J.C. Counseling and Education Courses The Essential Courses cover the basic material you need to know to begin to do counseling in the church and are required before beginning an individual practicum. The Group Therapy and Addictions Courses are grouped together since addictions and codependency are best ministered to in a group setting. The Relations Courses are those focused on relationships. The advanced courses deal with in-depth spiritual issues and the complex problems of mental disorders. A certification should be obtained to verify you are a trained counselor when providing free counseling in a church and a degree is needed in most cases in order to obtain counseling liability insurance so that you are protected from malpractice litigation if charging fees for your counseling services.

If you complete selected required Essential Courses you will receive: *Christian Marriage & Family Therapy Counseling Certified *Christian Child & Adolescent Counseling Certified *Christian Crisis & Abuse Counseling Certified *Christian Domestic Violence Counseling Certified By completing all the essential courses you will receive the following certifications: *Certified Comprehensive Christian Counselor & *Christian Intervention Counseling Certified If you complete the Advance Courses you will receive a * Christian Leadership Counselor Certification

Essential Courses Faith Therapy: Understanding salvation by faith and resolving deeply-rooted problems. This book and course provide a psychological understanding of the process of salvation by faith, winning the trial of your faith, how to increase faith, how to assess faith, and how to apply it to meet our deepest needs for self-worth, significance, security, and love. It includes models for conquering the common problems of low self-image, pride, selfish desires, strife, fear, spiritual oppression, lust, and for developing healthy attachment. It is easily taught and applied in churches because it is completely based on the Bible.

Required book: Transformation!: How Simple Bible Stories Provide In-Depth Answers for Life's Most Difficult Problems Paperback – May 22, 2014

Effective Counseling: Learn the basic skills necessary to counsel. This course teaches the essential communication skills, analysis methods, and ethics necessary to help people. It uses the Basis Attending Skills book and the AACC Ethical Code as its primary text books. Quite a number of in-class exercises and take home assignments are used to give you actual experience attending, asking powerful questions, reflecting feelings, confronting, connecting, analyzing problems, and resolving ethical dilemmas.

Required books: Christian Counseling 3rd Edition: Revised and Updated Jan 14, 2007 by Gary R. Collins & Christian Counseling Ethics: A Handbook for Psychologists, Therapists and Pastors Apr 8, 2013 by Randolph K. Sanders

Eight Steps of Spiritual Growth: Salvation begins with faith; Christians are frustrated trying to live the Christian life in this world. They want to serve Christ but find that they fail again and again in their attempts to get victory over sin, overcome the flesh, die to the self, and love others. Most have no definite idea of how these goals are to be achieved. This should not be the case because the Bible gives us a clear road map to spiritual and psychological maturity; it is accomplished revelation by revelation as we grow in our knowledge of God. It is not enough to have the knowledge of God in our minds or even to love Him with our emotions-faith must grow in our spirit.

Required book: Revelations That Will Set You Free: The Biblical Roadmap for Spiritual and Psychological Growth Paperback – July 15, 2014 by Troy Reiner

Christian Counseling Exploration: The single most important skill in coaching is asking powerful questions. In this volume, master coach trainer Tony Stoltzfus joins with 12 other professional coaches to present dozens of valuable asking tools, models and exercises, then illustrates these coaching strategies with over 1,000 examples of penetrating questions. Covering the gamut from basic techniques like options and actions to advanced concepts such as challenge and reframing, Coaching Questions is a book that will find a home on any coach's short list of handy references. Coaching Questions: A Coach's Guide to Powerful Asking Skills includes: 1. Dozens of asking tools, models, and strategies. 2. The top ten asking mistakes coaches make, and how to correct each one. 3. Nearly 1200 examples of powerful questions from real coaching situations. 4. Destiny discovery tools organized in a four-part life-purpose model . 5. Overviews of 15 popular coaching niches, with a tool and examples for each. 6. A schedule of training exercises to help you become a "Master of Asking".

Required book: Coaching Questions: A Coach's Guide to Powerful Asking Skills Apr 24, 2008 by Tony Stoltzfus

Group Counseling/Facilitating Support Groups: Small groups are one of the most effective ways to attract people from the community into a church that would otherwise not be reached for Christ, help the largest number of people in the church with a minimum expenditure of resources. This is an active workbook containing 28 exercises of self-discovery for persons in recovery. The author is an addiction professional with long term active recovery. Take a look at the table of contents on the back page. This book offers an overview of recovery groups, addiction counseling, and self-defeating behaviors. Included are goals for recovery, practices in recovery and why they work, and how to get more from recovery fellowships.

Required book: Recovery 101: An introductory course Paperback – 2015 by Christopher J. O'Brien (Author), Kaiulani Winter (Editor)

Counseling Addictions: This course provides the tools necessary for counseling addictions including the basic Christian models of addictions, the Christian 12 Steps, Freedom from addictions, assessment, and record keeping for drugs, alcohol, sex, relationships, and eating addictions.

Required book: The Life Recovery Workbook: A Biblical Guide Through the Twelve Steps Paperback – August 1, 2007 by Stephen Arterburn

Counseling Codependency: This is an in-depth course dealing with the overall topic of codependency. It covers the origin of the problem, description of codependency, types of codependency, differential diagnosis of codependency, and methods of treating each type. It practically addresses the manifest behaviors, emotions and needs of the codependent, while simultaneously introducing the precious truths of God’s love. This workbook doesn’t just diagnose the problem, but offers the healing principles of the Lord Jesus Christ in a fresh and profound way. When applied, you will have the opportunity to walk in freedom and grace, rather than bondage and control. Above all, this journey allows you to find freedom, purpose and identity in Christ. This book is written for anyone who wants to grow closer to the Lord, and to embrace healthy and whole relationships.

