lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 1
Christian Integration in Clinical Mental Health Counseling Programs: Chapter 15 Review
Madison Schmidt
School of Behavioral Sciences, Liberty University
Author Note
Madison Schmidt
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 2
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Madison Schmidt. Email:
mschmidt5@liberty.edu
Christian Integration in Clinical Mental Health Counseling Programs: Chapter 15 Review
Introduction
This paper will serve as a chapter review of Chapter 15 of the textbook “Christian
Integration in Counselor Education” which was authored by John King and Christy Ford. The
title of this chapter is “Christian Integration in Marriage and Family Counseling Programs,”
which is authored by Vasti P. Holstun and Lynn R. Bohecker. In this paper, I will give a
allinclusive summary of this chapter and discuss any insights that are provided in this chapter
concerning Christian integration within marriage and family counseling. In addition, I will
discuss any interactions and reflections that I have gained from reading this chapter. Finally, I
will discuss any practical applications that I can utilize in my counseling career and how I, as an
aspiring counselor, plan to implement them in my personal and professional journey as an
aspiring clinical mental health counselor.
Summary
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 3
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 4
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 5
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 6
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 7
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 8
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 9
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 10
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 11
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 12
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 13
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 14
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 15
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 16
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 17
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 18
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 19
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 20
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 21
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 22
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 23
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 24
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 25
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 26
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 27
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 28
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 29
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 30
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 31
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 32
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 33
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 34
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 35
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 36
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 37
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 38
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 39
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 40
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 41
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 42
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 43
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 44
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 45
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 46
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 47
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 48
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 49
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 50
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 51
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 52
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 53
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 54
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 55
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 56
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 57
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 58
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 59
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 60
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 61
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 62
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 63
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 64
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 65
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 66
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 67
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 68
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 69
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 70
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 71
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 72
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 73
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 74
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 75
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 76
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 77
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 78
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 79
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 80
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 81
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 82
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 83
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 84
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 85
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 86
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 87
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 88
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 89
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 90
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 91
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 92
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 93
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 94
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 95
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 96
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 97
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 98
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 99
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 100
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 101
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 102
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 103
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 104
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 105
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 106
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 107
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 108
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 109
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 110
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 111
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 112
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 113
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 114
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 115
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 116
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 117
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 118
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 119
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 120
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 121
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 122
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 123
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 124
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 125
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 126
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 127
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 128
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 129
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 130
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 131
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 132
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 133
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 134
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 135
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 136
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 137
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 138
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 139
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 140
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 141
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 142
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 143
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 144
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 145
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 146
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 147
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 148
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 149
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 150
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 151
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 152
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 153
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 154
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 155
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 156
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 157
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 158
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 159
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 160
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 161
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 162
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 163
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 164
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 165
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 166
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 167
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 168
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 169
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 170
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 171
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 172
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 173
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 174
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 175
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 176
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 177
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 178
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 179
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 180
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 181
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 182
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 183
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 184
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 185
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 186
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 187
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 188
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 189
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 190
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 191
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 192
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 193
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 194
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 195
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
In chapter 15, Holstun and Bohecker (2024) give an in-depth exploration of how to
integrate Christianity into Marriage and Family Counseling. In this chapter, insights about how
to integrate Christian perspectives into marriage and family counseling are given and how these
dynamics are outlined in the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Additionally, Holstun and
Bohecker (2024) begin to share different family system theories and reflect on different cases
that can prove to be useful for individuals interested in pursuing a career in either clinical mental
health counseling or marriage and family counseling.
According to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), the Old Testament portrays God as someone
who is supportive of marriage. In fact, when God created the universe and humanity with it and
deemed them male and female, he did that because the Lord determined that it was detrimental
for Man to be alone, as stated in Genesis 2:18 (New Living Translation). As a result, God
designed both of these individuals in order to unite as one front (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). The
New Testament part of the Bible, according to Holstun and Bohecker (2024), talk about the
mutual submissiveness of husbands and wives in the confines of marriage. Many people to this
day believe that it is solely the wives’ responsibility to submit to her husband, as this belief
originates from Paul’s writings in Ephesians 5:21-33. However, it is important to note the
cultural context of this time before jumping to conclusions. That being said, the Bible offers a
different perspective. Marriages are supposed to be built upon equality and support of one
another. Wives should not be the only individuals submitting and husbands should not be abusive
to their partners. According to Holstun & Bohecker, Marriages are meant to be unbiased and
two-sided to help avoid and prevent divorce (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024.)
