This book is a series of case studies of real people who have been treated by the process of Nouthetic Counseling.  That is to say they have been treated using the Bible alone as the authority to find answers to get better.  The cases include Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Paralyzing Fear and Anxiety, Postpartum Depression, Anorexia, Bipolar Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Homosexuality, and several others.  The book starts out with a brief history of the biblical counseling movement as well as speaks to the sufficiency of the Bible to address these issues.

The book does a good job of walking the reader through the counseling process to show how someone who is suffering and in need of godly counsel, can overcome their problems and have the peace of Christ.  The book also does a good job in identifying actual useful brain science and research from secular sources.  There are areas in the medical field that can be useful in diagnosis prior to doing a biblical assessment.  Many people are under the misconception that psychology is a medical discipline, but as any psychiatrist or brain scientist will tell you, it is nothing more than a social science.  In laymen’s terms, a psychiatrist is a medical doctor who can prescribe treatment, even medication, based on known brain science and a psychologist is a liberal arts student who adopts behavior suggestions based on the nature of man taught by whatever worldview they embrace.  Modern psychology is wholly rooted and largely influenced by Freudian Psychoanalysis (atheism), B.F. Skinner Determinism (atheism), William James Pragmatism (atheism), Carl Jung’s Archetypes (Buddhism) or others such as Fromm, Maslow or Pavlov.  (This information on modern psychology is not from the book, but from my personal research in studying psychology, Darwinism and the bible, as well as my undergraduate work in the critical analysis of systems of thought).

One of the reasons that psychology has hundreds of conflicting theories is because it is largely guess work, and expensive guess work at that.  The book makes a point in observing that biblical counseling should be done in the church.  People can spend a fortune, thousands of dollars in ongoing guess work by a psychologist.  When counseling is done in the church, it is done at little or no cost, so that is a relief to that counselee.  When the financial burden is removed, then the Counselor can invest the time to do discovery, understand the events that have led up to today in the Counselees life, and then walk through the process of biblical counseling.  Overall, the book was well written, sources a lot of scripture and also demonstrates the compassion necessary when counseling folks who need patience, understanding and kindness added to biblical wisdom.  I will be keeping this book handy to reference when the need calls as God brings these conversations into my life.

The book makes a compelling case for Nouthetic Counseling rather than the Integration Counseling approach.  Integration counseling is a mixture of biblical counseling and psychology.  Actually, that is the nice way of saying it.  My observation through both written word and experience is that Integration Counseling is a series of half-baked theories of the pseudo-science loosely tied together by an occasional  bible verse.  From a theological perspective, the Reformed Biblical theology that teaches us about the Providence of God, the Sovereignty of God and our identity in Christ is completely left out of Integration Counseling in exchange for Arminianism which is weak, man-centered theology, in which counselees are left looking for answers within their sinful flesh rather than looking to God.  When psychology does acknowledge God, it removes sovereignty from God, making God impotent while making man sovereign.  There is often no recognition of sin, even among “christian” psychologists, and psychology in general has not arrived at a consensus on the existence of the soul of man, the ontology of the mind or the relationship between the mind and the brain.  As a system of thought, the doctrines in the religion of psychology vary, but there are some common elements such as the false assumptions that man is a stimulus-response animal.  We are not, rather we continuously seek the desires of our hearts, which is shaped by what we put into our minds, not by environmental stimuli.  In scripture, we are admonished to seek moral excellence which produces the fruit of eternal life by the power of God, which has been given to those who believe  (2Peter 1:2-11; Philippians 4:8). 

Furthermore, psychoanalysis is often rooted in the Freudian theory of life-death instincts that drive behavior, an idea that Freud borrowed from Darwin known as survival instincts.  This false premise leads to counseling that religiously promotes behavior modification techniques, that if successful, will only bring peace for a short period of time (John 14:27) because the world cannot offer the peace of Christ (Colossians 3:15-16), that is only provided by the God of All Comfort.  There is a direct correlation between the peace of God and the wisdom of God and we do not receive one without the other.  In 1Corinthians 1, Paul explains why the wisdom of the world (psychology, philosophy, self-help theory, etc.) is foolishness and not to be trusted (Colossians 2:8), rather we are to trust the wisdom of God as revealed in His word.  The Bible teaches us that we are not to trust our instincts like unreasoning animals because they are of the flesh (Jude 10, 2Peter 2:12).  Even the one positive mention of instincts in the Bible (Romans 2:14) is referring to unbelievers.  God has made foolish the wisdom of men [1Corinthians 1:18-(22)-31] and our faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the Power of God (1Corinthians 2:5).  God does not want us to be stubborn like a horse or a mule, but to seek biblical wisdom and the Counsel of the Lord, knowing that He is watching over us, a testimony from God Himself about His sovereign grace towards us (Psalm 32:8-9).

If I sound hostile to psychology, I am!  First, because I have seen this Conventional Wisdom ruin the lives of people I love with misplaced hope, leaving them in despair, often after spending thousands of dollars; second, because it is an enemy of God, His word and His church, as it is earthly, sensual and demonic (James 3:15).  For the Christian, Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God to us (1Corinthians 1:30) and we should seek the wisdom of God taught to us by the Spirit in us since we have the mind of Christ (1Corinthians 2:16).  I do believe that the psychologist or self-anointed “professional” does have a desire to be helpful, but help in the things we do or think will never be sustained without a recognition of the heart work that needs to take place in submission to the God who made us uniquely who we are!  There is much more to be said on this sensitive subject, but for now I will close with a confirmation that I strongly recommend this book for teachers, pastors, Christians and those seeking comfort.  I believe that every Christian is a counselor because they have the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, our resident interpreter of scripture.  Though I tried to read it with a critical eye, I did find encouragement for myself as well as encouragement to share with those whom God has placed in my life.