Required book: The Christian Codependence Recovery Workbook: From Surviving to Significance Revised and Updated Paperback – March 3, 2013 by Stephanie Tucker

Christian Pre-Marriage Counseling: The material lends itself to heart-felt discussions by dating or engaged couples. To jump-start the exchanges, each short chapter includes insightful “Talking it Over” questions and suggestions. And, the book includes information on interactive websites as well as books that will enhance the couple’s experience. Also includes a thought-provoking appendix. By understanding and balancing the five key aspects of life, dating couples can experience a healthy dating relationship. A revealing learning exercise for dating couples is included at the end.

Required book: Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married Paperback – September 1, 2010 by Gary D Chapman

Christian Marriage and Family Counseling: This will provide you with an integrated, biblically based theory of marriage and marriage therapy with analysis at three levels: the individual, the couple and the family. A thorough going overview of the assessment process includes practical, workable guidelines for: creating realistic, mutually-agreeable goals for counselor and clients; estimating the number of sessions needed to reach those goals; and planning the actual assessment, intervention and termination sessions. Will provide specific techniques for enhancing cooperative change, intimacy, communication, conflict resolution and forgiveness within the marriage.

Required book: Marriage Counseling: A Christian Approach to Counseling Couples Paperback – February 11, 1993 by Everett L. Worthington Jr.

Domestic Violence, Anger management, and Abuse: Both men and women can be abusers or victims. Often family friends feel helpless. Questions arise. How can we help the victim when she/he does not seem to want to leave the relationship? Is there hope for the perpetrators? Can they change? We explain what domestic violence is, the causes, the consequences, suggested treatment and help for both perpetrators and victims, and a biblical view of marriage. In part two, we tackle the subject of anger management. We will define anger and its core dynamics, determine how to recognize it, see that anger is a choice we can manage, and identify the cycle of anger. We will identify the major mental distortions that fuel anger, and expand on practical strategies to manage anger.

Required book: Domestic Violence: Causes and Cures and Anger Management Paperback – May 12, 2010 by Dr. Willis C. Newman and Esmeralda Newman

Christian Practice Management: This course provides under the guidance of the highly respected American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC), more than 40 leading Christian professionals have come together to provide this comprehensive, authoritative, and up-to-date reference guide for professional and lay counselors, pastors, and leaders in training. Competent Christian Counseling offers you: the best contributions on spiritual formation and pastoral care from Scripture as well as from giants of church history; the latest research, theory, and successful practice methods in Christian counseling; a practical, 21st century model of Christian counseling that is not only “counselor friendly,” but also facilitates effective, biblical client change--all geared to help people mature in the ways and wisdom of Jesus Christ.

Required book: Competent Christian Counseling, Volume One: Foundations and Practice of Compassionate Soul Care – April 16, 2002 Edited by Timothy Clinton and George Ohlschlager

Required for all certifications Practicum: Individual Practicum - Provide actual supervised lay counseling experience. Complete 30 contact hours are required for counselling certification. Group Practicum - Provide 10 actual supervised experiences attending, facilitating, and leading a support group hours required for counselling certification. This can be accomplished through church Pastors or Advanced Certified people.

Required book: Biblical Counseling Practicum Workbook (Expository Counseling Center Training) Jan 29, 2014 by Dr. Nicolas Ellen

Advanced Courses Advanced Counseling Skills: This course provides additional topics on advanced counseling areas not covered in other courses but still essential to a broader counseling education. Some of these classes include The Power of Right Believing, Myers-Briggs Temperament Theory, Suicide Prevention, and Cross-cultural counseling. Required books: *The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Addiction Oct 14, 2014 by Joseph Prince *Myers-Briggs by the (Good) Book: Relating Myers-Briggs Personality Types to the Biblical Spiritual Gifts Kindle Edition by Jim Berge *Preventing Suicide: A Handbook for Pastors, Chaplains and Pastoral Counselors Paperback – September 26, 2014 by Karen Mason (Author) *Counseling Cross-Culturally: An Introduction to Theory and Practice for Christians Paperback – August, 1984 by David J. Hesselgrave

Psychopathology: This course discusses abnormal behavior as described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM5) from a Christian perspective. It is by far the most difficult type of counseling and the most controversial because it many times includes physical, psychological, experiential and spiritual aspects involved in the same problem. It is also the basis for mental health diagnosis.

Required books: Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness Paperback – July 21, 2015 by Kathryn Greene-McCreight & Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM5)

Advanced Practice Management: This course provides all the basic information necessary for beginning and managing a church-based counseling center including defining a mission statement, developing a business plan, determining the structure, administration, automation, advertising, technical and legal issues.

Required books: Organizational Leadership: Foundations and Practices for Christians – June 15, 2014 Edited by Jack Burns, John R. Shoup and Donald C. Simmons Jr.; Living Victoriously in Difficult Times (40-Minute Bible Studies)Jul 21, 2009 by Kay Arthur, Bob Vereen and Diane Vereen

Advanced Individual Practicum: Advanced Individual Practicum - Provides actual supervised lay counseling experience. 30 contact hours is required for counselling certification. Advanced Group Practicum - Provides 30 actual supervised experience attending, facilitating, and leading a support group hours. This can be accomplished through church Pastors or Advanced Leadership Certified people.

Required book: Biblical Counseling Practicum Workbook (Expository Counseling Center Training) Kindle Edition by Dr. Nicolas Ellen