Listening Prayer Therapy vs cognitive therapy

LPT – Develop your own approach
This is an invitation. Develop you own approach to Listening Prayer Therapy. Try out the tools that I have used and make them your own. You then have ‘Your Approach.”

LPT – and Cognitive Therapy
My gift is to penetrate theory and understand the essence, the key, and the nugget. What is key to the effectiveness of Cognitive Therapy? It is the focus on belief.

The theory, which I support fully, is that belief drives behaviour. But there is more. Core belief defines identity (self esteem issues.) Beliefs are expressed in feelings and a belief lies behind each of our negative feelings. Beliefs shape our perspective – our perceptual glasses – our seeing. Thus beliefs are self-perpetuating – we see what confirms our belief. Finally by the power of expectations, life happens to confirm our beliefs.

My understanding, then, is that the Cognitive Therapist makes a wise and strategic choice to focus counselling on belief systems that underlie behaviour.

Third Generation Inner Healing shares this focus on belief. In the healing of a memory we deal with the belief - what seemed true at the time of the event. If you do not focus on the beliefs when doing healing of a memory then you do not ‘get’ Listening Prayer Therapy.

The way that LPT (Listening Prayer Therapy) deals with beliefs is with revelation rather than cognition. A cognitive approach may take months or several years to break down a belief. Cognitive Therapy – the best that Psychology has to offer at the moment – takes persistence and much professional time (and expense) to be effective. But it is effective.

When Listening Prayer Therapy uses revelation to deal with beliefs is it looks like this. “Jesus this is what I believe but I want your perspective. What is your truth?” If one truly listens – rather than think up the right answer – then one can receive the Rhema, the active, living spoken ‘word of God’ that is effective in shattering wrong belief and giving one God’s perspective. It happens ‘in an instant.’

People think going to therapy is tough.
The inner forces that keep us from therapy are strong. We think therapy is tough. That is because:
1. Humility is involved. Pride blocks us.
2. We are dealing with self-condemnation. Fear of judgment blocks us.
3. We don’t know where to start. Feelings of inadequacy and helplessness block us.
4. We are putting ourselves in the hands of another. Trust is an issue.
5. There are costs: financial, time, energy. Our ‘Poverty Complex’ blocks us.
6. I am investing in myself so my lack of self-esteem hinders me.
7. On top of this all our patterns of rationalization, denial, and avoidance, game playing and self-sabotage stand in our way.

I think life without therapy is tough!
So it looks to us, feels to us like getting into therapy is tough. But I know what is worse and that is what happens when I don’t get into therapy. Life can get really tough when God plays hardball. “Hard ball?” That is when we reap the emotional, social, spiritual and financial consequences of our failure to step up to the plate and get our stuff dealt with. That is messy!