A Word from Bob: A Two-Part Blog Mini-Series 

You’re reading Part 1 of a two-part blog mini-series on CIBC—Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling. You can read Part 2 here: Non-Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling: 2 Reflections and 4 Recommendations. 

COL or LOL 

I’m chuckling as I begin to craft today’s post. Maybe instead of LOL it’s COL: Chuckling Out Loud.

Why am I laughing at myself? Because I’m sure that I’ll end up with people on both sides of the current counseling debates disagreeing with me.

Some may say I am encouraging too much interest in being informed by the world’s research.

Others may say I am being too critical of those who seek to be clinically-informed.

It’s not the first time I’ve sought to present a both/and perspective on these issues.

Some Recent “Both-And” History 

Back about two years ago (November 29, 2022 to be exact), I posted about Being a ______-Informed Biblical Counselor. This post began as an 18-tweet thread on Twitter/X.

In that post, I discussed both a potential concern about clinically-informed biblical counseling, and I affirmed the legitimacy of research-aware biblical counseling. I said it like this:

Tweet 6: Here’s where we might want to be a tad self-critical as “____-informed” biblical counselors. Is our focus foremost on the Word’s wisdom or the world’s research? If we don’t have a rich biblical-theological foundation then it’s easy for the world’s information to trump the Word’s wisdom.

Tweet 7: Is there a place for biblical counseling to engage with the world’s research? Yes. I’ve “taken heat” for affirming that. I’ve written much about it: 55 Resources for Counseling the Whole Person: The Bible, the Body, the Embodied-Soul, Research, Science, and Neuroscience.

My Biblical Counseling Model and the Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling Model 

For several reasons, I choose not to call my approach “Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling” (CIBC). Here’s a post where I explain how I identify my biblical counseling approach:

6 Biblical Counseling Convictions.

In summary, I say that as a biblical counselor, I seek to be: 

A Gospel-Centered, Theologically-Saturated, Relationship-Focused, Church History-Informed, Research-Aware Soul Physicians of Embodied-Souls.

I believe in the sufficiency of Scriptures for biblical counseling. See:

What Makes Biblical Counseling Truly Biblical, Part 1

What Makes Biblical Counseling Truly Biblical, Part 2

What Makes Biblical Counseling Truly Biblical, Part 3

I believe in the role of research, science and neuroscience—as does God’s Word (the Creation/Cultural Mandate, common grace, a biblical theology of science, a biblical theology of creation, etc.). See:

55 Resources for Counseling the Whole Person: The Bible, the Body, the Embodied-Soul, Research, Science, and Neuroscience 

Biblical Counseling, Neuroscience, and Descriptive Research 

9 Reformed Theologians on Common Grace 

Cultural Mandate and the Image of God: Human Vocation Under Creation Fall, and Redemption (Gary Sutanto)

While I choose not to label my approach “clinically-informed biblical counseling,” I have great respect for my CIBC friends. As I read leaders in the modern CIBC movement, I see them believing both in the sufficiency of Scripture and in the legitimacy of researched—examined under the lens of Scripture.

Clinically-informed biblical counselors state that they follow the theological language of John Calvin who saw the Bible as a pair of spectacles that allows us to see the world through the eyes of God’s evaluation.

Clinically-informed biblical counselors state that they follow the counseling approach of David Powlison who saw the Bible as providing the new eyes, the redeemed lens, through which we assess all information.

Clinically-informed biblical counselors state that they believe the Scriptures provide them with everything necessary to evaluate common grace tools and to establish their congruity or incongruity with God’s Word.

In today’s post, I want to encourage all clinically-informed biblical counselors to continue to build upon two foundational commitments:

Theologically-saturated biblical counseling must inform clinically-informed biblical counseling.

God’s Word is the necessary, authoritative, and sufficient foundation for assessing the world’s information.

