
