 Okay, all right, we're on. Good, can we just start with a word of prayer and we'll proceed. Heavenly Father, we just thank You, God, for Your grace over our lives for the way that You have bought us, Lord, this far. Lord, even as we come together to learn, to understand, to build ourselves, Lord, in Your Word, Lord, we pray that You will work within us, Holy Spirit. You will make what we learn a really practical experience for us. Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You journey with us through all our learnings and understanding. Thank You, Father. Be with the students who are here and who are those who are yet to come. Thank You for the e-learning students as well. Lord, we just pray that we'll be attentive to You today in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, all right. Hope all of you are doing well. We start with today's class. Before we get started, would somebody like to share what we looked at last week? What was some of the content that we spoke about last week? We had the first hour, we spoke about two things, one thing in the first hour and one thing in the second hour. So anybody would like to bring up what we discussed? Can I share? Sure, Divya, please go ahead. Yeah, thank you ma'am. We discussed about therapeutic relationship and we also were looking at the three factors like empathy, congruence, then unconditional positive regard that we need to practice while dealing with that relationship. Do I have to share in the second session as well? Submodance could take up, I think. Thank you. Thanks, Divya. Wonderful. So glad that you were able to bring this back. Yeah, the second hour. Anyone else remembers? Yeah, I remember we talking about the frame of reference, like the frame of reference, how to look from the point of the counseling and not from that point and we looked into so many things. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Divya. That's wonderful. Good. So there is one more thing that I'd like to discuss today with regard to what we started off. We weren't able to complete that. We'll finish that and then next hour we'll start a new chapter. So if for those of you who are following the notes, I'm on page 19. We're going to be doing 19 and 20 today. We're going to be looking at a model of counseling and we're going to, this is a model that we can use not just when we're helping people, but also when we are trying and attempting to work through our own lives. Okay, so let's look at it as something that's extremely practical. Let me just put up the presentation and then we'll get started. Okay, all right. So I hope that's visible to you all. Okay, so this model that we'd like to talk about is what we say it's called the ABCDE model. Okay, this looks like almost like a childhood rhyme. It isn't one. It's something that we generally use to help. It's a psychological instrument, a tool that is created, that helps counselors identify irrational beliefs or self-defeating thoughts and transform those thoughts into something that's more reasonable, more rational, more truthful, so that the emotional or psychological or behavioral goals become a lot more realistic. You create something that's more realistic. Now what happens, so let's take an example. When there's a certain instance that happens in a person's life or are in own lives, what works, what goes about is that there is an emotional response and we tend to focus a lot more on the emotional response more than anything else because that's what seems to give the entire situation life. Okay, so a situation happens. So let's take an example. Maybe you've had a fight with someone. You had an argument with someone and that argument becomes, it becomes so internalized that when you're attempting to resolve or attempting to work it out, it's your emotions that come up front and that seems to be up in the foremost front line. Like you may be angry, you may be upset, you may be you may be revengeful, so there are very many emotions that you are trying to resolve. But what this model really talks about is that the emotional responses is only because of the kind of thoughts or the component or the cognitive that the word cognitive means the thought process only because of the thought process that goes behind it. And because of the thought process that goes behind it is why we respond emotionally. So the idea is not to dismiss the thoughts or bring down, sorry, dismiss the emotions or bring down the emotions, but the idea is to logically work and help to look at those responses in the mind of what the thoughts are. And so that's why this model was basically created. So let me explain that and we will look at a few examples as we go forward. So the A, B, C, D, E model, if you look at the model, A stands for any activating event or adversity or even a situation. So any activating event, the event can be absolutely anything that begins to trigger the B, C, D and E. So the activating event could be, like I said, a fight with a person or somebody has said something or there may be a traumatic event that happens or a situation that goes on in life, maybe it's a loss of a job, or it can be absolutely anything that is presented. So A is for the activating event. So it can be a crisis in a personal relationship. It can be a professional development. It may be something like a speech you need to give, it's a lack of confidence, it's a job dissatisfaction, it