A Word from Bob
In our modern biblical counseling world, you will read many discussions about whether physiological interventions are a legitimate aspect of biblical counseling. Based upon my research, documented in this post, I have concluded that:
Classic/historic nouthetic biblical counseling, as practiced by its founder, Jay Adams, was physiologically-informed and consistently employed physiological interventions.
Today’s post is a shortened version of:
Jay Adams on Embodied-Souls, Trauma, Neuroscience, Sanctification, and Physical Interventions.
You can find the larger context for all of the following quotes in that lengthier article.
Belief/Practice #1: Jay Adams was adamant that it was the biblical counselor’s lane to counsel about the body.
“Pastoral care is ongoing and total. It is to be seen as extending over the body” (The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 438).
“James 5:14-16, for instance puts the organized church squarely in the business of dealing with organic illness” (The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 438).
Belief/Practice #2: Jay Adams declared that the biblical counselor’s work constantly involves the organic dimension.
“That the body affects the soul and the soul the body in so many obvious, as well as subtle, ways is a fact that the Christian counselor must always remember. His work, therefore, constantly involves the organic dimension” (The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 438–439).
Belief/Practice #3: Jay Adams specifically rejected the simplistic notion that counselors care for the soul and physicians care for the body.
“These problems [of trying to divide body and soul] cannot be solved either by Skinnerian reductionism: man is only an animal (all is organic), or on the other hand by simplistic categorization: the nonorganic is the province of the pastor; the organic is the province of the physician” (The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 438).
Biblical counselors “can never shirk their responsibility for dealing with ethical matters of bodily use and abuse, nor can they allow physicians unhampered freedom to advise Christians in ways that tend to ignore or exclude this [embodied-soul] dimension” (The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 438).
Belief/Practice 4: Jay Adams insisted that the biblical counselor must be physiologically-informed.
“He will strive always to work from this biblical presupposition in ways that are consistent with it. He should take the time and trouble, therefore, to study the fundamental functions of the human body” (The Christian Counselor’s Manual, 438–439).
“I have profited greatly, for instance, from the results of the work done at the Harvard sleep labs (and elsewhere). This sleep study I consider to be a valid and worthwhile enterprise for psychology” (What About Nouthetic Counseling?, 31).
Adams insisted that biblical counselors give serious thought to the neuroscience findings of Wilder Graves Penfield—a non-Christian, evolutionist, humanist Speaking of Penfield, Adams wrote, “As Christians I think we need to do serious thinking about these matters” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part One, 24).
Belief/Practice #5: Jay Adams specifically implemented secular physiological interventions in his biblical counseling.
“Therefore, significant sleep loss becomes an issue of importance, if loss of sleep does, in fact, injure the body. Sleep loss studies show that it does (cf. Segal and Luce: Sleep and Insomnia)” (What About Nouthetic Counseling?, 61).
“So it is important to know how to tell the counselee to find sleep when it tends to elude him. The following factors may be advised:” (What About Nouthetic Counseling?, 61).
Adams then outlined ten specific words of counsel that nouthetic counselors should give counselees about the physical intervention of sleep (What About Nouthetic Counseling?, 61-62).
“All or some of these factors will apply to each counselee who is having sleep problems. Often counselees need instruction and suggestions. Persons who have followed these instructions report that their sleep problems evaporate quickly” (What About Nouthetic Counseling?, 62).
Belief/Practice #6: Jay Adams specifically stated that physical interventions, physical care, and medical treatment “speed sanctification and “allow for rehabituation and sanctification.”
Physical interventions, physical care, and medical treatment “speed sanctification (the process of growing out of sin into righteousness) in the sense that it may enable persons to do and think better than they might otherwise” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part One, 20, and The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part Two, 6).
Belief/Practice #7: Jay Adams was nervous system-informed and taught that “the nervous system corresponds to the nouthetic approach.”
On pages 96-97 of Competent to Counsel, Adams uses his understanding of 1970s neuroscience (“the nervous system”) to say: “The Nervous System Corresponds to the Nouthetic Approach” (Competent to Counsel, 96/Header).
Then Adams concluded this section with this summary implication for nouthetic counseling from his understanding of 1970s neuroscience/nervous system studies: “While there is no direct voluntary access to the emotions, the emotions can be reached indirectly through the voluntary system, because extensive fiber overlappings in the cortex allow unified correlation of the two systems. Voluntary behavioral alterations will lead to involuntary emotional changes. It is important to understand, therefore, that feelings flow from actions” (Competent to Counsel, 97).
