Crisis and Trauma Counselling 1

The course is designed to equip lay and pastoral counsellors to come alongside traumatized people in their respective contexts ethically, applying insights on Christian counselling approaches from a biblical perspective on trauma and suffering, and integrate theoretical considerations regarding trauma within the scope of their praxis as they master specific trauma counselling skills.

In a severely traumatized world, there is an incessant need for Christian counsellors to be equipped with practical skills to help traumatized people heal and move towards wholeness. The course covers a thorough understanding of how trauma affects people, including some examples from Scripture, to gain insight on effective practical ways of counselling traumatized people.

The course provides various practical and creative counselling skills which students can apply in their contexts according to the individual needs of their traumatized clients, such as the use of creative expression, which can easily be adapted in multi-cultural contexts. The underlying principles of non-judgmental acceptance and compassionate care are fostered throughout the course.

By the end of this course you should be able to:

• Describe Christian counselling approaches to trauma and how stress and trauma affect the counselee.
• Describe a biblical perspective on trauma, human suffering and flourishing, from Scripture.
• Explain the fundamentals of complex trauma for spiritually informed and ethically safe treatment.
• Apply theoretical concepts of trauma counselling in assessing a case study.
• Construct counselling aids and a biblical framework for counselling the traumatized within the student’s cultural context.

The following textbook prescribed for this course and used in all the counselling courses and must be purchased.

• Collins, Gary. 2019. Christian Counseling: A Comprehensive Guide, 3rd ed. Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (The 2007 hard copy of Collin’s text is also acceptable.)

Hint: the Kindle/eBook options are cheaper and available to be downloaded immediately however you are free to source them from other providers as you wish (Amazon, Google Books, Loot, Exclusive Books, Cum Books, Takealot, Christian Book Discounters, etc). Keep in mind that you will need the textbooks from the first module.