can be absolutely anything. Now B, so what happens is every event or every issue or every situation has the potential to create certain thoughts and that's what we call is B. B is beliefs. It's a system of beliefs. It is the cognitive part of the person, the place where thoughts are being produced. It's a person's reaction, thought reaction to events. So what the propounder of this model said, found that people often state beliefs that are counterproductive and reduce their clear thinking. So they may have certain beliefs about a situation that can be counterproductive. That doesn't work for them and it reduces the way that they operate or reduces the way that they think. So B is the beliefs about the event or the adversity or thoughts about the event or the adversity. Let me give you an example. Let's suppose the activating event is someone loses a job. So what could be certain beliefs that the person may have? Now remember the beliefs could either be positive or it could be negative. So if the beliefs, let's say positive beliefs, so maybe the person would say something like that's fine, I've lost a job, maybe it's an opportunity for me to look for something else, right? So that's a belief system or there could be another belief system. Maybe I wasn't good enough and that's why I lost a job or maybe they don't like me in the office and that's why they sent me out. So do you see that the belief systems is something that is very personal or can be generated within the individual, right? It's not very specific to every event. Every event will not generate these beliefs. It depends on the way that the person sees it, the individual sees it, okay? So is that clear? I hope that's clear up until now. Is there anyone who has a question? If so, you know, you could ask me because you need to understand this for us to move ahead. Okay, so we'll move on. So C is, what is C? C is the emotional consequences that happens, which means whatever belief you are carrying in your mind, right? These thoughts will produce certain emotional consequences. It produces certain consequences. So a belief develops an emotional component and once this belief is practiced multiple times, it develops an emotional component, okay? So what does that mean? So every time he's thinking about the job that's gone, he's thinking, maybe I'm not good enough, maybe nobody likes me. And what is the emotional component? What could the emotional component be? A sense of low confidence, maybe a sense of frustration, a sense of sadness, a sense of dejection, a sense of abandonment, okay? So every time this belief is reinforced in the mind, it can become an emotional component, all right? So now this is where generally the loop stops, okay? People don't go beyond this. This ABC is generally where the loop stops, all right? Now in counseling, what are we doing is we are changing this or trying to work to find ways in the distortions of their thought or in the way you're challenging or you're disputing the thoughts that come and that's where you get D. So what does D stand for? D says you are disputing or you are challenging the beliefs that you've had, all right? So what happens over here? So let's take back the same example. So this belief that this person has about they're not good enough or that nobody likes them, you begin to challenge it alongside with your counseling. You're beginning to work alongside with them and bringing about is that really true? What makes you feel that about yourself? So what you're also helping them to be aware of is that there are certain belief systems that actually make you think a certain way and thereby behave a certain way, all right? So that's the loop that you would really want to break and the way that you do that is by helping dispute that, bringing about a challenge and asking or getting them to refocus, reevaluate their irrational beliefs and attempt to make new rational ones, okay? Why do we do this? Now there is a principle that is common. I'm just trying to see if I have that slide here. Okay, I don't have this slide, but yeah, but I'll explain that to you. So remember that our thoughts lead to emotions, that's what we said, right? Thoughts lead to our emotions and these emotions are the one that tends to fuel our behavior, all right? So let's say you have a belief about yourself that you're not good enough, all right? And the consequent emotion will be a sense of dejection. So how do you sense you would behave? Now I'd like to hear from you. How would a person behave if they feel that they're not good enough? How would they behave? What do you all think? Lack of confidence? Yeah, so that's the emotion. That's the emotion. How would you behave? What would happen? What would you notice in your behavior? You don't like, even that self-love is also not it. I don't mean self-love in the sense of loving selfishly, but in the sense, yeah, the love towards yourself itself will not be there because you do not consider yourself worthy to have that. Okay, now how does that manifest in a behavior? I think the person will isolate themselves. So that's what we're talking about right now. So look at the difference between the three. There is a thinking, there is a feeling and there is an acting. Okay, now these go hand in hand. What you think you will begin to feel and what you feel is what you'll probably begin to behave. So like Jafina said, when you think you're