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The Way Forward with PTSD with Curtis Solomon
370 Plays7 months ago
In this episode of Straight to the Heart, our host, Rush Witt, talks with Dr. Curtis Solomon. They dive into the hallmarks of the PTSD experience and key ways biblical counseling has been effective in helping those suffering from PTSD. They also touch on a fascinating historical perspective, discussing PTSD in the context of World War II and the lessons learned from that era.
CURTIS SOLOMON ONLINE
Curtis' Website
Biblical Counseling Coalition
Facebook
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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
I Have PTSD
Redeem Your Marriage
Reclaim Your Marriage
For more about the podcast at New Growth Press online.
Timestamps:
1:50 - Welcome
3:28 - Can you give a brief overview of the BCC and your role in it?
10:03 - Where did your interest in PTSD begin?
17:16 - What are some of the hallmarks of the PTSD experience?
24:57 - Does PTSD usually result from physical trauma?
32:05 - How do you help a person see a difference between hardship and trauma.
37:28 - What are the key ways you’ve seen biblical counseling help people suffering with PTSD.
47:37 - A Final Question About PTSD and WWII
57:11 - Farewell
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Biblical PTSD Research
00:00:00
Speaker
And yeah, all those kind of suspicions I had in the back of my mind, like God's word has answers for this problem. Jesus has a significant role to play in helping people who are struggling with the aftermath of severe severe suffering. That's a little bit of the on-ramp of how I got into researching on post-traumatic stress.
00:00:21
Speaker
I'm Rush Witt, and you're listening to Season 3 of Straight to the Heart, a podcast from New Growth Press. Each episode includes thought-provoking conversations with leading Christian writers and thinkers. We hear who they are, what they believe, how they approach their work in ministry, and the moments in people who have changed their lives. In Straight to the Heart, we go beyond the books to connect with the remarkable people behind them.
Introducing Curtis Solomon and His Work
00:00:47
Speaker
Today, I'm happy to bring you an interesting and helpful conversation with Dr. Curtis Solomon. Curtis is not only a friend, but also a current leader in the biblical counseling movement and the executive director of the biblical counseling coalition. He has extensive experience and a strong heart for helping people navigate the complexities of PTSD through the transformative power of the gospel.
00:01:12
Speaker
In our discussion, we cover a wide range of topics related to PTSD. We dive into the hallmarks of the PTSD experience, key ways biblical counseling has been effective in helping those suffering from PTSD, and we also touch on a fascinating historical perspective, discussing PTSD in the context of World War II and the lessons learned from that era.
00:01:36
Speaker
I hope this conversation brings you hope and practical wisdom, whether you're personally affected by PTSD or supporting others in their struggles. This is Straight to the Heart. Let me ask you first just sort of what's really good in life right now. Things going on at Boyce and Southern and life and home and what's really good.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, right now it's honestly a really good season. Uh, and just about every front we, Jenny and I just celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. So congratulations. Yeah. Thanks. So just coming off of a long weekend there, we had our, our kids with, uh, church friends and we got to
00:02:23
Speaker
eat tons of great food, go to Nashville, watch a lot of college basketball. So it's fun. And our son, our oldest son just wrapped up his first season of archery as a, as a high school archer. And he finished second and his team did really well, went to state, uh, scored his best at state, which is always nice, right? Wow. Yeah.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, and our 10-year-old is just trucking along through life and voice is going great. We're about to wrap up the semester. Got a very full major of biblical counselors that are excited and growing and just really impressed with them. We just hired a new faculty to help out with stuff there and BCC is going well. We just launched our spring kind of partner campaign where we're encouraging people to join as BCC partners and then
00:03:16
Speaker
either start or join a 133 network, which is like a gathering of biblical counselors geographically co-located or if there's nobody in their area, a virtual one. Lots of good stuff. That's great. It's always good to hear about good seasons where things seem to be moving along smoothly and with a lot of energy. And I hear so many stories coming from Southern and Boyce and
00:03:41
Speaker
all of the other areas that you mentioned. So that's really cool.
Role and Purpose of BCC
00:03:44
Speaker
It might be good just for you to give a little intro at the beginning here to describe what the BCC is. It's always a highlight of my truly, honestly, always a highlight of my year to be able to attend the leadership summit as a guest and take part in conversations with a lot of people I respect and learn from. But it would be great just to give a little overview of that because some people might not know what the BCC is and what its purpose is.
00:04:10
Speaker
The BCC stands for the Biblical Counseling Coalition. It was started back in 2010. It actually had informal meetings in 2008 or so. It was born out of this recognition that in the Biblical Counseling Movement, there was some fracturing division.
00:04:31
Speaker
Uh, sometimes because there was actual division or disagreement, other times just because people were in different locations doing their thing and they were just unaware of, or, you know, not, not having the time or capacity to interact with, with different people. But what the leaders of the movement realized is that while they were teaching together at different conferences, got along interacting with one another. Well, a lot of the students of, of those teachers, uh, began kind of
00:05:02
Speaker
Becoming a little bit like Corinth, like I'm of this organization or I'm of this organization. And the BCC was a brainchild of Steve Myers, Bob Kellerman and others who said, Hey, what can we do to facilitate more unity in collaboration and just sharpening the movement as a whole, getting great resources out there, building relationships among the leaders.
00:05:25
Speaker
I think Randy Patton has said it the best. We want our biblical counselors and leaders to be talking to each other instead of about each other, and we want to know each other and not just know about each other. So the annual summit that you talked about is a big, big part of that, and that's where we can get the whole BCC Council.
00:05:45
Speaker
a select group of leaders in the movement around 50 to 60 people together for a three day retreat. We talk about different topics, but also spend a lot of time just building relationships, fellowships, breaking bread together.