Reflection #1: What Informs Us Forms Us 

Over the past two years, the discussions and debates about “clinically-informed biblical counseling” and “trauma-informed biblical counseling” have grown exponentially. So today, I revisit the topic with a specific focus:

How do we assure that our biblical counseling is being transformed by the Word of God rather than being conformed to the ways of the world? 

Are we theologically-saturated informed biblical counselors? Or, are we theologically-shallow conformed biblical counselors?

My impetus for revisiting this topic is the simple recognition that:

What informs us forms us.

Consider Romans 12:2.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

In light of Romans 12:2, we can ask our question this way:

Does our theologically-saturated biblical counseling transform information we glean from extra-biblical sources?

Or,

Does the world’s information transform and perhaps even deform our biblical counseling so that our biblical counseling becomes conformed to the world?

Nothing New Under the Sun 

This is not a new issue. It’s not a question that only our generation is asking.

Tilden Edwards (Spiritual Friends, 1980) studied the history of Christian spiritual direction in order to draw out modern implications. Edwards saw a lack of historical (church history) and biblical (God’s Word) foundation as a major issue regarding the use or misuse of the world’s input.

“Historically the Church always has utilized the current psychology of its culture. However, what it has borrowed, it has modified and transformed in the light of its own tradition. But if there is no deep awareness of the experiential, developmental anthropology of the tradition, then there is no real mutation, just a whole-hog graft. If the graft takes, it tends to take over. Sooner later then the Church loses its unique experiential wisdom for the society; it finds itself more and more absorbed as an expedient base for someone else’s “revelation,” unqualified by its own” (pp. 32-33, emphasis added).

While I would word Edwards’s assessment differently, I do believe he makes a significant point. I’d summarize it this way:

If our biblical counseling is not theologically-saturated, then the world’s information and input will take over. Instead of being theologically-saturated clinically-informed biblical counselors, we risk becoming clinically-saturated counselors. 

Reflection #2: Catalytic Reforming and Transforming

If we have a solid biblical/theological foundation (theologically-saturated), then we can use information in a reforming and transforming way. This is the classic modern nouthetic counseling concept of the catalytic use of research.

Jay Adams often spoke and wrote about the catalytic use of research. Biblical counselors read and review relevant research and it motivates them to return to Scripture to discern whether their current interpretations and applications of Scripture are accurate. Jay insisted that this is what he did with his interactions with O. Hobart Mowrer.

David Powlison often spoke and wrote about seeing with new eyes—the wisdom of the Word being the lens through which we assess and evaluate the research and concepts of the world.

Combining Jay and David, we can summarize the catalytic reforming and transforming approach like this:

The world’s research, ideas, and information can be a catalyst or motivation to return to Scripture both to assess our own current views, and to evaluate the world’s current views.

As we look at the world’s information through theologically-saturated lenses, God’s Word reforms our view of biblical counseling and transforms our Christian living.

Reflection #3: Cautions About Conforming or Deforming 

Romans 12:2 teaches us that there’s a legitimate concern or caution regarding biblical counseling that is informed by the world.

Are we reforming and transforming the world’s ideas through the lens of Scripture? Or, are the world’s ideas (subtly or blatantly) conforming or deforming our interpretation and application of Scriptures?

Are we evaluating the world’s information through the lens of Scripture? Or, are we (subtly or blatantly, consciously or subconsciously) evaluating the wisdom of the Word through the lens of the world’s information?

An Ancient Example: Tertullian and NPIT—Neo-Platonic-Informed Theology

The concern is real—even for those who are most adamant about not allowing the world to influence the Word.

For example, the Church Father, Tertullian, was adamant that “Athens” (the world) should have nothing to do with “Jerusalem” (the Word). Yet, Tertullian was apparently oblivious to the impact the world was having on him. Tertullian spent his life “swimming” in the culture of his day—as we all do. Apparently it was such a part of his existence, that Tertullian failed to recognize what is obvious to readers today: “Neo-platonic” thought saturates much of Tertullian’s thinking. Tertullian failed to recognize how much what informed him was forming, conforming, or even deforming him.

