When to stop consulting?

As a pastor or counselor, how do you know when to end counseling? When making the decision to end counseling, you will likely feel some uncertainty, as not every problem has been resolved. You may notice (feel) a need for further growth or a desire for the person to continue counseling on a regular basis. However, these factors are not sufficient reasons to continue counseling. When to end the counseling process is usually a decision that requires great wisdom. Sometimes the decision to end counseling is obvious, but often it is not.

It's best to approach this decision with clear criteria in mind. Let's consider two positive indicators and four less pleasant ones.

Positive indicators

1. The person understands their problem and is ready to solve it.

The best indicator of completion of counseling is when the person has been sufficiently equipped to act in faith in response to their difficulties and demonstrates a continued willingness to do so.

The symptoms have subsided: the depression is no longer as severe as before; the couple has reconciled and restored trust; the young man who was addicted to pornography has greatly reduced the manifestations of his sexual sin. The pressure of the original problem no longer destroys their lives. And suddenly they no longer feel the need to see you. And as much as you love them, you don’t feel the need to see them either.

2. During your caregiving, it becomes apparent that another person is handling the situation better than you are.

If you are counseling in a local church context, you will likely bring in other couples or individuals to support the person going through the counseling process. Often these other people become more effective than you in addressing the issues that concern the person’s heart. This is not a threat to your role as pastor or counselor, but rather an indicator of how the church should function. It should be encouraging to you that others are demonstrating skills or have vision that you lack. If you have recognized this, it may be best to transfer the person to the care of others.

Less pleasant indicators

Unfortunately, not all consultations end positively. Sometimes other circumstances force you to move on to another consultant or another type of help.

3. Nothing seems to change.

You’ve been trying to help for a while, but things don’t seem to be moving forward. People, at least on the surface, are eager for change, but the same problem they started with is still haunting them. Maybe things have even gotten worse. This could be the result of a lack of understanding or skills on your part, or because of stubbornness, ignorance, or other factors on their part. Usually it’s a combination of both. But the bottom line is that nothing is working. This is a good time to consider handing off the counseling to someone else.

4. They don't want to work.

Sometimes in counseling you will encounter situations where the people you are counseling use the time to complain, gossip, and complain. But when it comes to the hard work of studying Scripture, discerning the motives of the heart, confronting sin, or dealing with their own fears, they simply do not want to do it. Such people expect you to do all the hard work in counseling sessions. But it would not be serving people if we comfort them by letting them think they are doing something to solve the problem when in fact they refuse to act. Don’t let people fool themselves into thinking they are making an effort when they are not. If they are not doing their homework and are unwilling to answer the questions you give them, the counseling should end for their own good.

5. They don't trust you.

Sometimes there are times when your mistakes become painfully obvious. Maybe you made a mistake by jumping into a situation without fully understanding it, or you responded with outright frustration. You forgot about meetings or failed to fit them into your schedule at reasonable intervals. Two facts you know about yourself: you are a sinner and you are human. The bottom line is that they have lost trust in you—whether through your fault or their unrealistic expectations. Either way, people won’t follow your advice if they don’t trust you, and that’s a signal to end the counseling session. If they refuse to trust the advice of others in the church, maybe they should consider moving to another church.

6. They need more help than you can offer.

Their problem is so serious that it requires more time or expertise than you can give. You wish you had more time for them, but your other responsibilities would be impossible because they require more than just an hour-long meeting once a week. For example, a drug addiction may become so out of control that those suffering require daily interventions. You would like to have more skills to understand the complexities of a particular problem, but you do not have enough understanding, skills, or time to sort through all the pieces. Remember that the limit of what you can handle may be higher than you think. However, we must also recognize that some problems are so spiritually complex or physiologically ingrained that you should reach out to someone with more experience and skills. The goal is not to simply pass them on to someone else, but to help them get the help they need.

Don’t feel like a failure if you need to refer them to someone else in the church (another pastor or a mature believer) or to someone outside the church (a counselor or doctor in your area). Sometimes the best way to care for them is not to continue working with them yourself, but to refer them to someone who can give them the time and attention they need.

Closing meeting

If any of these indicators apply to your situation, it is probably time to end the consultation by offering a final meeting. Some people will be very happy to have the consultation over. Others will be quite anxious. For the latter, such a final meeting will be a difficult ordeal. They will want the consultation to last much longer than necessary, perhaps even arguing with you that they need more help. If you, in your wisdom (not out of impatience), decide that it is time to end, be kind and consistent in seeing things through to the end. Do not let the pitfalls and pressures of overly needy people dictate the pace of your consultation. Listen humbly to their problems, pray about them, and then decide what will be best.

Editor's Note: This post is an excerpt from the book “The Pastor and Counseling: The Basics of Shepherding Members in Need” by Jeremy Pierre and Deepak Reju (Crossway, 2014). It originally appeared on the Biblical Counseling Coalition website.