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 196
Something else that is discussed in this chapter is generational patterns within family
dynamics. In addition, this chapter also talks about the church’s provision regarding family
issues and different theories in family systems. Generational patterns have existed in families
from the very beginning, but specifically dates back to Jacob’s family in Genesis. For starters,
one of the generational patterns that did exist in Jacob’s family is that Jacob tricked his father
into giving up his inheritance to him instead of Esau when he was younger and then was later
swindled by his own children later in life (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024). What this implies is that
one’s own part in a family and actions in a family can effect how a family works together and
how future relationships will function (Holstun & Bohecker, 2024).
This chapter ends with reflections that a counselor can take with them in their
professional journey and provides readers with case studies to examine. During this part of the
chapter, Holstun & Bohecker (2024) highlight the fact that family dynamics are influenced by
many different factors, mainly culture, background, and spiritual beliefs and worldviews. As
such, it is very important for counselors to have a high level of introspection and awareness of
any personal biases or prejudices. In this chapter, the authors also discuss how important it is to
recognize the fact that counselors in their career will encounter clients that will discuss
potentially uncomfortable topics with their counselor. Some of these topics may be extremely
uncomfortable for someone with a Christian worldview. Some topics may include
nonmonogamous relationships, abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, corporal punishment, and sexual
fantasies, to name a few. With that being said, even if a topic is uncomfortable to discuss with a
client, a counselor should be trained to bracket their personal feelings and set them aside for the
benefit of the client. Clients who present these difficult topics should not be referred out to other
counselors solely because they have a different belief than the counselor. In fact, that goes
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 197
directly against the ACA code of ethics. Clients should only be referred out based on clinical
need and not on personal values or biases (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Interaction
Overall, this chapter was informative and taught me some new things in regards to
integrating spirituality with counseling. I am not the most theologically sound individual, as I do
not know much about theology or church history. However, I can positively say that this chapter
has given me new knowledge and things to ponder that will prove to be beneficial to my personal
life and counseling career. One part of this chapter that I was really grateful to see was the New
Testament highlighting and viewing mutual submission as a positive thing. I view myself as
someone with an egalitarian mindset. As such, I am a strong supporter in equalness and fairness
in many different forms regarding social issues. This includes topics like gender roles,
socioeconomic status, and marriage.
In many different religious circles, it is a common belief between men and women that
married women should be the only one submissive to their spouse. Throughout my time at
Liberty University, I have participated in a high number of debates surrounding the subject.
While many people hold to the complementarian view of marriage, I have met a few people who
hold to the egalitarian view of marriage. However, it is important to think about this topic from
the Christian perspective, and especially one that aligns with the New Testament. As stated
before, according to Holstun & Bohecker (2024), a successful marriage between a husband and a
wife should require mutual submission, as a one-sided relationship leads to an imbalance in
dominance, which can lead to exploitation, disrespect, and treatment of disdain from one spouse
to the other. I think this is extremely important to remember as counselors. One should not take
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 198
the side of one spouse, as it can create an imbalance of power and make the other spouse feel
ganged up on and can cause feelings of pain and feeling unseen.
An interesting thing that I have taken from this reading is the idea of multigenerational
patterns within family systems. I thought it was insightful to learn about how multigenerational
patterns have been given to future generations, even going back to BCE. Exploring Jacob’s
family patterns in the Bible has given me some additional insight as to how my childhood was
growing up with a sibling on the Autism Spectrum. As the eldest sibling, I have encountered a lot
of challenges that my younger siblings have not been able to experience. In addition, being
related to a sibling with a disability has required me to take on a caregiver role, which has led to
feelings of resentment and burnout in different parts of my life. According to Levante et al.