00:06:01
Speaker
And the goal really is to help facilitate relationships that focus on the primacy of the Word of God and the care of souls and really grow the biblical counseling movement through that. So Jim Neuheiser, one of our longtime council members, has said, we're like the UN of the biblical counseling movement.
00:06:18
Speaker
We don't do training where, you know, there's lots of training organizations out there. We don't certify people. There are people out there doing certification. So we want to help bolster and promote those organizations and then just build unity across the globe, really, with all that's going on in biblical counseling.
00:06:37
Speaker
Well, you really have an important role in that, you know, in the BCC, and I'm gonna put you on the spot. And I know you, and I know your humility, so you know where I'm coming from just asking this. But I wanna ask you, so, you know, one of the books that was really helpful to me as I learned about the biblical counseling movement was David Palleson's book, The Biblical Counseling Movement, History and Context. And so here's a question, what is it like for you
00:07:07
Speaker
to be in an important role in the biblical counseling movement because the BCC is a big part of moving forward together and is not just sort of on the fringe or looking in on biblical counseling as it develops over time, but is really a driving catalyst and you're an important person in that. And so, you know, if that book was extended to this date, your name would be in the book. What is it like for you to have that role?
00:07:37
Speaker
Um, it's very, it's, I don't like to use the term humbling because I don't, I think that's a weird, sorry for all those who do, but it is in a very real sense, kind of this, um, why me kind of men thing. And honestly, I just try, I just try not to think about that, uh, being an important person, uh, much at all, partially because I have young children who want to be famous and I want to
00:08:06
Speaker
say stuff. And I'm like, we're not famous. You know, we're, we're just people serving the Lord, that kind of thing. And I think actually it was really funny. One of our, one of my dear friends and one of the council members one time told my wife at, at one of the summits, he's like, I mean, look at Curtis. Like three years ago, he was a nobody and now everybody knows him. And I was like, that's, I mean, that's really what it was. It's just, I was
00:08:28
Speaker
just try to be faithful, serving in a church, pursuing a PhD, and the Lord opened up this opportunity and saw fit to allow me to be in that role. And I love, I love, love, love the relationships. I think that's the thing that I crave most about it is just getting to know and have genuine relationships with the people that I've been
00:08:51
Speaker
Uh, studying under reading, respecting, learning from for decades. And so that's, to me, that's the highlight. I, I still feel very, uh, blessed and a little bit geek out and, uh, fanboy when we got to this, because
00:09:09
Speaker
great, great people there. Um, so yeah, but it's also, I also recognize it's a big responsibility. And so I really try to just be faithful and honor the Lord in my own personal life and in how I interact publicly with people, you know, uh,
00:09:25
Speaker
A lot of times I'll have my own personal opinion about something and I realize that's not what's most important. What's most important is the Church of Christ, the Bride of Christ, and the role that the BCC has to play in that is helping churches grow, helping through individuals growing to be like Christ. And I have good brothers and sisters who encourage me along the way, remind me of the importance of the role and the responsibility.
00:09:54
Speaker
So that's always super helpful. But yeah, I honestly don't think a whole lot about being an important person. It seems to me that there are a few better things to be known for than the ministry that you're doing in the biblical counseling movement. And I think it's really great and appreciate everything that you are about and what the BCC is accomplishing together. And it really is important and really great.
Curtis' Journey from Military to Counseling
00:10:19
Speaker
Just thanks for the encouragement. Yeah, that's a good reminder and appreciate it.
00:10:24
Speaker
I've been looking forward to our conversation because I know we have an opportunity to talk about an important topic, which is PTSD. And I'm looking forward to our conversation actually, because I really want to understand PTSD. And there are a number of times that I really feel like I don't. And so I would be helped by just having this conversation to understand better what PTSD is.
00:10:54
Speaker
And maybe even a good place to start would be where your interest in PTSD began. Yeah, I would say my interest in PTSD began somewhat out of my military service, but post military service. I went to seminary, wrapped up my military time midway through seminary. And then after I graduated, I actually, I was raising money to go be basically a missionary with an organization.
00:11:24
Speaker
And in the meantime, I needed a tent making job, right? I was married, had to provide for a family. We, Jenny got pregnant right around that time. So family was growing. So I went to work for the department of veterans affairs and I was helping process disability claims and got put into a position where I was really focused on all the people who were
00:11:47
Speaker
discharging from the military and going straight into the VA system. So I saw a lot of people coming out of the global war and tear out of Iraq, Afghanistan, stuff like that. And, and many of them are wrestling with all kinds of issues, but the PTSD diagnosis was just on so many, so many people's in so many people's lives. And what I saw is that the, the VA and other organizations out there trying to help veterans
00:12:16
Speaker
they were doing the best they could. I really think most of the people who are in those groups and organizations are trying to help. But I recognized because of my biblical counseling background, that there's a huge piece missing in all of the programs, the treatments, the whatever was out there. There was no
00:12:37
Speaker
real ability to address the soul. And obviously they're not pointing to Christ and his word. And so I was, that's really where the interest was peaked for me. And then post VA, post working at that ministry, I got into a pastoral ministry and I knew that I had wanted to do an advanced degree in biblical counseling at some point.
00:13:03
Speaker
And when I got hired at the church, I said, Hey, just, you know, not right now, but in a few years, if it worked for the church and it worked for my family, would you guys be open to me doing a doctorate in biblical counseling at some point? And they were all for it. My pastor, a long time biblical counselor. And that was part of the reason we worked together. And when I started
00:13:25
Speaker
my PhD, they asked, what are your research interests? Well, I had, because of my experience of the VA, I had started researching literature in front of the biblical counseling movement. And there just wasn't a lot out there on post-traumatic stress disorder. And so I thought, well, if I could, I had, that was one of three interests that I had. And they said, well, that's really interesting. Nobody else has written on that. And I'm like, I know.