A Modern Example?: Jay Adams and BINC—Behaviorism-Informed Nouthetic Counseling

Some have opined that Jay Adams was more influenced by the culture of his day—behaviorism and its reaction against Freudianism—than Adams himself realized. Consider Mike Firmin’s 1988 Ph.D. dissertation for Bob Jones University: “Behaviorism and the Nouthetic Counseling Model of Jay E. Adams.”

Speaking of Adams’s first two works, Firmin noted that,

“The most influential psychological paradigm at the time of these two works was behavioral psychology. The year after Adams’s first publication, the American Psychological Association recognized B. F. Skinner, the famed behavioralist, as the most influential living psychologist. Moreover, with Adams having studied under the behavioral psychologist O. Hobart Mowrer, it is important to examine his model to discern whether the behavioral outlook influenced Adams’s perspective of what constitutes a biblical model of counseling” (2-3).

Fermin explained that Adams’s written respect for Mowrer,

“is consistent with the respect shown by other theological conservatives. For example, one study released in 1969, which was one year previous to Adams’ first book, revealed the following regarding the conservative perspective: ‘Favoring Mowrer’s position most were clergyman from the more theologically conservative denominations.’ Adams’ writings must be viewed in light of the era in which he wrote them, and the influencing factors of his day” (227).

Firmin concluded that Adams is not a behavioralist, but that there is a “bent” toward a behavioral emphasis.

“Examination of Adams’ model shows that it demonstrates a behavioral focus” (242).

Fermin sought to document his contention by examining a dozen core aspects of behavioral psychology’s theory and practice, and comparing them to Jay Adams’s nouthetic counseling theory and practice. For nearly twenty-five pages of his dissertation (242-265), Fermin details what he sees as overlap between Adams’s nouthetic model and Skinner and Mowrer’s behaviorism.

If Firmin used today’s language, he might have said that Jay Adams practiced BINC:

Behaviorism-Informed Nouthetic Counseling.

Adams vehemently disagreed with this contention. Adams consistently insisted that Mowrer was no more than a catalyst affirming what Adams already knew and deepening Adams’s commitment to further explore Scripture regarding our responsibility before God.

Firmin was not alone in his assessment of Adams. Greg Gifford is Chair of Biblical Studies and Assistant Professor of Biblical Counseling at The Master’s University. In a post at the Biblical Counseling Coalition (Jay Adams’ Heritage: How Jay Adams Is Connected to the Father of American Psychology), Gifford summarizes who O. Hobart Mowrer was, and why he is important to modern biblical counselors.

“O.H. Mowrer was an American psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Illinois who lived from 1907 to 1982. He is known for behavior therapy and two-stage theory, something that had great significance in the ministry of Jay Adams. Mowrer was a man who was willing to challenge the status quo of then-modern psychological practices, much like Adams. Mowrer was one who did not see eye-to-eye with his behavioristic predecessors and was willing to publicly challenge and critique them—something that Adams appreciated in Mowrer.”

Gifford traces Adams’s counseling DNA to a string of behavioral counselors.

Beginning with William James in Figure 1, one can see the progression of his influence to Clark Hull. Note, O.H. Mowrer would have studied under Clark Hull, and Clark Hull was directly influenced by the writing and thinking of William James. William James influenced Clark Hull, who influenced O.H. Mowrer. Furthermore, of great significance for biblical counseling, Jay Adams studied directly under Mowrer and credits him for much of his counseling theory and practice. As seen in Figure 1, William James’s influence did have an impact on Hull, Mowrer, and eventually, Adams.

Gifford concludes:

After this teaching experience with Mowrer, Adams began his work in writing Competent to Counsel, which would be published just five years later in 1970. It was a landmark work that helped solidify Jay Adams’s emphasis on directive counseling, human responsibility, and—of course—what he would term “nouthetic confrontation.” Jay Adams was influenced by William James’s student—O.H. Mowrer—and that contrasting exposure helped Adams formulate what we now understand to be “biblical counseling.”