not good enough, you're feeling dejected, you're feeling under confidence. So what will you do? You will avoid people. You will refuse to maybe go to college or you will refuse to do apply in a job because or you refuse to talk to people because you fear that you're not confident, you fear that and that becomes like a vicious cycle. So your thoughts lead to your emotions that lead to a behavior and that kind of reinforces the same thoughts. So think of any situation. I think let's look at our own examples. So if you have had, let's say if you've had an argument with somebody and you're thinking about in the argument, your belief is or your thought is that this person is bound to just make me angry. He's purposely doing it or saying this to make me angry. That's your belief. So when that belief is there, it's constructed in your mind, it leads to an emotion which is anger. How could he do this to me? Who does he think I am? And how does it affect your behavior? The next time you see him, you say, I just want to avoid him. I don't want to kill him. I don't want to talk. The next time I see him, I will ensure that I have nothing to do with him. So what does it do? It reinforces that thought that he is bound or he's doing things to harm you. So is that clear? So the thoughts lead to the emotions which lead to a behavior which kind of gets into a loop. I think success you had something to say. I think you'd lifted anything that you wanted to bring up. Okay. All right. So I hope that's clear. Right? I think you said you've got it. So remember that this is a principle that you need to know. Yes, success. No, actually, I wasn't in class. So the message was not sent to email. So what I got the link, the WhatsApp, because many of us are in there because the link I was sent to email. The link is on the stream. Success. Yes, it's usually available. Yeah. Thank you so much. I got it. Okay. All right. No problem. Okay. Right. So yeah. So we were looking at what are you doing in counseling is we are at D where we are helping the person to dispute those irrational beliefs. Okay. And you're actually helping them. You're getting them to really think about whether those beliefs are the ones that's affecting their situation or affecting their behavior. So when you help to dispute that certain belief, it leads to E, which is new beliefs, effective new beliefs that actually replace the ones that you have earlier. So in this example, we were talking about the person not having a job. You're disputing that belief, helping the person formulate new beliefs, more rational beliefs and say, okay, all because maybe the formulating the new beliefs may sound like all because I was moved away from that job. It doesn't have to really reflect on my skills. It doesn't have to really reflect on who I am as a person. Maybe I need to really pick up some part of the job and that's what is expected of me. Right. So do you see that those irrational beliefs tend to become more rational and it leads to new beliefs, which will replace that one, which will help the behavior in turn. All right. So I think we look at a certain example to really help us understand this. And here there is a there is an example that's given here. Okay. So here the example is if you look at the A, A is the activating event, which is the sun returns home and goes to bum without speaking. So the sun just comes home and gets away straight into the room. All right. Now, what is what could be running in the, in the mother's mind? So in, in this case, the belief in the mother is my son is extremely rude. He is ungrateful. He is discertious. Right. That's the thought that the mother has. All right. And what does it, what does the consequent emotion, emotion lead up to the consequent emotion that you see is there's this feeling of anger. Right. And so what happens if you look at the consequent action, she may have an argument with the son. Right. That's C one. If you look at C one, she's having an argument with the son and look at that, that leads into the effect, which is they both get angry. They both withdraw and the relationship gets damaged. All right. So that's, that's the first part of it. You just focus on the A, B, C one and the E one. That's how generally things would happen. Now, what are you doing in counseling is you're getting, you're adding in the D, you're saying, okay, let's hold that thought that he is rude or he's ungrateful and discertious. Okay. And begin to dispute it. So here the mother is disputing, say, okay, am I really jumping into conclusions? Is there a possible alternative explanation? All right. So the mother is only thinking, okay, maybe I've jumped it. I should probably go talk to him and see what's happening. And do you see that, that it consequently affects the way she responds. She goes to the son's room, this is C two, goes to the son's room and has a friendly talk with him. And the effect is they build a relationship of confidence and trust and both are happy. Right. So you, do you see that? So this is what, this is something that's something very practically that we also can use to really question what our opinion is, what our attitudes are, what our expectations are in a certain situation and coming back to disputing them in order for us to have a better outcome. So a lot of times it's the thought process that really creates the sense of difficulty for us when, you know, even as