A Biblical Counsellor’s Take on Humanity, Suffering, Healing and Meaning (Part 1)

This is an in-depth two-part podcast with Padre Chris Perona, a Biblical Counsellor. Padre Perona has had a colourful journey where his passions have not only led him to ministerial work for 15 years, but also through a career in nursing and advertising somewhere in between.

 

In this podcast, he shares his holistic approach of counselling from a spiritual framework, namely from a creationist paradigm. He candidly draws on his He also explains the difference between ministerial work and counselling, where he introduces the Freudian idea that a psychotherapist is in fact, a secular pastor.

 

Throughout Part 1, we discuss our perspectives on humanity, spiritual love, grief and pain, healing, injustice, hope, and meaning. By interpreting Psalm 77, Padre Perona extrapolates how core aspects of religion, aids in reframing life’s experience, which can cradle the mental health of believers.

 

We further address the philosophical standpoint of religion on mental health in terms of creating meaning for the ubiquitous suffering, therefore bolstering existential crises.

 

Towards the end of the hour, we address his perspectives of Yin & Yang and Karma alongside the Biblical understandings of Good & Evil.

 

Finally, we find ourselves on the topic of being ‘born again’, and it brought me to realise how this belief can undeniably mitigate intrapsychic distress.

 

Books referenced in the podcast:

The Question of Lay Analysis (Freud, 1969).

Man's Search for Meaning (Frankl, 1946).