The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context [Paperback]

David Powlison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 12, 2010

Beginning in the late 1960s, a biblical counseling movement sought to reclaim counseling for the church and provide a Christian alternative to mainstream psychiatry and psychotherapy. The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context is an informative and thought-provoking account of that movement. This historical account combines careful scholarship with a unique, eyewitness insight. This book is an invaluable resource for those who want to understand the biblical counseling movement. The core chapters were originally a Ph.D. dissertation in history of science and medicine (University of Pennsylvania). This new edition adds a lengthy appendix, containing articles by Dr. Powlison that give an analysis of developments within the biblical counseling movement and in its relationship to evangelical psychotherapists.

Editorial Reviews

Review

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this book. The counseling wars of the past half-century have ignited passions often characterized by labels rather than by careful analytic thought. This is the first broadly comprehensive history of these developments. While trying to be open to truth and insight whatever their source, Powlison faithfully argues that the Christian faith must play a constitutive role in building a robust model of Christian counseling. Amen and Amen. --D. A. Carson, Ph.D., Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; author of The Gagging of God, Christ and Culture Revisited, and An Introduction to the New Testament

Everyone interested in the modern biblical counseling movement needs to read this well-researched and well-written book. This is a fair and balanced presentation of one of the most important movements in the evangelical church. Readers will be equipped not only with historical insight, but, more importantly, with wisdom for how to speak the truth in love. --Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., Author of Soul Physicians, Spiritual Friends, Beyond the Suffering, and Sacred Friendships

David Powlison has written the definitive account of a biblical counseling movement that arose in the 1960s and continues to influence the field of Christian counseling today. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the rapid and turbulent growth occurring in faith-based counseling in the latter part of the twentieth century. --Ian F. Jones, Ph.D., Director, Baptist Marriage and Family Counseling Center; Professor of Psychology and Counseling, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; author of The Counsel of Heaven on Earth

About the Author

David Powlison, M.Div., Ph.D., is a faculty member and counselor at the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF) with over thirty years of experience. He has written several books, including Seeing with New Eyes and Speaking Truth in Love; many booklets, including Facing Death with Hope, Healing after Abortion, Recovering from Child Abuse, and Renewing Marital Intimacy; and numerous articles on counseling.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: New Growth Press (February 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1935273132
• ISBN-13: 978-1935273134
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #313,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Insider's View of Modern Biblical Counseling, April 18, 2010

By 

Robert W. Kellemen "Doc. K." (Crown Point, IN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context (Paperback)

Recommended: Dr. David Powlison of CCEF unites the twin themes of biblical counseling and church history in his excellent work The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context. Everyone interested in the modern biblical counseling movement will benefit from this well-researched and well-written book. It presents a fair and balanced exploration of one of the most important developments in the Evangelical church over the past generation. Readers will be equipped not only with historical insight, but more importantly, with wisdom for how to speak the truth in love.

The name "Jay Adams" and the method of counseling known as "nouthetic counseling" are familiar to Evangelicals in the biblical/Christian counseling world. As author David Powlison notes, most people either love or hate Adams and nouthetic biblical counseling.

Powlison, while acknowledging his own personal history as one trained within the nouthetic biblical counseling movement, and as a friend of Dr. Adams, still is able to write with a historian's objectivity. The Biblical Counseling Movement is neither hagiography nor a blistering attack. It is a balanced, nuanced examination, not only of the history, but also of the theology and methodology of Jay Adams and nouthetic biblical counseling.

The core chapters were originally Powlison's Ph.D. dissertation. The book edition adds a lengthy appendix, containing articles by Powlison. These extend and deepen the history, offering an intriguing analysis of the birth and development of the nouthetic biblical counseling movement and its relationship to Evangelical psychotherapists.

The History and Shaping Factors

Powlison first takes his readers to the historical backdrop that led to the rise of modern nouthetic biblical counseling. As E. Brooks Holifield explained in A History of Pastoral Care in American, so Powlison traces the movement of pastoral ministry from a focus on salvation and progressive growth in Christlikeness to a focus on self and "self-actualization." In the generation before Jay Adams' ministry (the 1920s to 1950s), pastoral counseling was strongly influenced by liberal Protestantism and secular psychology.

Powlison tells the riveting story of Adams' journey as a young pastor facing crisis after crisis among his parishioners and feeling inadequately prepared. Adams' internship under the secularist O. Hobart Mowrer, of all people, was a culminating experience leading to Adams' rejection of secular psychology.

In Powlison's hand, the narrative is never shallow. He describes other influencing factors on Adams' theory, including his personality, his background as a preacher, his Reformed Presbyterian theology, and his study of Van Til's pressupositional apologetics, among others. One cannot understand Adam's nouthetic approach apart from grasping these background elements.

An Afternoon Soap Opera

Once Adams launched the nouthetic biblical counseling movement with his publication of Competent to Counsel, along with the start of the Christian Counseling and Education Center (later to be renamed the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation--CCEF), and later with the start of the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC), the history begins to sound like an afternoon soap opera. Powlison colorfully depicts the intrigue within and without the movement.