Heath Lambert, in The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams, joins Firmin and Gifford in wondering about the influences on Jay Adams. In a lengthy section on the need for “second generation biblical counselors” to develop a behavioral theory that includes motivations of the heart, Lambert quotes approvingly of George Schwab’s critique of Adams.

The stimulus for Jay Adams’s theory of habit also came from outside the Bible. Adams admits that what radicalized him—what set him free from Rogers and Freud—was the influence of particular secular psychologists, O. Hobart Mowrer and William Glasser. However, Adams claims that the Bible is sufficient for counseling and that all so-called psychological insights must stand the test of Scripture. Yet, some of his “Bible-based” theories and emphases seem almost identical to those of his secular predecessors. Was part of the “grid” through which Adams reads the Bible supplied by these secularists? (Schwab, 68, 79).

Lambert then concludes:

So then Schwab and Welch each agree that Adams’s model of habituation is unbiblical. In addition to this, Schwab establishes that the origins of Adams’s thinking were found in secular psychological theories, not in specific texts of Scripture. In other words, Schwab shows that the problem cited by Welch—of Adam’s understanding of the term flesh was imposed by Adams on the biblical text and actually derived from the influence of unbelieving people (72).

According to Donn Arms, Lambert expressed serious concerns about Adams’s model, including concerns about “behavioristic” counseling.

In one place or another in his book Lambert quotes them referring to Adams and his nouthetic model as “stoic,” “bombastic,” “indifferent to suffering,” “insensitive,” “harsh,” “ignores clear themes of Scripture,” “approaches counselees with a condemning, self-righteous spirit,” “cheap and platitudinous,” “unbalanced,” “legalistic,” “moralistic,” “behavioristic,” “immature,” “sees counselees in a monolithic way as sinners,” has a “stand above you as one who has arrived” character, and is “less than biblical.”

Arms, like Adams, vehemently disagrees. You can read those disagreements in:

Book Review by Donn R Arms Published on January 30, 2012, of The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams by Heath Lambert.

Back to Our Main Point: Cautions About Conforming and Deforming 

Honestly, I’ve hesitated even to mention these issues with Tertullian and Adams. I don’t want to sidetrack the main point. Instead, I’m seeking to illustrate the main point:

Every biblical counselor is susceptible to the possibility of the world’s information forming, conforming, and even deforming the Word’s wisdom.

Sometimes we may not even be aware of the world’s impact on our interpretation and application of the wisdom of God’s Word.

Two Recommendations: Use New Eyes; Use Fresh Eyes 

How do we counteract this possibility that the world’s information deforms us, rather than the Word’s wisdom reforming and transforming the world’s information?

I’ll highlight two recommendations.

The first recommendation relates to our own commitment to studying (devouring) the Word of God—we are theologically-saturated biblical counselors (TSBC).

Use the new eyes of God’s Word.

The second recommendation relates to our commitment to being collaborative—being open to the correctives, the feedback, the pushback, the help of others.

Use the fresh eyes of God’s people.

Recommendation #1: Use New Eyes—Let’s Be Theologically-Saturated, Not Theologically-Shallow. Let’s Be Theologically-Informed, Not Just Clinically-Informed

This first recommendation should be pretty obvious, but it’s sometimes omitted or minimized. If we are to be “biblical counselors” then we must, as David Powlison often said, use the “new eyes” of Scripture to build and assess our biblical counseling models.

Here’s how I addressed this issue in my Tweet-Post two years ago in Being a ______-Informed Biblical Counselor.

Tweet 1: For a detailed discussion being theologically saturated—related to counseling and sexual abuse—see “A Theologically-Informed Approach to Sexual Abuse Counseling: Implementing the Hermeneutical Spiral.”