(2023) siblings without disabilities report high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, along
with a lower sense of well-being, higher levels of aggressive behaviors, and higher levels of
rejection and isolation amongst family members. Recognizing that growing up in this kind of
environment as a child has negatively affected me is essential for understanding more about
family dynamics.
Application
I have learned a lot from this chapter and have leanred some things that I can apply in my
personal life and professional counseling career. Holstun and Bohecker (2024) have touched on
many different aspects of marriage and family counseling that can be beneficial to both Christian
counselors and secular counselors. Even though I myself do not want to focus explicitly on
couples in my counseling career, the skills that this chapter taught me are essential even in
individual counseling. The first thing that I will be taking into my counseling career is the five
love languages. According to Mostova et al. (2022), people who expressed their affection in the
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 199
way that their partners liked to receive it reported that there was a greater satisfaction in their
relationships and were even more sexually satisfied compared to the couples who only met their
partner’s needs to a lesser extent (Mostova et al., 2022). This just shows that there is value in
learning these love languages in order to teach couples in counseling if there is a need. As a
counselor, if a couple came into my office expressing difficulties in communicating with each
other, I would explore the individual love languages of each person in the relationship, as well as
their attachment styles. By doing this, I believe that I could help recognize and help solve the
issues that have arisen in their relationship.
This chapter has also taught me how to best approach a situation that might be
uncomfortable or even distressing to deal with as a new counselor. As an aspiring counselor, I
know that it is inevitable that I will have a client in my office that has very different views than
me and might even be processing something that I myself do not agree with. As stated before, it
is against the ACA code of Ethics to refer a client out simply because of a clash in personal
values. Referring a client out has to be because there is a clinical need and a benefit to the client.
This chapter has taught me more about the importance of bracketing my personal values and
showing unconditional positive regard to my clients, regardless of personal values. As a
counselor, I will refrain from showing prejudice towards a client based on personal values and
beliefs and will put my beliefs aside in order to best serve the client in front of me. Galatians
3:28 says that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all
one in Christ Jesus” (New Living Translation). As such, we should treat each other as equals,
despite personal values. For we are all one in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion, this chapter has helped me build some self-assurance in some areas in the
counseling field that I did not have much self-confidence in. Now, I feel like I have a little more
lOMoARcPSD|27792785
CHAPTER 15 REVIEW 200
knowledge and confidence in what it takes to address difficult ethical situation. This chapter
instilled in me a sense of duty to uphold the ethical standards required in me as a counselor.
Something that I took away from this chapter was the directions on how to involve and bring
spirituality into the counseling setting. Unfortunately, not every client that I will see in my career
will identify with the same faith as me. As a counselor, it is nonetheless important to assist
clients with navigating through what they are encountering through their lens of how they see the
world, whether it is from a Christian perspective or not.
References
American Counseling Association. (2014). ACA Code of Ethics. Journal of Counseling &
Development, 84(2). https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2006.tb00401.x
Holstun, V & Bohecker, L. (2024). Christian integration and the CACREP alliance. In J. A. King
& K. M. Ford (Eds.), Christian integration in marriage and family counseling programs.
Kendall Hunt Publishers. ISBN 979-8-3851-2564-7\
Holy Bible, New Living Translation. (2015). BibleGateway. opens new
windowhttps://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-Living-Translation-NLT-Bible/ (O
riginal work published 1996).
Levante, A., Martis, C., Maria, C., Martino, P., Pascali, F., Patrizia Primiceri, Vergari, M., &
Lecciso, F. (2023). Parentification, distress, and relationship with parents as factors
shaping the relationship between adult siblings and their brother/sister with disabilities.
Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1079608
Mostova, O., Stolarski, M., & Matthews, G. (2022). I love the way you love me: Responding to
partner’s love language preferences boosts satisfaction in romantic heterosexual couples.
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PLOS ONE, 17(6), e0269429. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269429