00:13:50
Speaker
And so they encouraged me to go that route. But I was also really interested in doing an empirical study because I would like there to be a greater body of evidence that we can show people that biblical counseling works. And I remember getting pushback like, biblical counselors don't do empirical research. You know, you'll never find a population of people that, especially with PTSD, that would let you study them.
00:14:13
Speaker
And, you know, like within the first semester, the Lord started opening up this relationship with, uh, through connections in our church to a ministry that was nearby our church called the mighty Oaks foundation. It was the mighty Oaks warrior program at the time. And just started building relationships with those guys. They asked my pastor and I to go, uh, do an intensive biblical counseling training with their instructors. Cause they're like, we're all, you know,
00:14:41
Speaker
Marines and Navy and army grunts. We're not pastors. We're not biblical counselors, but we come, we help these guys see significant life chains, but they're all calling saying, Hey, my kids are doing this. My wife's doing this. Help us out. And they're like, help us help them. So we went up and did this week long intensive training with them and it was awesome. And through that I said, Hey, would you guys be interested and open to, uh, with my, my PhD?
00:15:10
Speaker
I would like to do an empirical study of a ministry like yours to show that it's effective. And they were like, took some conversations, but because of that relationship, they said yes. And that was, you know, years ago now. And yeah, all those
00:15:27
Speaker
kind of suspicions I had in the back of my mind, like God's word has answers for this problem. Jesus has a significant role to play in helping people who are struggling with the aftermath of significant stuff, like severe, severe suffering. That's a little bit of the on ramp of how I got into researching on post-traumatic stress.
00:15:47
Speaker
Alright, let's take a break because I want to give you more details about Curtis Solomon's book called I Have PTSD, Reorienting After Trauma, which is part of the Ask the Christian Counselor series. Anyone who experiences a traumatic event feels confused, lost, out of control, unsure, and unsteady, disoriented.
00:16:11
Speaker
This kind of suffering leaves marks, sometimes on the body, always on the soul, and sometimes both. In I Have PTSD, Curtis Solomon helps both those who have suffered trauma as well as their loved ones to understand the physical, emotional, and spiritual effects of trauma while offering gospel hope and practical ways to make that hope real in their lives.
00:16:38
Speaker
Trauma can come into our lives through any number of circumstances, but those circumstances do not derail the plans of God nor determine the trajectory for the rest of your life. God can and does utilize the most horrific suffering imaginable to accomplish his great plans for his people. I hope you'll take time today to learn more about Curtis Solomon's book, I Have PTSD.
00:17:05
Speaker
when you visit NewGrowthPress.com.
Understanding PTSD and Trauma
00:17:09
Speaker
And now back to my conversation with Curtis Solomon. I wonder when you were processing claims at the VA or through your PhD research, what were some of the hallmarks of that experience that they have as you talk with them or, you know, review their cases and things like that?
00:17:29
Speaker
Yeah. The one thing I want to say upfront is that PTSD is not a military issue. It's a life issue. And I write about and talk about all the time. Like I think you see this phenomenon and that's where I like to distinguish between what I call post-traumatic stress versus post-traumatic stress disorder. I like to take the D out of PTSD because I believe this is not a disordered response.
00:17:54
Speaker
or a freakish abnormal response to normal life, this is a very common response to severe suffering that is not the norm for everybody in life. And I think you actually probably see this phenomenon recorded in scripture as well as there's one of the key founders of even the diagnosis of PTSD. He wrote a book called Achilles in Vietnam and he looks at the writers of Homer
00:18:22
Speaker
uh, which predate the new Testament, right? And say the, the, the responses that we're seeing in Achilles and other people that Homer is depicting here are very similar to what he was seeing in Vietnam veterans when he was working with them. And so that's how really the diagnosis of PTSD came about was because, um, you do have the, the infrastructure in place to help
00:18:52
Speaker
You have the infrastructure of the VA and the military, the Department of Defense and the VA, and then you have a population of people who are all going through traumatic events. And so that's where all the research happened because you had the population and the infrastructure in place. So that's why a lot of times we attach it to military service.
00:19:13
Speaker
But I've counseled people. I was just, I just seriously, right before this interview, walking down the hall, one of my colleagues said, thank you so much for writing that book. It was super helpful for this person. And the traumatic experience they went through was not had nothing to do with military service. It had to do with like a medical, uh, you know, your medical thing. You know, if you watch somebody fall over and have a heart attack, that can be traumatic. You get in a car accident, you live through a tornado, a hurricane.
00:19:39
Speaker
you are involved, you know, there's a shooting in your neighborhood, like lots of different things can impact people. So back to the military experience. So that usually the, one of the things you have to have for a diagnosis of PTSD is a potentially traumatic event. And they're called potentially traumatic events because some two people could go through the exact same event and not then come out very, having a very different effect.
00:20:10
Speaker
But potentially traumatic events are actually defined and limited. And this is where the distinction between the diagnosis PTSD and then the phenomena of post-traumatic stress, you know, I'm going to talk about the diagnosis. They actually restrict in the DSM a potentially traumatic event to something that threatens or actually does end life or affect somebody's bodily integrity or sexual integrity. So you have to
00:20:39
Speaker
have it happen to you, observe it happening directly, or find out about something like that happening to a close family member. So rape, bodily injury, you know, severe bodily injury, or a life-threatening event, or somebody actually dying.
00:20:57
Speaker
And I think it's actually helpful to limit it to those kind of things because the term trauma is being overused in our culture and our society today. And you'll hear people talk about being traumatized when their boyfriend breaks up with them or something like that. And I don't want to minimize suffering. And that's actually why I try to not say significant suffering because I think all suffering is significant.
