Putting God Back Into Counseling: Handbook of Practical Soul Care Counseling

By Pastor Mike Schill Psy.D

God is irrelevant! One would think so when combing counseling methodology, literature of psychology, and mental health procedures. Not only is God and the devil omitted, but there are no references to the spirit world. A look at the DSM (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders often referred to as the psychiatrist's bible) reveals the spirit world has been afforded no mention as far as diagnosis or treatment. But how could it, as the counseling and mental health disciplines are patterned after the disease model practiced by the medical profession. This is where medical science has concluded the spirit world has no place, no validity when dealing with health issues. Demons cannot be introduced or factored into any psychological diagnosis as playing a part in a person's behavior, and God and the Bible certainly cannot be seen to have a part in the treatment one might receive and need.
"Putting God Back Into Counseling" is a book that does just that. Where God and the spirit world have been largely marginalized or eradicated by enlightened humanists: where CRT (Critical Race Theory) has displaced common sense, and relativism supersedes the truth found in the Word of God. "Putting God Back Into Counseling" focuses on bringing God back into what should be His rightful place in the counseling, psychology, and mental health fields. Today, God's people are hurting, churches are struggling, the devil is smiling, and the need for Biblical counseling has never been greater. In this book, the author is convinced that relegating all maladies or perceived mental health illnesses to an either/or, physical or mental causation is at best incomplete. The third part of our being, along with our body and soul, is our spirit, and it is this spirit realm that needs to be re-introduced to a lost, misinformed, and frightened people. Practical Soul Care Counseling does just that. PSCC also introduces the many organic/physical anomalies that are currently being misdiagnosed and treated by many psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists as mental illnesses when in fact they should be recognized and treated as medical conditions. Here are a few: mold toxicities, TBI's (traumatic brain injuries), POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), Lyme disease, and Fibromyalgia. These medical disorders are too often treated as being disorders of anxiety or depression rather than organic.
If you love people, if you hate the devil, and if you're tired of seeing Christians fall short of the victory God has for them, then "Putting God Back into Counseling" is a must read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350904635

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© Copyright 2023 Mike Schill. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Internet—without permission in writing from the publisher. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal, or group study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request.

Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book, the same assumes no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein. Any slights of people, places, or organizations are unintentional. Unless indicated, all persons and situations mentioned in this book have been veiled. The resemblance of any such person to any person, living or dead has been kept confidential. Nothing herein shall be construed as a substitute for personal, pastoral, or professional counseling or therapy.

ISBN: 979-8-35090-462-8 (print)

ISBN: 979-8-35090-463-5 (eBook)

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scriptures marked NAS95 taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. http://www.Lockman.org

Endorsements

One cannot be a biblical counselor without having a biblical worldview. I, like Mike, had to experience major paradigm shifts in order to be effective in helping others find their identity and freedom in Christ. This is not a book discussing all the secular theories written by a novice. Mike is a seasoned godly discipleship counselor who understands the reality of both the spiritual and the natural realms in which we live. More importantly he knows that only God can set a captive free and heal the wounds of the broken hearted. I urge you to read it so you can Put God Back Into Counseling.

Dr. Neil T. Anderson, Founder and President Emeritus of Freedom in Christ Ministries

Dr. Schill has given us a gift. It is rare to find someone with a Psy.D who also takes spiritual warfare seriously and integrates the best elements of Jay Adams and others to create a truly integrated model of transformation. This book will quickly find its way into the list of core books every Christian who works with the deeply wounded will want to read.

Dr. Marcus Warner, President of Deeper Walk International and author of Understanding the Wounded Heart, A Deeper Walk, and more. 