we're dealing with, with these kinds of situations. Okay. I'm just going to give you maybe just move into the next slide. Okay. All right. So here's, here's another, another example. I don't know if it's very clear for you. It's a little small. Okay. So this is a workplace problem. All right. So let's look at the problem. The problem is you need to give a presentation to the board of directors. Okay. And the, the fear is, you know, if I give a poor presentation to the board, what will happen is I might lose my job and I would have to sell my apartment. Okay. Do you see how fast this one thought of just doing a poor presentation can create such a catastrophic idea about what's going to happen to us. All right. So what is the self-defeating belief over here? This person feels, you know, they must give a excellent presentation. Otherwise, the outcome will be offered. Something bad is going to happen. Now that's the belief that the person has. All right. And what is the behavior or the consequential emotion that happens is there's anxiety. There's a difficulty in concentrating with the work. They're not sleeping well. They're really not able to, to come to a place of working towards it. Okay. So this is the presentation that they're coming to you. So what do you do in counseling is actually go back to that belief, that self-defeating belief that, that is talking about, I must give a good presentation. Otherwise, the outcome will be offered. So here, you're getting them to either logically think. So the logical thinking is just because I want to give a good presentation. How does it logically follow that I must give a good presentation? And I want to, that how does it actually follow that you must do it? Okay. Or you have an empirical way of dealing with it. Where is the evidence that my demand must be granted? Why should it be that all that I do should come out the way that it is? So these are different ways that you challenge it. Or am I being realistic? If I don't give a good presentation, will the outcome really be offered? So let's say I do badly. Is it going to be that I'm going to lose my job? Or will I have to sell my apartment? Okay. So these are different ways of thinking about it. And look at the approach. So the effective way of dealing with it is, and then you will find, and these are all in one person. Okay. And that's why the example is helpful. So the person may think, although it's strongly preferable to give a good presentation, I don't have to, right? It may not, if I feel I'm not able to, it's okay if I can't. So you're being a little bit more kind to yourself. Or there is no evidence I will get what I demand, even if it is preferable and desirable. Right. I may want to be on the top of my class doing the best presentation, but it may not happen. Right. So it is, it's the way of thinking that really needs to change. Or next one, if I don't give a good presentation, the outcome may be bad, but hardly awful. And the end of the world, it's not the end of the world if something happens. It's not the end of the world if there's a fight that happens because it's helping the person to approach the issue in a different way. Or if I continue holding on to this belief, I will remain very serious and even more likely to give a poor presentation. So do you see that the different ways that you are challenging those certain belief systems really affects the way in how you actually work through your behavior. And the last one, if I change my attitude, I will feel concerned and not anxious. Also, I will be able to concentrate and prepare for my lecture. My sleeping will probably improve. I will feel refreshed. I'll ensure that I practice. Yeah. That's just a therapy. So you can forget that. So basically what you're doing is to be able to work through the certain beliefs that a person may have and ensuring that you challenge that in order to come to that place of working through whatever the issues it is that you may be going through. Okay. Yeah. I'd like to stop here to really address any questions that you all have before we move on to the next one. Any questions? If you're not able to understand. Yes. I can see. Yes, Divya. Go ahead. Yeah. Thank you, ma'am. As you were talking about those thoughts leading to behavior, behavior leading to action. So is it like something like thought patterns? Like you multiple times a person is thinking a certain way and it becomes a pattern. And yeah, I have heard like people saying like neurological patterns you become developing. And I'm just trying to understand the terminology. If I'm relating it to the Bible scripturally, is it like strongholds? Like it's something like you're not thinking a different way. It's just the same way when I'm presented with a situation. This is something that I take. This path is something that a person takes, right? For example, if a person is struggling with self-pity, then every time they are presented with a situation that can trigger that, then they just go down the pit, the spiral of self-pity. And yeah, it can just lead to other things. Absolutely. My understanding, right? Very right. Yes. That's exactly. If you look it in, it's so, I mean, even before the person who's bought up this theory is called Albert Ellis. Even before this came up, it was written in the Bible, right? It talks of how you renew your mind, right? It talks of how in 1st Corinthians 510, I think it talks