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Following are some things I taught at this class that may help you to give the help that helps (quoted statements came from counselors who attended).

• “I think I’ve been a stuck counselor when it comes to stuck callers. I’ve let a bad experience cause me to feel like I failed and to be fearful about trying again. Tonight has given me a lot of insight and practical suggestions to be a more helpful counselor” and not to blame myself when stuck callers are resistant.
• “You don’t have to be a perfect helper to help. I shouldn’t take too much responsibility for the outcome of the call” because the caller has an important part to play too.
• “I learned how to identify the differences between callers with faith and callers without faith. I like the formula for helping and ideas on how to apply it to the different callers.”
• The formula is: Grace + Truth + Time = Change. (We taught this to hospital patients at the Minirth-Meier Clinic. I think Henry Cloud and/or John Townsend came up with it.)
• “Now I can differentiate between the caller who is open and ready to be helped and the one who resists my help.” This is important because we need to use different approaches for these two types of callers. Receptive and eager callers will respond to the support you offer. But resistant callers usually don’t respond and therefore, you need to take control of the call, be more challenging, and work to limit the call time.
• With stuck or resistant callers: “I can change the direction of the call to get to the point where I can be of real help or gracefully terminate the call” and then be available for another caller.
• “I have a better understanding of those difficult callers who use denial, deflection, and playing the victim and when and how to confront these patterns.”
• If stuck or resistant callers don’t respond to counselors reflecting their feelings and offering encouragement then they need to be lovingly challenged on this point. For instance, we can say, “You don’t seem to appreciate the help I’m offering. What is it that you need from this call?” Or, “I’m trying to help you and yet you seem resistant to whatever I say.” If the caller doesn’t respond to compassionate statements or loving confrontations then we need to do our best to limit the call to ten minutes or less, ending the call by saying something like, “I need to go now. Would you like a prayer (or a referral) before we hang up.”
• With people who are going in circles or spoiling the help we offer we should interrupt them to try to establish a point of connection by acknowledging what they seem to be feeling or trying to focus them on what they need today. If we’re unable to establish a connection in the call then we need to talk frankly and graciously to the caller about this problem and if the caller still doesn’t respond and receive help then it’s time to bring the call to an end politely.
• In summary, all of us at New Hope need to realize that whether or not the caller gets help from a call is usually more up to the caller than it is the counselor. We do our part by listening and offering care, encouraging and offering prayer and/or referrals, but the caller needs to receive that help and put it into practice. Some callers have faith; they are humble, eager, teachable, appreciative, engaging, ready to try something new. Other callers lack faith; they are proud, resistant, defensive, complaining, disconnecting, stuck in their ways. It’s easy to see that the callers with the faith and readiness to be helped are going to receive more help than the others (and make for a much more satisfying helping experience for us). So do your best to keep the phone lines open for those who make the best use of your time and don’t think that it’s all your fault if a call doesn’t go well with a resistant caller. Do what you can with these difficult callers, they are people with hurts and needs to. If they don’t respond to supportive statements then gently challenge their lack of receptivity or their stuckness. If they don’t respond to loving confrontation then work toward bringing the call to a close, perhaps offering a prayer or a word of blessing before you say goodbye.