00:21:25
Speaker
And I actually think that part of the reason people are latching onto this term trauma is because we have not allowed people to suffer well and to lament and to grieve all suffering well. We've kind of told them, suck it up buttercup, deal with it. And what that does is they don't have the proper outlet of lament to
00:21:49
Speaker
handle their suffering, but they see, Oh, those people who have trauma, they can, they can lament. They can, they have the language that I need or something like it to give voice to the pain I'm feeling, to give permission to, to have, to express that pain. And so I think a better way for us to go forward is to help everybody understand all suffering is significant, but there are degrees of severity and suffering.
00:22:13
Speaker
And one of the ways I argue this is that the DSM, so the secular psychological world, actually says if you start having traumatic type responses to non-potentially traumatic events,
00:22:29
Speaker
then you're suffering with what they have a totally different diagnosis called adjustment disorder. So if you start having, and I'll talk about those phenomena that you asked about a second ago, you start having these types of symptoms, but you haven't faced death or, you know, threatened life, limb, or sexual integrity, and you start having these symptoms, you are experiencing adjustment disorder, not post-traumatic stress disorder.
00:22:53
Speaker
So those phenomena are the experiences are usually clustered around or they have four clusters of symptoms that they call intrusive symptoms. This is where you have flashbacks, memories that come when you're not expecting and don't want them, right? That's an intrusive memory.
00:23:15
Speaker
Alterations, negative alterations in cognition and mood. That just means having a negative outlook on life, feeling depressed, down, discouraged, thinking everybody is evil, everybody's out to get you, the world sucks, I wish I was dead, not getting enjoyment out of things you used to, those kind of things.
00:23:35
Speaker
Intensified reactivity, hyper reactivity, hyper arousal. So the startle, exaggerated startle response, not being able to sleep well at night. So the first three are the intrusive symptoms, the re-experiencing, the flashbacks, that kind of thing. The arousal alteration and arousal reactivity, the hyper sense, you know, hyper vigilance, the negative alterations in cognition and mood. And the fourth is avoidance symptoms, symptoms where people either
00:24:04
Speaker
self-medicate through drugs or other stuff like that, or they do everything they can to avoid things that might remind them of the traumatic experience or ignite that fight or flight kind of system. And isolation is one of the, one of those avoidance symptoms, which is also just super deadly for people.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, those are, those are the, so to get the diagnosis of PTSD, you have to have gone through the potentially traumatic event or events. That's the other thing is it can be more than one, uh, people who are in long-term abusive relationships, things like that have experienced lots of, uh, potentially traumatic events and then be manifesting those symptoms for over 30 days. Uh,
00:24:48
Speaker
30 days after, up to the end of your life, that's the post part of it, and it's disrupting life in a significant way. Yeah, that's really helpful to think about and to hear. So is it accurate then, thinking about the criteria that you mentioned earlier, that the criteria of the event tends to be something that is more physical
00:25:12
Speaker
or, you know, physical or violent because those categories that you gave were more along those lines and not so much along the lines of something, you know, intangible, having a non-physical conflict with someone or stress. I wonder where that fits into this experience.
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's typically pretty physical or violent in the sense that you're scared to death, but it can also be, you know, if you have a really scary dad who's telling a little kid, I'm going to kill you, but doesn't physically do anything, that can still be something that could lead to you.
00:25:55
Speaker
kind of post stress. So the, now the, there are other things that happen with somebody, some of the other, the aren't necessarily the symptoms, but phenomenon that happened. And this is where, uh, everybody now is an expert on PTSD because they read the body keeps the score. Um, which I think it's a good book in, in some ways, like there's, uh, I thought one of the best assessments I heard is that there's a lot of good information, uh, a lot of hype and some bad information.
00:26:24
Speaker
Uh, but it's well written and easy to read and kind of, uh, uh, the guy Vandercoek's a good storyteller. So he kind of tells you in and people who wouldn't want to read like a bunch of clinical journal articles will read that book. But reading the body keeps the score does not make you a trauma expert. I just want to say that loud and clear. But what he did highlight for people is that there is a, your body does
00:26:48
Speaker
is involved in this. And so when I, in my book, I think I talk about it, it is a whole person response. It's going to affect your soul, your body, your relationships, your, uh, how you interact with God, how you interact with other people, uh, even how you interact with creation, it's going to impact all of you. And so what Vanderbilt highlighted on is the fact that this,
00:27:10
Speaker
Again, not being a disordered response or broken response to normal life, but a very common response that is hijacking and maybe in negatively affecting our God-given threat response system. So God designed us to sense threats, assess threats, respond to threats, and then recover.
00:27:32
Speaker
and that looks like, you know, we've all experienced it. You're walking down a dark hallway and a figure jumps out of the door in front of you or behind you even worse, right? And you, your body kicks into high gear. We call it the fight or flight response system, or I like threat response system because they're more than fight or flight.
00:27:58
Speaker
And, but you do that before you've thought about it, right? And that's, that is a gift from God because he, he wants us to begin getting ready for action before we have time to think about it. So that's the sense, the threat. But then we're also supposed to assess the threat where we look at it and say, okay, yeah, this is an intruder in my house and I'm going to bust out my judo training and take him out, or I'm going to run like crazy, or I'm going to pass out or whatever.
00:28:24
Speaker
Uh, or, Oh, that was my kid trying to play a funny joke. I need to calm down. But even if you, it was your kid, you, you, you're feeling the physiological response of adrenaline being pushed through your system, prepare you to fight or run away.