about how you bring down, cast down the arguments that's there in your mind, right? And make it obedient to Christ. Now, all of this, so whatever, and that's exactly why we are called to renew our minds, to be able to whatever situation takes place, how are we internally explaining it, right? And like you rightly said, when does it become a belief? An initial thought doesn't become a belief all because you think of it once. A belief happens when something is walked over and over and over, you trend a path over and over and over, and that becomes a belief system. A belief system is something that you believe, that you rationally think is true, right? So much so that it takes a lot of evidence to break a belief system. So the thought process to become a belief system has to follow multiple patterns, right? And this is not a conscious thing that you and I may be doing. It's because as we go through like simple examples, maybe in childhood, someone probably would have just said, look at you and look at your sister. You should be more like your sister, you should be more like your brother, right? Simple comparisons that's coming up, right? And that situation makes some meaning in the person's head and says, okay, maybe I'm not good enough and that's why I should be like somebody else, right? So that's just one of it. And let's say a second event happens, maybe a teacher says, you know, you've got to work harder, you know, all the, if it's something that all the children can do, why can't you do it, right? Now that cements it further, right? Because there has not been a disputing or a challenging of those thoughts or that there hasn't been a really breaking down of those thoughts, casting away that argument or casting away that thought and that begins to become a belief system, right? I know that this is the way that I am or I know that, you know, you are out to bother me, out to kill me, you know. So whatever it is, it's just that sense, that belief that builds over and over again, okay? And to cast that down, to break it down is what is a renewed mind. So when we look at it and we see it, it's got a very biblical base to it, to really break down the senses of belief, okay? Divya, I hope that that answered and you got that? Yes, yes. Thank you so much. Okay. Anybody else, any other thoughts on this? See, what I'd like you all to do is, because I think it's very important for us to really understand the concept of this. And yeah, I was looking through the stream, I had put up an assignment, I don't, till yesterday, I didn't see any of the students having attempted it, okay? So this is going to be the next one that I'm going to put up. I'd like you all to attempt trying to work out maybe some of the belief systems that you have and, you know, by putting it up on the stream, it'll help you to really work through this. So it's a personal journey, I know, but to really consolidate this learning and understand, because unless you understand it for yourself, you're not going to be able to see and help others with that, okay? So I will be putting this up on the stream as well as on the e-learning portal for you all to share your own, how you may need to break and work through some irrational beliefs that you have and move it to something that is rational, that's godly. And I think, you know, doing this with believers is really effective, because we have a real base that we can believe, you know? There are so many promises of God that you can believe from. I've seen doing it with unbelievers is a huge challenge, because they don't have any reference point. There's nothing reference point. They have to begin to create a reference point that they haven't seen, right? But for us as believers, it's already there. It's all up in scripture. It tells you, you know, what you need for every situation and what are the kind of beliefs that you can live by, all right? So this will be coming up on the stream, so ensure that you all do that, okay? If you don't have any further questions, I'm going to start with the next chapter. It may be just 10 minutes, but then we will take on the rest of it in the next hour as well, okay? Now, if you'll remember, sorry, just give me a minute. I will have to bring down this presentation and put up the next one just a second. Before we go, can I have a question? Yes, yes. Yeah. So when we say the term like faith over fear, so faith is a belief system, right? So when I mean, I've seen a lot of preachers preaching about having faith over fear. So I mean, I think I've heard a lot of somers that avoid emotions. So they used to say, do not fear, have faith. So I'm just little thinking about it, like, so what emotion does faith lead to? Because obviously, belief is going to lead to an emotion, right? So I mean, I'm just little confused about this whole term because faith is a belief system and fear is emotion. And then why people say like have faith over fear? Is it really a right sentence to use? That's what I'm thinking on. Because if you have fear, you're going to obviously dispute the things, right? You're going to dispute the thoughts and think about how to change it towards faith. So I feel like it's contradicting. Maybe I'm not thinking it in a right way, but I just wanted to move like, I mean, now I'm recently understanding that you don't have to avoid emotions. You just have to bring it to God. So just to have a clarification about