Tweet 4: My Primary Premise: Sexual abuse-informed biblical counseling (and clinically-informed biblical counseling, and trauma-informed biblical counseling) must start with the Bible. The Bible offers a robust, relevant, relational, and profound understanding of the damage done by sexual abuse and of a way forward toward Christ-centered healing from sexual abuse. 

Tweet 5: My Primary Premise (Continued): As biblical counselors we can and must study the Scriptures cover-to-cover to uncover biblical and theological building blocks that provide a way of viewing and using the Bible to develop a theology and methodology of sexual abuse counseling (or trauma counseling, or counseling and depression, etc.). 

Tweet 6: Here’s where we might want to be a tad self-critical as “trauma-informed biblical counselors.” Is our focus foremost on the Word’s wisdom or the world’s research? If we don’t have a rich biblical-theological foundation then it’s easy for the world’s information to trump the Word’s wisdom. 

Tweet 7: Is there a place for to engage with the world’s research? Yes. I’ve “taken heat” for affirming that. I’ve written much about it: 55 Resources for Counseling the Whole Person: God Designed Us as “Embodied Souls.”  

Tweet 8: In the article A Theologically-Informed Approach to Sexual Abuse Counseling, I spoke both to the role of revelation (sufficient, authoritative) & the role of research (catalytic). I said: Biblical counseling will develop and follow a theological anthropology—a rich/robust biblical understanding of embodied-souls that leads to relevant/practical counseling that ministers to people comprehensively. 

Tweet 9: Regarding the role of research, I said: Biblical counseling will use the lens of God’s sufficient Scriptures to carefully evaluate neurological research regarding the brain/body connection & then potentially discerningly implement interventions that address our embodied nature. 

Tweet 10: Review the biblical counseling process in “A Theologically-Informed Approach to Sexual Abuse Counseling: Implementing the Hermeneutical Spiral.” In this 23-page document, it’s not until page 21 that we probe the world’s research: AFTER exegeting/applying the Word’s wisdom. 

Tweet 11: Several have said, “Let’s be careful lest we have a Sunday School-level knowledge of Scripture, but a PhD-level knowledge of secular psychology.” Informed biblical counseling is first and foremost biblically-informed/theologically-saturated. We’re convinced that the Bible is richly relevant to real life. 

Tweet 12: That leaves #BibleCn with a longer-hyphenated label:

Biblically-theologically-informed-BCers-trusting-the-Word’s-wisdom-for-our-BC-theory/methodology-using-the-lens-of-Scripture-to-carefully-evaluate-where-the-world’s-research-may-offer-common-grace-adjunctive/catalytic-input.

Tweet 13: Or, a tad shorter, as #BibleCn we seek to be: Label: Theologically-Saturated, Research-Aware Biblical Counselors. Description: Foundationally we are richly and deeply biblically-theologically-saturated; secondarily we are shrewdly, carefully, discerningly research-aware; and always we evaluate all extra-biblical data through a Christ-centered biblical lens. 

Tweet 16: I suspect, or at least hope, that concerned biblical counselors might be a tad less nervous about trauma-informed BC, or clinically-informed BC if they heard biblical counselors often repeating that first and foremost we want to be “biblically-theologically-informed biblical counselors.” 

Tweet 17: And I suspect they might be a tad less nervous about clinically-informed BC if they saw CIBCers consistently demonstrating how they use the sufficient Scriptures to carefully assess and evaluate research. 

Recommendation #2: Use Fresh Eyes—Let’s Be Humble, Collaborative Biblical Counselors, Not Arrogant Lone Ranger Biblical Counselors 

Almost two decades ago, a leading biblical counseling organization reached out to me to provide them with feedback. They sent me every page of every counseling training document they had used for years. They wanted a pair of fresh eyes offering them feedback. In fact, their wording was specific:

“You’re not only a pastor, not only a biblical counselor; you’re a professor. Review these documents through your professorial eyes. Use “red ink” to suggest theological and methodological correctives on anything where you see us off-base biblically.”