00:28:41
Speaker
And what happens with post-traumatic stress is that system gets altered negatively in some ways. One is that you don't assess correctly. Sometimes your body is sensing a threat. I'm sorry, you don't sense correctly. Your body senses a threat when there really isn't a threat. And that's where I've had lots of stories where people will have an image or a color
00:29:09
Speaker
pass through their peripheral vision and it has nothing to do with the actual threat that took place, like the traumatic event, but it was present in that traumatic event. So like this guy who was in a convoy, convoy got hit by an IED.
00:29:24
Speaker
was like a reddish orange car that was passing through his peripheral vision. Well years later he's on the highway and this reddish orange car passes through his peripheral vision and he starts having a panic attack. His body is sensing that there's a threat even though it's not a threat because in those moments of of threat and fear we our bodies are designed to latch on to every sensory
00:29:47
Speaker
input that it possibly can to learn and to prevent us from going through that again. So smell, taste, texture, sight, sounds, all of those things play a part. And that's where some people like smells is an especially powerful one.
00:30:05
Speaker
smells will take you back in time all the time. And that's not a traumatic thing. That's just a life thing. I mean, we all remember that. Like you'll, you'll smell somebody's perfume and it reminds you of your mom or you smell oranges and you remind you of this time that you were out, your friends or, you know, that's just a part of the way that we're designed. But the,
00:30:25
Speaker
PTS post-traumatic stress impacts the ability to sense the threat. It also impacts the ability to assess the threat. There's actually portions of the brain. The prefrontal cortex is the front part of the brain where we do all of our high level functioning, our language, our critical thinking, all that. And it's connected to the portion of our brain that ignites the fight or flight system. And that has actually been shown to atrophy in people who have post-traumatic stress so that the
00:30:55
Speaker
They're called dendrites and they're the very ends of the neurons, the connections between the neurons in our brains. And those dendrites have actually been shown to fall away in the, between, um, like the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Um, so there's a longer gap between the time that you sense the threat and your ability to assess the threat.
00:31:20
Speaker
And then sometimes that system gets kicked on and stays on far too long. So the ability to respond and recover is delayed as well. And that leads to things like adrenal fatigue and other digestive problems and other stuff like that. So sometimes like people will come in for counseling.
00:31:38
Speaker
and they'll be maybe seem a little bit zoned out, but they'll be, they'll have digestive problems, be complaining of chronic diarrhea or stomach pains and other things like that. And that doesn't necessarily mean they're struggling with post trauma, but it, it could be, you know, you want to, to, to flag those things and ask good questions, learn about their, their history and their past and see if maybe, maybe trauma is a part of it. So,
00:32:04
Speaker
So since there's clearly a distinction, and even though obviously it's not completely clean, but there is a kind of distinction that you're encouraging between a traumatic event and going through a hard thing in life.
Approach to Trauma Counseling
00:32:22
Speaker
then when it comes to counseling and there may be someone who is experiencing a lot of struggle over some hard things that they've gone through, they may not have been necessarily traumatic events, but they're really struggling and hearing a lot about PTSD, hearing about the struggles that other people have, and they're questioning because it's not very clear.
00:32:44
Speaker
You know, it's kind of blurred. There's a there's a blurry line there. So how do you help someone think through maybe where they are in their experience of hard things versus something traumatic and the struggle that they're having to make sense of, you know, how they should think about PTSD in their own life. That makes sense. Yeah. I think with the individual person who's struggling, I don't make a point, especially early on of
00:33:14
Speaker
correcting their terminology because that's not the most important thing. I'm really trying to build a relationship, show that I love them, care about them and respect and want to understand their suffering and minister to them and their suffering. So rather than saying,
00:33:30
Speaker
Hey, stop using the term trauma because what you went through wasn't really traumatic. I just say, man, what you went through is really hard and God cares about you. He cares about your suffering. He's with you in that. And we just, just focus on caring about them through the suffering. Now, if they start, if they were to like, maybe later on after things have really resolved, they know I love them.
00:33:54
Speaker
know I care about them, I might on kind of on the way out say FYI, you know, I think a great way to minister to people who've been through traumatic events would be to reserve that term trauma for them. And because like, and I'll have a conversation with people more often I have this conversation with people who are
00:34:16
Speaker
talking about trauma, but they're not having lived through significant suffering and they're using the term in a way that probably is inaccurate. And again, I don't jump on everybody any, like, that's just good people. But if the opportunity arises, I'll say, do you, would you agree that there are degrees of suffering in the world? And most people are yes, of course, right? Like me, stubbing my toe is not the same as my, as somebody losing their child to human trafficking, right? Very different.
00:34:47
Speaker
Would you agree that those levels of suffering might impact people differently and be more severe in certain instances? Yeah, absolutely. Would it be loving maybe to preserve some term to describe the most severe suffering that we encounter in this world?
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, well, and I think trauma is that word that we use for that. So that's kind of how I would walk through that conversation. Again, if it's the individual in counseling, I'm not going to have that conversation until much, much later, if at all. And then with the person who were just dialoguing, discussing it, and I think they're misusing the term, I might have that conversation if it was appropriate and the relationship, they knew it was out of love and we had a good relationship.
00:35:35
Speaker
God cares about all suffering and I think that's important for them to remember and that's where in the practical ministry we're going to focus on that in the counseling.
00:35:45
Speaker
This is a good time to tell you about two books by Curtis Solomon and his wife Jenny. First, in redeem your marriage, hope for husbands who have hurt through pornography, Curtis will guide you through a process to help you understand the hurt pornography has caused and to lament the effects of your struggle on your marriage. But you will not be left without hope.
00:36:08
Speaker
Curtis will help you learn to believe in the forgiveness of sins and Jesus' power to help turn away from sin and live for God's glory instead of momentary pleasure. God's grace and power is what you need to overcome the shame and guilt brought by porn use. His grace will catch you if you fail again, and his love will hold you fast as you seek to glorify him in every area of your life.
