CNS641 Advanced Counseling Skills

Logos Equivalent Course Numbers

Undergraduate:  CNS241 Advanced Counseling Skills

Graduate:  CNS641 Advanced Counseling Skills

Course Description:

The purpose of this course is to present a number of important areas of counseling not covered  directly in other courses.  Presenters are those that have some expertise in each area.  Classes include two new models in counseling, counseling children and teens, suicide prevention, PTSD, DBT, Meyer-Briggs Temperament Theory and multicultural counseling.

Text Books:  You may choose any one of those below:

The Power of Right Believing by Joseph Prince

The Worship Cycle by Nick Harris

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook by Glenn Schiraldi

Biblical Counseling with African-Americans by Clarence Walker

A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby Payne

IN ORDER TO RECEIVE CREDIT FOR THIS COURSE YOU MUST MEET THESE COURSE REQUIREMENTS

1. Read and underline important passages and insights in the textbook you selected.

2. Watch each video and take any additional notes not covered in the textbook. Prepare for the open book final examination.

3. Write a 3 page paper on what you learned about the particular topic you selected from those presented.  Gather additional material on your subject from other sources to expand your knowledge about that subject.

4. Write a 5 page paper on how you would apply what you have learned to counsel a client with that particular issue.  Do additional research on the subject with at least three references other than the Bible.

5. For graduate credit, students are required to write an additional 7 page paper on how they would integrate faith with the particular topic you have chosen to study from this course.   Cite at least three additional references.

6. Take the open book test that will be E-mailed to you when have completed the papers. You may use your notes, book, or the videos for reference.

7. Submit your papers and final examination to Word of Life Institute for grading.

This class discusses this new book by Joseph Prince on the application of grace from an overall standpoint of the New Covenant and how right believing can set you or your client free from fear, guilt and addictions.  This lecture goes beyond the book to show you how a biblical understanding of grace can set you free from pride, selfishness, anxiety, fear, guilt, and addictions.  This focused topic has the potential to change your life forever.  

Nick Harris, M.S.  is the director of Living Waters House of Prayer in Wichita.  This focused topic is based on his book on spiritual growth by the same title.  In it he discusses the place of prayer, humility, confession, repentance, forgiveness, meditation, and worship in psychological healing and spiritual growth. 

The instructor is a School Psychologist with many years of experience helping children.  She will try to sum up what she has learned about helping children, give you new techniques, and answer questions about how to most effectively understand and counsel children.

Carla Charboneau, M. A.  is the director of counseling at House of Hope in Wichita, Kansas that ministers to children, teens and families.  She has lead the discussion of the American Association of Christian Counselors video course Caring for Teens God’s Way this year and has many years of experience helping teenagers.  She will try to summarize all that she has learned, give us techniques and methods to address typical problems, and answer our questions.

This class was first developed and presented in Rwanda to train pastors to help victims of the genocide that took place there in 1994.  PTSD can result from any life threatening traumatic event including accidents, sexual or physical abuse, or war.  Without treatment it can affect the person for a lifetime.  But what does the Bible have to teach us about it?  This course will give us a biblical story that can be shown to meet the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM5) criteria for PTSD and show us the factors that can bring healing to these tormented and emotionally struggling persons.  This class it a must take topic if you know someone struggling with this issue.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy was originally developed as an approach for counseling Borderline Personality Disorder which is typified by extreme emotional volatility, impulsivity, cutting, and suicidal behavior out of a fear of abandonment.   Today this group of emotional control and mediation techniques is widely used in counseling.  They includes distress tolerance skills, mindfulness skills, interpersonal effectiveness skills, and emotional regulation skills.  Although the original author is known to have derived some of her original methods from  Zen Buddhism, we will explore them from a biblical perspective.

David has spent years studying Myers-Briggs Temperament Theory and will provide us a history and in-depth PowerPoint presentation.  Myers-Briggs was developed to help people understand the differences in how people relate to life, what they are best suited to do, who they will best get along with and how to maximize the strengths and cope with the liabilities that each of these 16 temperaments provides.   He will address how Myers-Briggs can help your family and the Body of Christ appreciate each other’s differences, and use it to help determine where we will best fit into the church body.

In this Focused Topic David will continue his discussion of Myers-Brigs and a second approach to temperament theory (Keirsey) and then apply both theories as they are  applicable to counseling, life coaching, and your individual life.

Sarah is a Clinical Psychologist working with a caseload of many extremely volatile and suicidal clients.  She will discuss triggers, risk factors, protective factors, means prevention, how to build a safety plan to prevent suicide, and when to hospitalize clients.  This class is a must topic for anyone dealing with persons with suicidal thoughts so that we can at least know we have done all we could do to help them no matter what choices they may eventually make.

As America and our church becomes more cross-cultural, it would help if we truly understood the hidden rules that each culture embraces and even evaluate our own culture from a biblical perspective.  This Focused Topic will explore the Hispanic, Black, Asian, Native American, Poverty, Middle Class, and Wealth cultures.  You will be interested to learn that the hidden rules of the last three economic cultures many times provide a stronger influence in our lives than our race and even among the different country cultures of the world.