Finding healing through counselling prayer

[Editor’s Note: Everyone has mental health experiences on the spectrum between thriving and struggling. Perhaps you (or a friend) are in a season where you need extra mental, social, emotional, spiritual, and physical support. In this #mentalhealth series we want to balance personal experience/story with input from mental health and medical professionals. We want to also explore, “How does our faith in Jesus relate to our mental health?” Our desire is to support you as you work towards mental well-being. 

If you are considering hurting yourself or someone else, or you know someone who is, please contact a mental health emergency hotline. If you need urgent counselling support, Kids Help Phone is also available for young adults up to age 29 for phone calls, Facebook Messenger, or texting conversations.

Written by Tara Boyce. Tara has been practising clinician for almost twenty years. She earned a BA in Psychology from Trinity Western University in 2000 and a Masters in Social Work at Wilfrid Laurier University in 2002 with a focus on individuals, couples, families, and groups. Since 2004, she has worked with By Peaceful Waters as a therapist serving individuals, children, and families using a variety of modalities and treatment practices geared to each client. She focuses her training in the areas of attachment, trauma, and emotionally focused therapy. She has also been trained in theophostic prayer counselling for inner healing and generational work.]

Have you ever reacted too strongly to something, where your emotions seemed out of place?

Can you think of a time where you felt emotionally paralyzed or numb?

If you said yes to these two questions, you may have experienced an emotional trigger from a past traumatic experience. 

When a present situation is similar enough to a past traumatic experience, it can trigger deep emotions, and our reaction may be out of proportion to the circumstance. You may start to question why our feelings are so overwhelming or why you are stuck in a cycle of self-destructive behaviours. You may feel lost and don’t truly understand ourselves.   

The good news is that there is a way to heal. There is a way out of painful feelings. Through theophostic prayer counselling, you have the opportunity to invite Jesus into your memories, where he meets you in some of your deepest wounds.

Defining theophostic prayer counselling

Theophostic prayer counselling, which should only be entered in the context of a safe, trusting relationship with a trained practitioner, is an option to facilitate healing when there is difficulty establishing clear memories of a painful event. It invites God (“theo”) to bring the truth to light (“phostic”). It is a tool to create a real experience of shedding layers of loss and false identity to build healthy attachments instead.

Prayer counselling offers deliverance from the emotional power of lies or pain from past experiences.

Going back in time

Since emotional foundations are formed by early life experiences that are often outside of conscious memory, going back in time is where healing is found. Truth needs to be interjected into those memories. That’s something only God, who transcends time and space, can accomplish.  

Prayer healing involves asking God to help you and your counselling submit to the logical and spiritual process of going back to the root memory. We ask together in confidence that he will give us the wisdom, understanding and discernment we need. He gives us visions, words of knowledge and inner feelings, and reveals how we are to proceed through the process.  

To begin a prayer counselling session, it’s important that you have an understanding of prayer counselling, for you to feel safe, so you’re not caught off guard by the process.

The first step is to acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ. Aligning with Jesus out loud and praying against any demonic interference is a clear way to make known the boundary with the enemy. There is incredible power in the name of Jesus and in stating aloud that Satan is to step aside and be rendered deaf, dumb, and blind.  

Inviting the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is invited into the session. Then with his help, you would be invited to go with Jesus to an earlier memory that contributes to the feelings you are presently experiencing. This is what makes prayer counselling unlike other therapies or theories. There are no known answers before asking the question. The facilitator does not have to figure out where these emotions originated. Both the facilitator and the recipient are relying on the Holy Spirit to lead them to the place they need to go.

Since he knows us perfectly, we can be sure Jesus knows exactly where the present problem originated. This places the responsibility for the healing on the one who has the power to heal you.

Revealing the lies

Going to the memory can be painful. A safe, trusting relationship between you and your counselling is key to gauge the impact of the memory and if needed, to pause the experience.

While in the memory, the recipient is asked to describe what they are sensing and feeling. The counsellor asks Jesus to reveal any negative conclusions you came to believe about yourself due to that particular memory. These negative conclusions were not the truth, but lies. Because they were accepted as the truth, they hold a lot of power in your life.  

Replacing the lies

Once the lies are exposed, it is imperative that they are replaced with the truth. The opportunity to be led into truth brings emotional healing and freedom. It is helpful to personally invite Jesus into the memory because the intimacy of this interaction is what can bring about a profound shift in thinking about your identity. Jesus coming to you in one of your most painful moments can change the course of the future and be the start of knowing who you truly are as a child of God. 

Through prayer counselling and healing, you can experience the reality that Jesus was with you in your painful experiences and he is with you in your healing.