While Adams spent part of his ministry critiquing secular psychology, he reserved more of his bombast for those within the church whom he considered "integrationists" who he believed had sold their birth right for a bowl of pottage by trying to blend and merge biblical truth with psychological theory and practice. Engaging page after engaging page illustrates the important interaction between "nouthetic biblical counseling" and "Christian integrationist psychology"

Of course, many would not accept being placed in either "camp." In fact, not everyone today who claims the title "biblical counselor" would equally own the label "nouthetic counselor." This is the one weakness I find in the title and language of the book--the seamless merging of "nouthetic counseling" and "biblical counseling." (In this review, I have used the phrase "nouthetic biblical counseling" to indicate the specific model espoused by Adams and explored by Powlison).

Perhaps much lesser known to "outsiders" are the historical in-house squabbles between early leaders of the nouthetic biblical counseling movement. In particular, Powlison addresses the differences in personality, theory, and methodology that arose between Adams and his nouthetic biblical counseling peer, John Bettler. If ever there was an antithesis to Adams, it was Bettler. Their eventual drifting apart, despite mutual respect and friendship, almost could have been predicted.

Powlison also tracks the ups and down of the movement in terms of influence (memberships, readership, sister organizations, "competing" organizations, etc.). To see the widespread impact of nouthetic biblical counseling today, it may surprise some to read about the many years when, according to Powlison, it languished.

What Makes Biblical Counseling Truly Biblical?

Powlison's work is not only historiographical. It also offers readers a thoughtful analysis of the theology and methodology of nouthetic biblical counseling, of Christian psychology, and of Christian counseling. Two lengthy and informative chapters outline the views, accusations, counter-views, and perspectives of most of the leading characters in biblical Christian counseling and psychology from the 1960s to the 1990s.

It would be almost impossible to read Powlison's summaries without being challenged to reflect seriously about one's own beliefs about the real meaning, in practice, of the sufficiency of Scripture. Just what does it mean and what does it "look like" to practice truly biblical Christian counseling that is Christ-centered, comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed?

Reading The Biblical Counseling Movement is like discovering a time capsule. You un-bury it, read the enclosed note, and say, "Aha! So, that's why things are the way they are today!" You come away with a greater appreciation for what Jay Adams was attempting to do. You come away with a greater appreciation for those who attempted to say, "Jay, you may have pulled the pendulum too far and done so a little too caustically." You come away with a better understanding of the ongoing "camps" in the biblical Christian counseling movement(s) that exist to this day.

For a rollickingly good read (yes, I said that about a book that once was a dissertation!), and for vital insight into the shape of pastoral, biblical, Christian counseling and psychology today, The Biblical Counseling Movement is a unique contribution to the field.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solidly Researched History, March 30, 2010

By 

Jeffrey A. Waibel (Fort Wayne, IN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context (Paperback)

I was first introduced to Jay Adams work while completing my masters in social work. At the time I was struggling integrate my faith with my clinical work and Jay Adams books (especially Competent to Counsel, A Theology of Christian Counseling, and the Christian Counselors Manual) were very helpful in providing a counterpoint to my studies. As I moved from school into practice, however I began to struggle with many of the concepts introduced by Adams and others in the Nouthetic Counseling camp. I struggled with their exegesis of certain Biblical texts, I struggled with their (mostly) complete rejection of modern psychology and psychiatry, and I struggled with the harshness I read in their techniques.

Over the last 10 years I have learned that the Biblical counseling movement, no matter how frustrating to me personally, is an important balance to mainstream psychology and psychiatry for the Christian. Powlison's excellent historical study of the Biblical counseling movement further underscores that important truth. While it is clear from the book that Powlison has serious reservations about some of the more extreme stances taken by Adams, NANC, BCF, and others involved with Biblical counseling it is also clear that Powlison has a deep respect for the overarching aim of shifting the focus of pastoral counseling and Christian counseling as a whole to the Bible. Anyone involved in Christian counseling should read this book for that lesson alone.

Make no mistake: this book outlines the entire history of the Biblical counseling movement. It is not a fluff piece that only gives one side of the story. This book presents the background of the Biblical counseling movement complete with detractors and serious questions about Adam's knowledge system, theology, seeming lack of compassion, and understanding of even the basic tenants of psychology. Through it all Powlison's work is steady and fair. And I would argue that we are better for it.

5.0 out of 5 stars Biblical Counseling, January 20, 2011

By 

Martin (Vevay, India) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context (Paperback)

You may have an immediate reaction to and an opinion about Biblical Counseling. Powlison provides detail of the movement, when it began, why it began and connects the dot between now and then. For any student of Biblical Counseling this will be a work worth having. Powlison himself has been incredibly influential in helping define and refine Biblical Counseling and there may be no better person to take on the task of documenting it's roots.