A Word from Bob
I’ve excerpted today’s blog post from my book, Equipping Biblical Counselors: A Guide to Discipling Believers for One-Another Ministry.
And the Survey Says: The Effectiveness of Paraprofessional Counselors
While I was working on my doctorate in the mid-90s, an article published in a major counseling journal sent shock waves through the counseling community. Its results called into question the efficacy of professional counseling training, while also distilling basic elements that qualify an individual to be an effective people helper.
The article traced the history of modern research into counselor effectiveness beginning with Durlak’s work examining the results of forty-two studies that compared the effectiveness of professional helpers to paraprofessionals (laypeople helpers).
The data from the study indicated that lay helpers equaled or surpassed the effectiveness of the professional therapists.[1]
Hattie, Sharpley, and Rogers attempted to refute those findings by combining the results of forty-six studies. Their data, however, supported Durlak’s conclusions.
Clients of lay helpers consistently achieved more positive outcomes than did clients of the professionally educated and experienced counselors.[2]
Berman and Norton reanalyzed Hattie’s study. They concluded that no research currently supported the notion that professional training, knowledge, or experience improved therapist effectiveness.
Their reanalysis indicated that lay counselors were equally effective as professional counselors in promoting positive change.[3]
Herman, in his review of these studies, indicated that research suggested that professional training was not the primary means for developing competence in helping people. Rather, the personal characteristics of the helper were the greatest factors leading to competence as a counselor.
In other words, the studies demonstrated that maturity, love, genuine concern, empathy, humility, and vulnerability were more important than professional training.[4]
After the appearance of these studies, Tan noted that little research had been done to assess the effectiveness of church-based Christian lay counseling programs. He rectified that through a controlled study of a church-based lay counseling program. His findings indicated that the treatment group reported significantly more improvement on all measures than the control group, and they maintained their gains at significant levels.
He concluded that the study supports the effectiveness of Christian lay counseling in a local church context.[5]
Such descriptive research offers valuable support when people raise objections to the effectiveness of equipping biblical counselors for the church.
And the Scriptures Say
Of course, 2,000 years earlier Paul offered all the biblical validation we need when he affirmed that God’s people were competent to counsel.
I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct (noutheteo) one another (Romans 15:14).
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort (parakaleo) those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
Endnotes
[1]J. Durlak, “Comparative Effectiveness of Paraprofessional and Professional Helpers,” 80–92.
[2]J. A. Hattie, H. J. Rogers, and C. F. Sharpley, “Comparative Effectiveness of Professional and Paraprofessional Helpers,” 534–541.
[3]J. S. Berman, and N. C. Norton, “Does Professional Training Make a Therapist More Effective?” 401–407.
[4]Keith Herman, “Reassessing Predictors of Therapist Competence,” 29–32.
[5]Siang-Yang Tan and Yiu-Meng Toh. “The Effectiveness of Church-Based Lay Counselors: A Controlled Outcome Study,” 260–267.