As a pastor of over forty years, I have never witnessed the kinds of attacks and struggles I’m seeing today against Christians of all kinds. God’s people are hurting, churches are struggling, and the devil is smiling. The need for biblical counseling and deliverance has never been greater. This powerful book should be read by every Christian leader involved in caring for souls, whether a pastor, clinician, or volunteer. With his rare combination of theological acumen and clinical experience, Mike Schill is uniquely qualified to guide us in caring for God’s people in spiritually tough times. I’ve seen firsthand how he not only guides suffering people into their true freedom in Christ, but also trains and equips other leaders to do the same. Mike’s method of Practical Soul Care Counseling is unparalleled in its proven effectiveness and biblical fidelity. If you love people, if you hate the devil, and if you’re tired of seeing Christians fall short of the victory God has for them, then Putting God Back into Counseling is a must read. Highly recommended. Pick up a copy for yourself, and then more copies for all the leaders in your church.

Bill Giovannetti, D.Min.

Pathway Church, Senior Pastor

Veritas School of Biblical Ministry, President 

I have known Mike Schill for almost a decade as a believer and as a professional counselor. He understands Scripture, ministry, and psychology. His book represents an excellent attempt to integrate his psychology and his Christianity into a unified worldview. This book is worth reading and pondering!

Rev. Patrick A. Blewett, D.Min., Ph.D.

Dean at A.W. Tozer Seminary

The title of Mike Schill’s book, Putting God Back into Counseling, aptly explains the need for this book in the corpus of literature on personal counseling. As Dr. Schill notes, humanity functions on three levels: physiological, psychological, and spiritual. It is the spiritual function that has often been neglected when addressing the practical problems of human behavior. Since the discipline of psychology entered the academic field in the nineteenth century, increasingly conjoined with the field of medicine, the enlightenment tendency to address all human problems from a naturalistic perspective has failed to take the supernatural into account and has predominated. I agree with the title: Putting God Back into Counseling.

Jim Fowler, Ph.D.

Director at Christ in You ministries, Pastor, and author of Man as God Intended…, Ninety-Five Theses for the Twenty-First Century Church, Union with Christ and more.

Dr. Mike Schill is a gifted counselor who believes the Bible is the word of God. It represents truth to be obeyed, rather than a book of suggestions to be deconstructed or considered. Mike’s worldview is theistic rather than naturalistic or atheistic. He clearly believes that relegating all maladies or perceived mental illnesses to an either/or, physical or mental causation, is at best incomplete. He also believes that for a percentage of people a supernatural causation contributing to their struggles can be real rather than imagined. In this book, Mike is not only sounding an alarm of concern, but he is also ringing a bell of hope. As a Christian, and one trained in clinical psychology, he is in a unique position to address the consideration and evaluation of the impact a supernatural causation may or may not have on an individual in the context of clinical psychology and Christian counseling. This book is both insightful and challenging, and worth the cost and time it takes to read. I would also consider giving a copy of this book to your pastor and counselors at your church or therapists you have worked with or know personally, whether their worldview is theistic or materialistic.

Karl I. Payne, D Min

Pastor, Author, Leadership Trainer

Table of Contents

Endorsements

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Preface

1—Why Did I Write This Book?

2—What’s the Difference between Secular and Christian Counseling?

3—Some Common but Often Misunderstood Terms

4—Issues That Can Open Doors to Truth or Lead us Astray

5—A Deep Dive to Understand Where Counseling is Today

and Where We Need to Go

6—What is Mental Illness and What Should a Responsible

Mental Health Approach Look Like?

7—Comparing a Typical Mental Health Diagnostic and Treatment Process With a Practical Soul Care Counseling (PSCC) Approach

8—A Fresh Look at Christian Anthropology

9—So... What is Practical Soul Care Counseling?

10—An Example of Handling an Issue from the World,

and What is the Flesh?

11—Are Demons Real, and if so, How Should We Deal with Them?

12—Comparing the DSM-5 Diagnostic Categories with Scriptural Possibilities

13—Concluding Thoughts . . .