While Adams did not cite any footnotes for his views on pages 96-97 of Competent to Counsel, much of the wording overlaps in many ways, and at times is nearly identical to, O. Hobart Mowrer’s writings in Learning Theory and Personality Dynamics (published in 1950). On pages 236-245, Mowrer supports his “two-factor learning theory” through a description of the “two distinct nervous systems” (238). Adams had written, without attribution, “Something might be said about the human nervous system with respect to behavior and feeling in counseling. There are basically two sides to this system. One side is emotional and involuntary. The other side, associated with problem-solving and voluntary action has to do with behavior” (Competent to Counsel, 96-97).
Belief/Practice #8: Jay Adams believed that the physical brain played an important role in our surrender to sin.
“The brain is part of the body, and it is the brain that is programmed to see to it that the rest of the body responds sinfully” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part One, 18).
“Yet the brain, which is part of that body, is more than a storage bin. It is an active filing and processing and controlling agent, that distorts, relates, molds, shapes data that are received according to its own biases, according to its points of view, according to its perspectives and dispositions, as well as according to its physical condition. And, it’s that physical condition of the members of the body (which includes brain) with which you are concerned” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part One, 19, emphasis added).
Belief/Practice #9: Jay Adams insisted that the damaged physical brain—the impaired body—hinders the working of the inner man—the mind/soul.
“When the body becomes impaired, the spirit does not function with reference to this world as it was intended to. That failure, of course, results from Adam’s sin, not necessarily from the individual’s sin. The mind functions poorly when it uses inaccurate or inadequate data. If your senses do not work well, then you gather inadequate data” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part Two, 3).
Belief/Practice #10: Jay Adams believed that the physical brain/body/outer man negatively impacts the mind/heart/inner man.
“The question: is the spirit so tied to the body in this duplex form in which we now live that it loses ability to relate to this world as the body becomes impaired? The answer is, obviously, ‘yes’” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part Two, 3).
“Now, when the body, the brain, or some other organ is impaired, the mind is affected, and we’ll get to what mind is in a little while. The body, we said, is like a damaged tool. That means it doesn’t function properly. And so, the mind cannot use, or use to the full, that impaired part of that body” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part One, 20).
“When the body becomes impaired, the spirit does not function with reference to this world as it was intended to. That failure, of course, results from Adam’s sin, not necessarily from the individual’s sin. The mind functions poorly when it uses inaccurate or inadequate data. If your senses do not work well, then you gather inadequate data” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part Two, 3).
“Now we come to that time toward which everything has been moving in these lectures – some observations, some questions, some answers, and a few conjectures. If my spirit uses my body to gain access to and affect the physical world, through the senses and other bodily members, does physical injury or incapacity (short of death) impair or stop the spirit’s learning and functioning? The answer is that it would seem that the body may frustrate the spirit in this as well as in other ways. When the spirit is willing but the flesh (material side) is weak, Paul indicates, problems do arise” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part Two, 6-7).
“Though the spirit has an interest in doing things in this world, both learning from it by gathering data from it through the senses, and acting toward this world through the members of the body, it becomes difficult for the spirit, when the body is impaired, to do what it wants to do. It has a broken tool that it’s trying to use and finds that this becomes a hindrance. The spirit is hindered from working properly by this damaged tool, and the mind, therefore, does not always function even in full capacity, because, even internally, when a man thinks within himself, as he carries on a dialogue inside, this too depends on the interaction of spirit and body. Even within the mind then, let alone in the outward gathering of data and affecting of the world, bodily impairment causes a problem” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part One, Part Two, 3).
Belief/Practice #11: Jay Adams Insisted that Rehabituation of the Body Was a Significant Aspect of Sanctification
“So, then, at conversion, the human being is freed to serve God. That body, which had been held captive, and whose members had become slaves of sin, are now freed to become the slaves of Jesus Christ. Rehabituation enables the spirit to function properly toward the world. As one is rehabituated, sanctified more and more, learning to live according to the biblical alternatives and the ways of God, he becomes more efficient in the use of this body not only to evaluate things properly and to store the right kinds of memories – that he can call upon in making decisions in days to come -but also in making decisions right now to do the things that ought to be done” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part Two, 6).
Belief/Practice #12: Jay Adams taught that traumatic suffering habituates and programs the body/brain to react in sinful ways.
Adams explained that the sinful nature, “…habituates the body, so that when adverse things happen (people say something critical, problematic situations develop, pressures come), the body is taught to respond habitually to those circumstances, in sinful ways. This sinful nature programs the body to respond wrongly” (The Biblical Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, Part One, 17, emphasis added).
