Forget what I wrote Dreamy. It must seem that I am hounding you! You of course are the only person who has had the courage to say that you have a "real" religious belief and so I had, if I wanted to gain knowledge, to direct my questions to you.

I think by what you have written so far, that I have my answer. You do not have any formal process laid down to support and protect sufferers of mental illness. You deal with it when it happens, ad hoc. That's fair enough, you are not alone in that. I was hoping that you might have some formal oversight/pastoral procedure, somewhat akin to (but clearly not so intrusive or complex) the child protection procedures we have over here for Sunday school teachers in churches.

I wanted to know because I am contracted to offer supervision for degree students who wish to enter mental health work and, for those who do so, to those who wish to go on to carry out the Approved Person role in for the sake of shorthand, "sectioning" the unwell. The issue of religion comes up often and, sadly churches, while being very supportive (sometimes to the point of downright patronising) while a person is well, wash their hands at the first sign of problems. The vast majority of church elders/priests/ministers whatever do not attend the training that is offered to, at least give them some background. On the other hand, I have to gently (and sometimes not so gently0 remind the more rabid atheist students that religion is not grounds for sectioning people (thank goodness). I was hoping NZ had a more helpful system.

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"The voice of the majority is no proof of justice." - Schiller

Thank you, Dreamy, for taking the time to reply.and in such depth.
We do not have such a tight system about counselling in this country. If you wish to work for the Health Service as a counsellor, then there are many hurdles to leap and you must meet tight criteria and ethical constraints. I think that makes sense. I am qualified to do cognitive-behavioural therapy with psychotic patients, but am not allowed to offer that service to folk who are depressed, for example.

Over here, sadly, anybody can "invent" a form of counselling, and offer it. You can open a lot of "marginal" lists, say from shops that sell dreamcatchers and pentacles etc. and find someone offering "kabbalistic counselling" or "finding your angel" and so on. I doubt that any are insured.
I do know some are ex-patients - although that doesn't preclude them, but I do worry about credentials.

It may be because of the way our Health Service is funded. Community mental health teams and psychiatrists are restricted to working with "severe and enduring mental illness" and those who are under the care of their general practitioner have to wait a long time to access any talking therapies (although that is changing now - but only for CBT) The field is thus wide open for charlatans.This may also be the reason why people seek the acceptance of their local churches (or further afield). I have certainly never heard of any comeback, beyond a grumble form psychiatry about delayed referral.

We too have a fair bit of mental illness among ministers, particularly in the established Church of England where it was usual for the vicar to be given the freehold of the church and only supervised in management terms, unless they asked. The very fact of the way their living was paid/formalised laid an expectancy of strength and coping on them and some took it on board too completely and drove themselves to breakdown. In the non-established churches there seemed more mutual support among, for example, baptist ministers - and there are, of course, religious bodies that do not have paid ministers and have to do their pastoral work through the members. I am unsure that making it too regulated might not cause straightforward help and support being made impossible.

My view is, of course, coloured, I only see the results of bad counselling - of whatever kind - so I admit I am rather jaundiced about "casting out devils" and incidents of somebody, seriously ill, being sent out with a mere "we'll pray for you" prescription and no attempt at follow up and support.

Theoretically, I see no real harm at all, in "proper" religious counselling. I feel sure that, in the right hands, it is far better to meet someone "where they are" than starting off with a "You're wrong, come over here and join me and I'll counsel you" approach.

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"The voice of the majority is no proof of justice." - Schiller

Hi Dreamy - this seems to have become our "chat" -just between ourselves. But never mind, I am finding the exchange fruitful - and it will stay in the archives for somebody's future reference!

The "bullet points list seems to be to be realistic - it doesn't set out to "automatically" assume that religious intervention can "cure" everything - and again, as I work(ed) with folk who had to put up with schizophrenia, BPD and other potentially psychotic illnesses, this seems a sensible set of outcomes to look for. It clearly bears a lot in common with CBT (as she is practised here in the UK) - and does not preclude some psycho-dynamic work - all of which can fit into a religious frame of reference - although, perhaps, different words might be used.

When I was studying - many years go, we had a set book called "Helping people Grow" authored by a US pastor. I found it fascinating. I cannot recall whether the author tackled it, or if it was in a subsequent critique, but the "fit" between humanist techniques and christian theology, was a matter for at least one 2 hour lecture/discussion. I can recall that some techniques were considered to need careful "framing" - stuff like Rogerian approaches which assume that folk are basically good, and just need help to find that - and the fact that some religious bodies regard people as "basically faulted".

As I see the move to "evidence based" mental health interventions in the UK - moving away from "psycho-dynamic only" and scaling down their expectations of what can and can't show measurable effect, it fits with that book to some extent My experience with counsellors in a couple of mental health teams was that they nodded in the direction of "cultural differences" and were alert to the implications of different cultures - as long as the patient was black -yet they always talked over cases using middle class white secular values. The "mini-cultural differences" within the British scene were not overtly discussed - and if the person were religious this was just considered a no-go area, falling back on the "I know nothing about that" ploy, instead of trying to do some background research in order to tailor the intervention. I found it strange that they would spend hours reviewing video tapes of interviews and using NLP to frame their input in, for example, the same sensory terms as patients used, but steered away from some folks basic world view.

To what extent did your training pick up on the conflicting value systems of counselling techniques?

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"The voice of the majority is no proof of justice." - Schiller