Appendices

Bibliography

References

Foreword

Dr. Mike Schill is my friend, a good and trusted friend. He is also a mature Christian, and a gifted counselor with a PsyD in clinical psychology. He believes the Bible is the word of God. It represents truth to be obeyed, rather than a book of suggestions to be deconstructed or considered. This man is courageous. He represents a Christian who happens to have a clinical psychology PsyD, rather than a person educated in clinical psychology who happens to be a Christian. He is in a unique position to write this book with authenticity and credibility. I do not pretend to understand all he knows about clinical psychology, but I can tell you with confidence that he knows what he is talking about regarding the reality of demonization and deliverance. I have had the joy of speaking with Mike at several events on the subject of spiritual warfare and consider it a privilege to lock arms with him in service for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Mike’s worldview is theistic rather than naturalistic or atheistic. He clearly believes that relegating all maladies or perceived mental illnesses to an either/or, physical or mental causation, is at best incomplete. He also believes that for a percentage of people a supernatural causation contributing to their struggles can be real rather than imagined. A naturalist attempting to help resolve problems that are supernaturally caused will have no more ultimate long-term success than a theist attempting to help resolve problems he attributes to a supernatural cause, that are actually physiological or psychological in nature. The truth is that the academic and practicum training for many pastors, chaplains, doctors, psychiatrists, and clinical psychologists ignores or openly rejects the possibility of supernatural considerations troubling their congregants, patients, or clients. This purposeful omission, therefore, guarantees that some people seeking help are going to be routinely misdiagnosed and ultimately mistreated. The conflict between the naturalist and the supernaturalist, actually has very little to do with their intelligence or abilities, it has to do with their personal worldviews.

Mike expresses a degree of frustration with those affirming the existence of God, angels, Satan, demons, and the possibility of miracles, but in their respective practices relegate supernatural concerns to imagination, wishful thinking, mental illness, a desire for attention, or the naiveté of weak willed and weak-minded people, looking for someone or something to blame for their struggles rather than taking personal responsibility for them. It is easy to understand why atheists and naturalists would reject the possibility of God, Satan, angels, demons, or miracles. Their worldview rejects the existence or possibility of anything supernatural a-priori. From their point of view there is no difference between angels and demons or unicorns and leprechauns; fairy tales, one and all. What is more difficult to understand or explain is why professing theists, who do believe in the possibility of miracles and existence of supernatural beings, would limit their alternatives for recognizing and responding to their parishioners and clients’ problems to the same materialistic assumptions and remedies as a practicing naturalist or atheist.

We live in a culture where psychotropic drugs; potentially mind-bending drugs, are routinely prescribed, without knowing what many of the long-term effects are going to prove to be on patients. When these drugs are prescribed by professionals on a short-term basis, in an attempt to keep someone from doing bodily harm to themselves or others, they can serve a useful purpose. When they are prescribed routinely, out of habit or time-saving convenience, and relied on as a long-term solution rather than a short-term inhibitor, it should not come as a surprise that some problems may be exacerbated rather than remedied. This situation becomes even more problematic when the recipients of these drugs are small children. How often are mind and mood altering drugs prescribed to a child, often little boys, who seem incapable of acting as compliantly as little girls at home or in the classroom?

In this book, Mike is not only sounding an alarm of concern, but he is also ringing a bell of hope. As a Christian, and one trained in clinical psychology, he is in a unique position to address the consideration and evaluation of the impact a supernatural causation may or may not have on an individual in the context of clinical psychology and Christian counseling. You see, Mike is a member of the inner circle; one of the initiated; a person who understands and utilizes the education clinically trained therapists and counselors share in common. But Mike has something more to add for a counselor’s consideration and toolbox besides the training he and his colleagues received. Although he nowhere in this book advocates rejecting his conventional training, he has learned how to also recognize and respond to a third potential cause for mental maladies and challenges some people endure on a daily basis that are often ignored or rejected by many of his clinically trained colleagues. This third alternative is supernatural in nature. It represents an additional option for helping evaluate people who have often been involved in traditional counseling and under medical care for years and have given up hope for ever eliminating the voices and intrusive thoughts that torment them daily. The pervasive thoughts of giving up and ending it all have come after redefining these voices and attempting to control them to a manageable level through psychotropic drugs, has failed to eliminate either the voices or intrusive thoughts. I guess the voices are right; life is never going to work for me; things are never going to change; no one really loves me; I will always be alone; I would probably be better off dead.