this faith over fear, if you can explain to me. Okay, so I think when we look at faith, faith can be seen, although faith, you can't describe faith as an emotion, but it isn't a belief also, right? Sorry, it isn't a thought process also. Having faith, you actually have to build your faith in something. What are you building your faith in? So it is a broader concept that brings about your thoughts, that aligns your thoughts and your emotions together. And so when you're saying faith, you're saying trust in God or trust in some promise of God, right? So you're having faith in God, right? Or you're having faith in the promises of God that leads you to a place of hope. So in the way that I understand that faith is not a thought process or neither is it an emotion. It's something that's built outside of it. It may be a component. It's a component that has both. It has the thought process as well as the emotion put together. So when you are dealing with faith, what is it exactly asking you to do is focus back on the promises of God. Because when you sit on the promises of God, you are going to have hope or you are going to have a sense of expectancy. So I agree that opposite of faith, the sphere is what generally creatures here. But then I think what I would want to bring about is that faith is not either an emotion or neither. It's like hope. Hope is something that you're looking forward to. It's something that you are experiencing as an evidence of something to come. So if you were to look at the definition of faith, it says it's a substance, right? It says it's a substance. It doesn't say it's a thought or a feeling, substance of things hoped for and things that are not seen. So I would see faith as something that's more holistic than it being either an emotion or a thought process. I hope that was answered, Jafina. All right. So we'll move to the, we have about five minutes. I'll just probably begin the next one and then we will get on in our next hour. So we're going to progress into the next chapter, which is the stages in the helping process. Okay. And if you remember, if you remember that we had, we had bought about some of this as we started it, right? And we looked at, when you're looking in frame of reference, we said we are, counseling is a process. It is a process where, where there are three, three stages that's, that's involved. Okay. So we're looking at three stages, which is, you remember the EUA we spoke about, right? The exploration, the understanding and the action. So that's the structure. Now, when you're looking at an entire counseling process, you're looking at these different stages. You first explore, then you come to a place of understanding alongside with your counseling, and then you are moving them into a point of action. So today we're just going to be looking at, at exploration. How do we review a certain situation with the person? Now, before we do that, like we said, it's important when we are getting into counseling, we establish rapport and trust. We show an attitude of empathy, positive regard, congruence, understanding, acceptance. Okay. So that's, that's very clear that those are some of the things that we do. Now, how do we establish rapport and trust is number one, ensure that you are, you keep it confidential, keep information, content, all confidential, being able to, you know, establish a place where you can counsel. Same-sex counseling, it's something that is recommended specifically, maybe, you know, when you are doing a pastoral or a layman counseling. Personally, I don't, I don't just see them and I do see men as well, because I'm also professionally trained. But then I think when you're beginning to start off with something, it's always better, especially in a church setting, where you are in a pastoral setting, it may be better to keep it as same-sex as possible. Okay. Recognize what your limitations are, where is it that you may not be able to help or bring about enough support for the person and, you know, refer accordingly, and a place where there is better communication. Okay. So remember, communication is not just about talking, but it's more about listening and how you build better interpersonal skills. And we will come to these interpersonal skills when we're looking at the skills of counseling. And that's something that's extremely important. We will deal with that as we come in. Okay. So the stage, stage one of our exploration is where we are reviewing what is the issue, what is going on, you're actually doing and exploring. Like, for example, I think I took this example last time, if you have a new gadget and you want to work the gadget, you are, what would you do? You will look through the manual, you will look through your phone, you will attempt to understand by exploring, right? You make mistakes, you go into, you know, some of the features of it and you're attempting to explore and understand what exactly is the way that you can work through this gadget that you have. So similarly, when in counseling, the first part of it is actually having a deeper understanding is through exploring. You can only understand once you have explored. And there are different ways that we're going to do that. And we'll, we'll do that in our next hour. So let's take a break right now. We are at 10.52. Let's, we'll come back at 11.02 for the rest of our class. Okay. You could grab a cup of coffee and see you soon.