Recovering the complaint psalms for the counseling room
Abstract
Roughly a third of the Psalter is lament, yet lament is largely absent from contemporary evangelical pastoral practice. This paper surveys the form-critical structure of the individual lament, argues that its omission has trained sufferers toward inauthentic prayer, and proposes a concrete framework for introducing lament in early counseling sessions.
Available on request
18 pages
PsalmsLamentPastoral care
·M.A. Biblical Counseling·Counseling Theory and PracticeUnpublished
Anxiety, Cognition, and the Limits of the Nouthetic Model
Abstract
A critical assessment of purely confrontational counseling models as applied to clinical anxiety. The paper argues that treating all anxious cognition as sin conflates moral and medical categories, reviews the exegetical basis usually offered for that conflation, and proposes an integrative approach that preserves a robust doctrine of sin without pathologizing suffering.
Available on request
24 pages
CounselingAnxietyIntegration
2025
·M.A. Biblical Counseling·Trauma and Crisis CounselingIn progress
Moral Injury and the Military Family
Secondary effects on parents and spouses of deployed service members
Abstract
Moral injury literature attends closely to the service member and rarely to the household. Drawing on the author's own vantage as a Navy veteran and mother of two commissioned officers, this paper reviews the existing scholarship, identifies the gap, and outlines the pastoral care implications for congregations with deployed families.