2008 January-- Society for Christian Psychology

Psychotherapy — Round 2

Posted on January 28, 2008

[Editor's note: this is the last post by our January 2008 guest blogger, Dr. Edward Welch (Westminster Seminary, Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation). In this post Ed shares his concern that in our search for counseling methodologies we may unintentionally separate counseling from the Gospel.]

I anticipated a few more comments from the 1/21/08 posting about psychotherapy. In it I professed my confusion about the prominence of psychotherapy within Christian counseling, and I suggested that there is no reason for the category to exist since Scripture already addresses the matters taken up by Christian psychotherapy. I proposed that the real issue is this: how do we access and apply Scripture on topics that don’t appear in a Bible concordance?

Here is an example of how psychotherapy sneaks into biblical practice. I spoke to a woman this week about panic attacks. At first glance, Scripture is silent on these problems, but, of course, when we really listen to someone describe panic attacks they are all about fear and its physical accompaniments. With fear as the issue, Scripture is a fathomless well. It seems to specialize in fear.

Now let’s say that we have found some wonderful teaching (e.g., Ps.56:3, Ps. 27, Ps. 46, 1 Pet.5:7) and we have linked that teaching to the benefits of the cross. So far so good, but let’s say that this woman is unmoved by it all. Now what?

Off we go to the internet and find volumes on panic attacks. We browse Barnes and Noble and find practical workbooks. Now we are on to something. The spiritual teaching of Scripture can be augmented, we think, or replaced, by the very practical steps in the panic literature.

What might be happening in this scenario is that we are unskilled in biblical application. Scripture doesn’t supply an exhaustive methodology for anything. If it did, such a manual would certainly take the fun out of ministry. Instead, we are given with the wonderful opportunity of making Scripture accessible and meaningful. We are equipped with life-changing truth and love, then we engage in the challenging task of putting this into a specific methodology. Along the way we glean methodological ideas from friends, panic workbooks, and anything else as they come to the service of progressive sanctification in a person’s life, but these methodological slivers (e.g., consider contributing factors, carry a paper bag) simply spawn creative ideas on how to apply the biblical material that we already have. The problem comes when we miss the connection between a few methodological ideas and our theological foundations. That is when psychotherapy appears, and, when that happens, our counseling becomes increasingly partitioned from the gospel.

Any thoughts?

Filed Under Biblical Counseling, Christian Psychology, Ed Welch | 4 Comments

Psychotherapy — Round 2

What is Psychotherapy

Let’s Keep Talking

Ed Welch, January Blogger of The Month

A Proposal Regarding Same-Sex Attraction