00:36:36
Speaker
You will see that true repentance and forgiveness will help both you and your wife move forward toward healing. This book, Redeem Your Marriage, was written in tandem with Reclaim Your Marriage, Grace for Wives Who Have Been Hurt by Pornography by Jenny Solomon, Curtis' wife.
00:36:54
Speaker
These resources in the context of mentoring, counseling, or accountability relationships give biblical direction and hope in the midst of a difficult struggle. The Solomons know the struggle you're going through, but they also know and have experienced the power of the gospel to bring forgiveness, change, and healing. As always, you can learn more about or purchase copies of both books when you visit NewGrowthPress.com.
Biblical Counseling Strategies for PTSD
00:37:27
Speaker
So going back to some of the solid PTSD diagnosis experience that a person may have, what are some of the key ways that you have helped PTSD sufferers to overcome the challenges that they're facing and to continue growing through what seems like something that may be insurmountable to them when they think about it?
00:37:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think a couple of things. Obviously, I wrote the book. I have PTSD, reorienting after trauma, because there's a lot to be said and a lot to help, even though it is a short and easy to digest book. But I think a couple of the unique things that biblical counseling does is it, one, helps people understand they're not alone in their suffering.
00:38:19
Speaker
And I mean that in a couple of ways. One is that this is not unique to them, right? We all know 1 Corinthians 10.13, no temptation is taken you except that which is common. And that word temptation can also be translated as a trial, right? And we recognize that every temptation is a trial and every trial is a temptation. That is hard for people who've been through a traumatic experience to believe.
00:38:46
Speaker
Um, but I want them to, to learn it, that they are not alone in the best way that I found to do that is by using what I call a co-sufferer, somebody who's been through something traumatic as well, who can come in and share with them.
00:39:01
Speaker
their experience, what they went through and some of how God's grown them, whether or not they're fully healed, fully resolved or not, they've seen growth. And that's why mighty Oaks, one of the things that's wonderful about them is their program is peer to peer, all of their instructors, all of their leadership.
00:39:18
Speaker
Our, uh, former veterans and first responders who went through trauma, went through the mighty Oaks program, saw some growth and have come back to help other people move down that path. The other thing they're not alone in is, is there not, they need a community around them. Uh, Johnny Erickson taught us said it so well, community breeds life. Isolation leads to death.
00:39:40
Speaker
And so they need to have their family, their church, their friends, other people around them who don't necessarily know all the ins and outs of their struggle, but know that there is a struggle and can help. And I talk about actually building a transformation team around the person that involves a counselor, co-counselor, counseling ally, and some other confidential friends. And then they're not alone because
00:40:04
Speaker
they have Jesus if they're believer in Jesus Christ. And he is the most significant sufferer ever. Like he's, he's suffered more severely than anybody ever can or ever will. Um, because not only the physical suffering he went through in the
00:40:19
Speaker
the cross and the torture leading up to the cross, but the soul suffering that he went through as the wrath of God is poured out on him and the weight of the sin of the world. And he wants them to come draw near to him and walk with him through that suffering. So those are some that they're not alone is huge. And definitely the Jesus pace is the biggest part
00:40:43
Speaker
And that is completely absent from other forms of therapy, right, besides outside of biblical counseling. The second is lament or grief. Everybody who's gone through trauma has lost something, period.
00:40:58
Speaker
whether that's a very tangible thing, like a limb or a friend or more intangible, like this understanding of my worldview, the perspective that I had that people were basically good, the perspective that I had that God will take care of me all the time. You've lost something.
00:41:17
Speaker
Helping them walk through a process of grieving, one, understanding what they've lost and then grieving that loss to the Lord. That's another thing that I think has been very helpful and is also unique in biblical counseling. And then helping them sort through issues of guilt, because this is one of the things that will often happen, is people will try to
00:41:46
Speaker
they feel guilt for things that are, or shame for things that are not actually sin or shameful. Right. Uh, one of our, you know, good mutual friends, Robert Jones wrote, or Bob Jones, the, the guy, not the school, uh, wrote a great article for the BCC called a distinguishing between guilt and guilt, where he kind of walks through some of those different things, but helping people answer those questions. Cause a lot of times I've run into people
00:42:12
Speaker
both in the military, this is real common, but even a counselor I had who was in a car accident had misunderstanding in their mind about their own personal guilt and just helping them sort through what they don't need to take responsibility for and what they do, because sometimes people do need to take responsibility. And of course, the gospel
00:42:35
Speaker
forgiveness in Christ is the solution to that. And that's not going to be found anywhere else. And then the other, um, just kind of generally, cause if you actually look the three primary, uh, modes of therapy that the department of defense and the department of veterans affairs use to help people with post-traumatic stress disorder are cognitive processing therapy, exposure therapy, and EMDR. And if you get to the root of all three of those things at the root is the idea of changing thought.
00:43:06
Speaker
You're believing something that's not true. They would not use that terminology because they're not going to latch on to objective truth, but you're changing thinking. Well, we do that in spades. We help people change their thoughts, but we don't just help them change them randomly or to whatever their subjective desire is.
00:43:25
Speaker
We help them conform their thoughts emotions and desires in conformity with God and his his word So what I try to tell people and this is this is a lot bigger process But what we do is we help you we try to help you as much as we can and with God's Spirit with his word To think God's thoughts after him
00:43:47
Speaker
to emote the way that God would emote in a given circumstance, and to desire what God would want. So we want what is right, we believe what is true, and we feel what is appropriate. And when we are doing all those things, and that's general truth for all of us, not only Kabbalah,
00:44:05
Speaker
And that's one of the big things I like to help biblical counselors understand is you don't need to go get a degree in trauma therapy in order to help people who have a diagnosis of PTSD. If you love people, have a good understanding of biblical counseling and are good biblical counselor, um, like a couple hours learning some of the distinctive features of trauma and how to, how to love somebody who's experienced these things.
