Today, in my class, we’ll be talking about the characteristics of good answers in counseling. We’ve pretty much been talking about questions up until now because I’ve seen a huge tendency (in myself and others) to want to “fix” a problem before we know much about it. I’ve been hammering them with good counseling starts with asking the right questions. Today, we focus on good answers.
Good answers do the following seven things: confront the pain; accept the unknown; give time to process; minister with presence; share Biblical principles; show that they are not alone in their struggles; remind how God has worked in the past. I know there are other things, but for me, these characteristics are the things that make an answer a good answer.
Below is the mind map of my notes. Click the image to see it bigger (it’s in Spanish).