Counseling has debatable claims for success as noted earlier in these Pages. Many believe that it has failed. Even devoted counselors have published statements about the failure of counseling. Counselors change orientations, coming up with new concepts in attempts to get it right. It is something of a joke that in civil trials equally experienced psychiatrists can be used on both sides of a question to contradict each other. Rollo May, the eminent New York psychiatrist, once said that the American public would someday blow the whistle on the counselors. Some reviews show lay counseling as effective as professional in some areas, like family counseling.
One Christmas week, sixty years ago, I was busy completing my work at my college office so that I would not have to return until after the New Year began. Alone in the building, I hurried so to get home for holidays, and an interim Church ministry. I became suddenly aware of a silent man figure at my office door. The event felt sinister to me. The fellow was obviously troubled, and, for the moment, appeared threatening. He asked: Are you Professor Lee, from KTIS? I admitted that I was. (I read the news and delivered an editorial over this Minneapolis station twice daily in addition to professoral duties at the college.) The young man sat down by my desk. He poured out his dark story for an hour. He said he was at the end of his rope.
So began some months of counseling this deeply troubled fellow. He was laid off by his employer, The Great Northern R.R. He could not be fired because of his mental illness. A battery of psychiatrists finally said that they could not help him, and broke off counseling sessions. He came to me as final resort, as he said: On the way you sound on the radio, I think you might care for me. With that we launched a year of conversations, but I was neither a psychiatrist, nor the son of a psychiatrist. I saw him whenever he wanted to see me. I made sure to give him something constructive to do relating to the persons in his life, especially his mother. My wife related easily to his mother so to help her not to be put off by his problems. Nearly a year later he sat in his right mind, was keeping company with a young lady (whom he later married and had a child), was returned to his job, and was later promoted. The company counselor requested of me what I had done, an amateur by standards of psychiatry that made the difference in the young man. The answer turned out to be that we developed a mutual relationship, and out of it the solution emerged without either of us, at the time, analyzing why. He trusted me, and discovered that he could trust God. He was drawn to concepts of forgiveness, restoration and acceptance.
The concept of relationship has Providence in it. The relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit creates a perfect expression of God to us. There is righteousness in it, and mutuality of purpose. Much of what Jesus did had to do with his relationship between himself, the Father and the Holy Spirit. One might well ask: When am I at my best? I am at my better self, trusting and improving when I am in good relationship with persons I respect, even love. It is an open secret for a good marriage, and parent/child relationships. We influence each other for good or ill. There are friends and family with whom I firmly relate in care and in desire for the best in all. I find myself improved, and they observe their benefit to me. Problems are solved. We refuse the negatives, the judgmental, and the ill feelings. The answer came when my friend said, I never believed the psychiatrists could help me, and I always believed that you could. Insightful family relationships solve many problems with that loving insight practiced. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020