Counseling»

Meet The Rev. Stephen Lander,
LMFT, MA.LP

I was drawn to Westminster Counseling Center as a place where I could integrate two important aspects of my professional life – my secular skills as a mental health practitioner and my spiritual vocation that includes pastoral counseling & spiritual direction.    Working at WCC offers a unique opportunity to invite questions and exploration of each person’s spiritual journey in whatever manner seems most appropriate to the client.  

There is a rich tradition of psychological transformation included in the vocabulary of pastoral counseling.  We use concepts such as reconciliation, repentance, grace, forgiveness, hope, gratitude, faith, and an awareness of providence as part of the dialogue about everyday human problems.   We use metaphors like being lost and then found, blind and being able to see again, death and rebirth, being in exile and a return to the promised land, when we talk about strategies for change.

I bring over 25 years of experience in the field of mental health, with special areas of interest related to family therapy, children, and adolescents.  I work with a diverse population of clients - young & old, gay & straight, couples & families, groups & individuals, for I find that it is by embracing the full spectrum of life experience that my practice is enriched, and my experience continues to grow. 

My graduate education occurred during a time when I was living in the San Francisco Bay area, and at this point in my life I was very involved with Depth Psychology and Jungian analysis.   Jung’s ideas incorporated the spiritual dimension of human experience unlike most other psychological theories, and I found the exploration of dreams, journaling, and sandplay all to be helpful tools.   Dora Kalff, the Swiss Jungian analyst who developed Sandplay therapy believed in the natural healing power of the Psyche and understood that the role of the therapist is to create a free and protected space in which the client can explore his/her concerns.  She understood the fantasy worlds created in the sandtray as being outward manifestations of the inner world of the client

 Most of the training I received in the Jungian community was focused primarily on the interior life of the individual, and as my interest in working with abused and traumatized children developed I became more and more aware of the importance of family systems thinking.   The importance of the influence of our early caregivers has long been acknowledged in psychological theory, but the family therapy theorists were the first to understand that symptoms are also maintained by present-day patterns of interactions.  Because of this, they were much more interested in creating change in the emotional environment of the family – through both cognitive reframing and concrete behavioral interventions. 

Currently I am most interested in the work of Narrative Therapy, and especially the writings of Michael White.  Here is an example of how he talks about the therapeutic encounter: “My lifelong fascination for maps has led me to look at them as a metaphor for my work with people who consult me about a range of concerns, dilemmas, and problems.  When we sit down together I know that we are embarking on a journey to a destination that cannot be precisely specified and via routes that cannot be predetermined.  I know that we will probably take some extraordinarily scenic routes to these unknown destinations.  I know that as we approach these destinations we will be stepping into other worlds of experience.  And I know that the adventures to be had on these journeys are not about the confirmation of what is already known, but about expeditions into what is possible for people to know about heir lives. “

  The stories that we tell (or that are told about us) are especially important to those who advocate for an understanding of the world through the postmodern lens of Narrative Theology & Narrative Therapy.   This way of seeing the world is concerned with who controls the story (or Narrative).   The most influential story is usually told from the point of view of the dominant culture.  But there are other stories, or “local knowledges” most often told by those who are less privileged. 

The stories we tell about our lives can be very important tools in developing ways for us to talk to one another about the experiences of our faith journeys, and/or the problems we encounter in family life.   The writer, Krista Tippett, says that the constructs of Narrative Theology gave her, “the notion that everyone has relevant observations to make about the nature of God and ultimate things  - that the raw material of our lives is the stuff of which we construct our sensibility of meaning and purpose in this life, of how the divine intersects or interacts with our lives, of what it means to be human.  She says, “There is a profound difference between hearing someone say this is the truth, and hearing someone say, this is my truth.   You can disagree with another person’s opinions; you can disagree with his doctrines; you can’t disagree with his experience.”

In Pastoral counseling we are concerned about the stories people tell, and who gets to tell them – in other words, who’s story is it, really.   We often use the tools of Narrative Therapy to help people develop a bigger picture of the life experiences that surround a given problem, and to explore new uncharted ways of understanding.    Problems often tend to take on a life of their own and can become a major focus of a person’s experience, so the telling of one’s whole story is a way to expand the discourse and to place problems in a context which includes a broader understanding of the experiences that make up our lives.    

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