00:44:34
Speaker
is enough to equip you to go out and do great work. I was just up at a church.
00:44:39
Speaker
in the Detroit area doing a day-long PTSD seminar, and one of the comments afterwards was from somebody who was a clinician, and she said it was so encouraging to hear somebody with a PhD say normal people can help people with trauma. Absolutely. It's true. It is true, and I appreciate that because that's been something really central to my experience and practice of biblical counseling as well, because I need that encouragement that I can help
00:45:09
Speaker
I don't know everything and there are other people that may be more equipped to help a particular person than I am. But even to go back to you mentioned Robert Jones, I've found so much help in what he calls a three-part plan for personal ministry.
00:45:26
Speaker
which is to enter the person's world, understand his need or her need, and bring them Christ and his answers. And it really sets apart from what you were saying, other approaches to solving difficult challenges like PTSD that the world may offer, that yes, there are some things that are similar between them, but what we have to offer is a person and to,
00:45:51
Speaker
Think biblically is to do those three things. To think like Jesus, to minister like Jesus is to enter and to understand and to bring. And to run the risk of butchering an important quote actually from David Palleson. I think what he said goes like this, it's something to the effect of never devolve into giving good advice that is disconnected from the person of Jesus crucified, risen, at work, and coming again.
00:46:20
Speaker
And that little quote just so separates what biblical counseling is attempting to do or doing from what the world has to offer. And it's an enormous, enormous difference. Oh, it's a huge, huge difference. And yeah, I think sometimes in this, you know, teaching college students, including your daughter, I run into this all the time where
00:46:45
Speaker
people are looking for some magic bullet or magic dust, some extra special thing, and it's, you know, walking, and it is, it's divine, it's miraculous, it's powerful, but because it's so common for people who've grown up in the church, it seems blase and not really all that powerful, but walking with Jesus, reading his word, fellowshiping with his body, spending time in prayer, you know, all of those things,
00:47:13
Speaker
It's the living, it's the breathing, eating, drinking of the spiritual life. If you don't do those things, you shouldn't expect to thrive. So yeah, yeah, it is, um, there's not some hidden magic secret formula that you got to figure out to help people even with really, um, really severe problems. So.
00:47:36
Speaker
I wish I had like on your BCC podcast, you've got this cool, like closing lightning round of questions that you ask. I don't really have anything like that. Um, why don't I ask you one more question, um, that is on my mind and I really, I don't know the answer to it. Um, and so I'm not, I'm not fishing one way or the other. I'm really curious to hear what you think about it. So recently my family went to new Orleans to visit my sister and her family.
Historical Perspectives on PTSD
00:48:03
Speaker
And while we were there, we went to the World War II Museum, which was amazing, really amazing, really inspiring and striking the courage of that generation.
00:48:15
Speaker
just on display was really, it was really amazing. And so when it comes to the topic of PTSD, I don't know, I don't know much of the history. And so I'm just, I wonder how, is there a difference between, let's say the World War II generation and today, not just in the military, just people, that generation and today where PTSD is, is it this, were they going through the same kinds of things? It just wasn't,
00:48:44
Speaker
as well known or described, or is there something different happening today where it's just a bigger issue and actually a bigger issue? What do you think about that? Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on that, so I'm not sure we have all the time to go into, but I did. I had the opportunity to interview a 95-year-old World War II veteran who had fought in the Battle of the Bulge about this while I was working on my dissertation. And I said, like,
00:49:13
Speaker
What, what are your thoughts? Like, why do you, did you see this? What did you think? Um, and we also had an interesting conversation about these guys who, cause I know a lot of guys my age and stuff who were disqualified from the military, um, but want to go back, right? Like, uh, met so many and there were so many who had the opportunity as, as a defense contractors and stuff.
00:49:36
Speaker
And I asked him like, why didn't, you know, did you guys have that? And he's like, Oh no, we got out. And I said, well, what's the difference? And he said, well, we won. Um, there was this very clear demarcation between winning and losing. The mission was accomplished. It was finished and we went there to do that. Now we're going back to do what we were supposed to be doing before. That was one, one distinguishing thing.
00:49:58
Speaker
But I think throughout human history and kind of what I talked about before, I think you do see people manifesting things like negative alterations in cognition and move, hyperarousal, other things like that who've been through traumatic events. And we've had different names for it. So we've called it Soldier's Heart.
00:50:21
Speaker
combat fatigue, shell shock. Those are all describing similar things to what we call today PTSD. When I talked to that veteran but also read some other books on different generations, there are a number of factors at play
00:50:39
Speaker
For instance, this was a really interesting thing that they actually changed policy in the military about how they did deployments based on this. One theory that why so many guys in World War II did not experience post-traumatic stress to the level that we are today is when you went to war, you came back on a ship.
00:51:05
Speaker
So you had that couple of weeks crossing the Atlantic to kind of decompress and process everything that happened with your brothers who were there. And the guy who wrote Achilles in Vietnam said you would have had in these warrior cultures like Viking culture, Spartan culture, just, I mean, most of honestly, most of human history, where after a battle, you would have gotten together, sang songs, drank, told stories, and just kind of processed it all out loud together.
00:51:36
Speaker
In Vietnam, they changed the rotation, how it worked. One, we had larger airplanes where we could help move people. But two, you were there for a certain number of days as an individual, not as a unit. So you didn't deploy as a unit and come back as a unit. You deployed sometimes as a unit, but you had a certain number of days and then you could be individually sent home.