So why this book, and why this book now? Although globally there are far more theists than atheists, the academic and medical communities are dominated by people who assume materialistic naturalism represents truth, rather than a competing worldview, and theism is viewed as fiction. Therefore, discussions about God, the devil, angels, demons, and miracles may be patronizingly tolerated if they make someone feel better, but they are ultimately viewed as part of a problem rather than part of a solution. Naturalism assumes even though a belief in a spirit world may seem real to the person who believes it, a supernatural spirit world does not correspond to reality because it cannot be tested empirically. This means that in the end, although supernaturalism may be presumed to be true, it cannot be regarded as meaningful. Real problems are rooted in real causes that are either physical, mental or a combination of the two. As such, they should only be addressed through physiological or psychological alternatives for treatment. Theistic or supernatural considerations are, by definition, regarded as naïveté, superstition, pseudo-science, or blatant fraud. A real irony regarding a commitment to materialistic naturalism as a worldview is that it represents a personal preference, but not something that can be ultimately proven by empirical testing. It is even more ironic that the assumption declaring statements can only be regarded as meaningful if they are empirically verifiable, and cannot be verified empirically. It is simply presumed to be true. Assumptions based upon assumptions do not represent empirical science. To presume that a naturalistic worldview represents reason, empiricism, sound science, and academic excellence, while a theistic worldview represent naiveté, superstition, pseudoscience, or blatant fraud, is not only naively hypocritical, but also blatantly arrogant, and potentially hurtful in caring for people whose struggles actually are supernaturally based rather than physiologically or psychologically based.

What if the voices and intrusive thoughts being reported by patients, clients, congregants, friends, or family members who end up in our offices, are actually real? What if limiting potential help for addressing these voices and thoughts to alternatives that are either physiological or psychological in nature is actually guaranteeing that at least a percentage of these people will continue believing their minds and bodies are a prison because their primary battle is supernatural in nature?

A person does not have to be in unequivocal agreement with every word Mike has written or theological supposition he has made between the covers of this book to recognize its profound and insightful value to pastors, parishioners, counselors, and clients. I believe this book is a Godsend; desperately needed in the paradoxically secular and spiritual, psychotropic drug addicted culture we live in today. It is a compelling challenge to pastors, doctors, and counselors to learn how to recognize and respond to a third possible cause for their congregants, patients and clients struggles. It also represents a plea or cry for professionals and interested lay people, to consider or reconsider the reality of a supernatural causation for physical or mental struggles plaguing at least a percentage of people who are not being helped through the counseling and psychiatric care they are currently receiving. Lastly, it represents hope to people who are tormented daily by voices, intrusive thoughts, bizarre ideas, and pernicious mental impressions, which their pastors, psychiatrists and psychologists tell them, represent their imagination or indicators they are mentally ill.

My hope and prayer would be that this book will challenge the thinking of theists, naturalists, and atheists alike, regardless of whether they work in various fields of health care or as butchers, bakers, and candle stick makers. This book is both insightful and challenging, and worth the cost and time it takes to read. I would also consider giving a copy of this book to your pastor and counselors at your church or therapists you have worked with or know personally, whether their worldview is theistic or materialistic.

Karl I. Payne, D Min

Pastor, Author, Leadership Trainer

Acknowledgments

Bill Giovanetti – author, professor, pastor, and friend who guided me in the post writing of this book through the many publication entanglements.

Jim Fowler – trusted friend, fellow pastor, and mentor who introduced me to the message and Biblical truth of Christ in You, our only hope of glory.

Karl Payne – pastor, author, and faithful friend who championed me in the writing of this book, and who supported me along the way.

Keith Kayser – pastor, and close friend who shared with me the Deeper Life truths and encouraged me in both my personal life and in the writing of this book.

Len Walmark – a revered and favorite N.T. professor at Simpson University, and good friend who first advised