That’s humble. They had a large team of people. But they wanted fresh eyes. Outside eyes. They were humbly open to feedback, pushback, correctives, “red ink.”

Are we? Am I? Are you?

Think back to Tertullian and to Jay Adams. They each perceived that they were not being influenced by the information they were reading. Perhaps that was the case. But it’s easy for any and all of us to be self-deceived.

Think about it practically. I guarantee you that there are writing/editing mistakes in this blog post. I could read it a dozen times and still not catch my own mistake. But give this post to another person, and their eagle eyes would catch and point out misspellings, typos, grammar mistakes, etc.

How much more is this true when it comes to theology? If I spent weeks reading scores of trauma-informed resources from the world’s perspective, I may be blind to the ways my thinking is being conformed to the world, instead of the world’s thinking being transformed by the Word.

Think about fresh eyes. Don’t just ask someone in your group or tribe or association to offer you feedback. They are likely to have on the same blinders you do.

I’m about 100% sure that many of the recent posts that discuss disagreements in the biblical counseling world did not ask people from outside their group, tribe, church, or association to offer them feedback before they went public. I’m about 100% sure that they did not ask people from the groups they were criticizing for their feedback before they went public.

We—and those in our “in” groups—are blind to our own blindness.

Humbly ask others—even from outside our group—for feedback.

David Powlison and others insisted on humbly learning from those outside our group. In the last of the twelve statements in the Biblical Counseling Coalition Confessional Statement, David Powlison, Sam Williams, I, and others wrote:

“We want to listen well to those who disagree with us, and learn from their critiques.”

And the Introduction to the BCC Confessional Statement humbly emphasizes that we have not arrived; and we will never grow apart from engagement with others in the Body of Christ.

“We confess that we have not arrived. We comfort and counsel others only as we continue to receive ongoing comfort and counsel from Christ and the Body of Christ (2 Corinthians 1:3-11). We admit that we struggle to apply consistently all that we believe. We who counsel live in process, just like those we counsel, so we want to learn and grow in the wisdom and mercies of Christ.”

In summary:

Are we humbly receptive to the feedback of others—including biblical counselors outside our in group—for helping us to discern how biblical our biblical counseling truly is?

TSBC And TSCIBC 

All of us should seek to be TSBC: Theologically-Saturated Biblical Counselors.

Some of us may seek a further calling—to be TSCIBC: Theologically-Saturated Clinically-Informed Biblical Counselors.

None of us should assume that just because someone says they want to be a clinically-informed biblical counselor, that therefore they are not first and foremost theologically-saturated.

None of us should assume that just because we say we are theologically-saturated biblical counselors, that therefore we are pristine—100% free of any hint of conformity to the world.

Join the Conversation

Here’s a collation of some of the questions we asked within today’s post. They serve as a helpful self-evaluation for each of us as biblical counselors.

1. How do we assure that our biblical counseling is being transformed by the Word of God rather than being conformed to the ways of the world?

2. Are we theologically-saturated informed biblical counselors? Or, are we theologically-shallow conformed biblical counselors?

3. Does our theologically-saturated biblical counseling transform whatever information we might glean from extra-biblical sources?

4. Does the world’s information transform and perhaps even deform our biblical counseling so that our biblical counseling becomes conformed to the world?

5. Are we reforming and transforming the world’s ideas through the lens of Scripture? Or, are the world’s ideas (subtly or blatantly) conforming or deforming our interpretation and application of Scriptures?

6. Are we evaluating the world’s information through the lens of Scripture? Or, are we (subtly or blatantly, consciously or subconsciously) evaluating the wisdom of the Word through the lens of the world’s information?

7. Are we humbly receptive to the feedback of others—including biblical counselors outside our in group—for helping us to discern how biblical our biblical counseling truly is?