00:52:01
Speaker
So you went from being in the jungle in Vietnam, one day fighting to walking the streets of San Francisco the next, completely isolated, like not with anybody else who you knew you didn't have the processing time. So there's things like that. But I think societally in the United States,
00:52:21
Speaker
Losing our connection to God as a society is a significant factor. Losing our theology of suffering is another significant factor. Because if you don't have God and you don't have a proper understanding of suffering, when suffering comes you don't know what to do with it and it impacts you much more severely.
00:52:46
Speaker
a couple anecdotes with that one. So there's two guys that are kind of leaders in the mighty Oaks foundation. One guy was a Marine infantry officer. He was raised in a pastor's home, did a year, I think a Bible college before he went into the Marines. Then you have another guy who is a Marine, or yeah, Marine infantry man, recon guy.
00:53:09
Speaker
raised an abusive home, saw lots of trauma in his upbringing. They both go and they both come back. Different experiences, but both went through traumatic experiences. One, did not really know how to handle it and handle in all these wrong ways.
00:53:27
Speaker
And it really affected his life much worse. The other, it was still affecting him, but not to the same degree. And I've talked to both of them and they would both say like some of that is because he was better prepared because he had a relationship, a stronger relationship with Christ, new to run to the Lord, his scripture, the church to help come out of it. Whereas the other ran to alcohol, women, drugs, mixed martial arts, just throwing himself into that, all that stuff.
00:53:56
Speaker
Another story is in a book called The Chosen Few, which a good friend of mine was in this unit in the army in Afghanistan who was overrun by the Taliban. It was one of the worst incidents in army history up to that point.
00:54:15
Speaker
And their captain was a believer, and there was another guy in the unit that was a believer, and the captain had this theology that if you love God and you follow God, He'll protect you and get you out of all this trouble. Well, in the battle, this other young private was killed, and he was a Christian, and everybody knew he was a Christian. The captain just wrestled with this
00:54:39
Speaker
theology that he had before and then his experience of reality. And the, you know, the world calls that cognitive dissonance where there's something inside of us that doesn't quite fit. And we kind of wrestle with, so something has to go either my perception of my reality has to go or my previously held deep, deeply held beliefs.
00:55:00
Speaker
And oftentimes we would call it a crisis of faith or something. And oftentimes what happens is people jettison their faith or they live with this tension inside so long and it begins to negatively affect their soul. Well, he shares through counseling and through actually finding a book by Johnny Erickson Tada that his theology of suffering changed where he realized he grabbed ahold of that phrase Johnny often uses that God sometimes allows what he hates in order to accomplish what he loves.
00:55:29
Speaker
and his learning of God's sovereignty over even suffering helped him persevere in the faith, but also regain and grow out of his post-traumatic stress. So I think you had in previous generations and different times in history, not all perfectly, but you had people who were equipped
00:55:55
Speaker
You had people who were equipped to, trained to, and told to go to the church, go to God's Word, have a relationship with God. And you had people who were experiencing suffering more and understood suffering as a part of life. But if you're old, like nowadays, and even in our upbringing, right?
00:56:12
Speaker
Be all you can be. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish it. This life is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which means something very different than what the founders meant, right? Uh, and everything is all about fun, fun, fun, joy, joy, joy, happy, happy, happy. And then life hits you in the face. Cause we all know if you've lived on this planet longer than 10 years, you know, that's not what life is about. Well, that's what you've thought it was. And then significant suffering or severe suffering comes into your life. It's gonna, it's gonna impact you.
00:56:42
Speaker
So I even told my pastor one time after he preached just an excellent sermon on suffering. I think it was out of Romans five or.
00:56:50
Speaker
one of the other passages that really talks about God's using suffering, I went up to him and said, thank you for inoculating my boys against PTSD. And he's like, what do you mean? I said, helping them understand suffering, according to God's word, is going to help them process it better when it actually comes. So, you know, that's a good word. Curtis, thank you for the time and conversation. It's really been helpful and encouraging.
Supporting BCC's Mission
00:57:14
Speaker
to me, and what are some ways that others can get involved or support the work and ministry of the Biblical Counseling Coalition? Yeah, that's a great question, Rush, and thanks so much again for having me on the podcast. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, and it's fun for other people, I guess, to listen in. Yeah, the ways that people can support the BCC or get involved in the BCC, first of all, just know our website, biblicalcounselingcoalition.org or biblicalcc.org.
00:57:44
Speaker
And I want people to know about all the free resources that are there because we create those resources and put them out there so that people can be helped. So go there, you find our resources page, you'll find thousands of free resources. Use them, share them, tell people about them and help people be ministered to by them.
00:58:04
Speaker
The other is you can help us keep those free by supporting the work of the biblical counseling coalition. If you go there, there's a button at the top that says donate. And if you are a biblical counselor or have a biblical counseling ministry, there's a, when you click on that button, it'll say, do you want to be a partner or just a donor? Partners are biblical counselors or ministries, and we have some special
00:58:27
Speaker
incentives for you there, like you can get your name on our Find a Counselor map, we have some extra special resources just for our partners, that kind of thing. But if that's not you, you just want to support the ministry, you want to be a donor, you can obviously support there. And then pray for us, pray for the work of the BCC, especially the relation component that we would be able to establish
00:58:53
Speaker
great relationships that foster unity so that the watching world, kind of like what Jesus said, knows that we're his disciples by our love for one another. So yeah, thanks for asking.
00:59:24
Speaker
And if you'd like to learn more about past seasons of our podcast, you can visit newgrowthpress.com forward slash podcast. Our next episode will appear next week, wherever you get your podcasts.
00:59:27
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode