Our Approach

To clearly define Well Christian Care’s position on this spectrum of approaches, further insight into Biblical Counseling is required.

History of Biblical Counseling

The roots of Biblical Counseling trace to the late 1960s and Dr. Jay Adams. Widely considered the “father of the biblical counseling movement,” Dr. Adams not only recognized the growing influence of modern psychologies in the mainstream, replacing historic biblical theology and its understanding of people and problems, but also noted that Christian churches and care organizations were becoming increasingly influenced by psychology and less by theology. He developed biblical counseling to emphasize that Scripture provides a framework for understanding people and problems. In 1968, he and a local pastor in the suburbs of Philadelphia founded the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) to continue developing biblical counseling and to spread its message to other churches and organizations.

Nuances of Biblical Counseling

As the movement grew, second-generation leaders expanded on Adam’s original themes and ideas. The second generation of biblical counselors is largely credited with recognizing the need for a more nuanced approach to biblical counseling and beginning its development, while the third generation is now practicing and refining those nuances.

Biblical Counseling Today

Today, distinctions exist within biblical counseling as different affiliations and organizations emphasize different aspects of the overall approach. The following is not absolute in its assessment, but is our attempt to accurately represent the nuances of biblical counseling through descriptive categories that explain trends within the movement.

• Historic Biblical Counseling was originally called “nouthetic counseling” by Jay Adams, from the biblical Greek word noutheteo, often translated “to admonish,” “warn,” or “instruct.” Jay Adams used “nouthetic” and “biblical” somewhat interchangeably to describe the approach to counseling. In Historic Biblical Counseling/Nouthetic Counseling, problems have often been understood as strictly spiritual and moral issues. This stream has typically emphasized sin, personal responsibility, confrontation, repentance, obedience, and the sufficiency of Scripture for counseling. Assignments and homework have also been prominent features, often with a strong emphasis on concrete biblical application. While this first-generation movement recovered important convictions about Scripture, responsibility, and pastoral care, it also tended to engage psychology and other counseling theories in a more dismissive or defensive manner.

• Modern Biblical Counseling shares foundational beliefs with Historic Biblical Counseling, but is broader in scope and more attentive to the complexity of human experience. It relies heavily on Scripture to guide counseling while also recognizing the importance of compassion, careful listening, patient understanding, and wise interpretation of a person’s story. While recognizing sin as a real problem and personal responsibility as necessary, Modern Biblical Counseling also acknowledges that suffering, weakness, trauma, relationships, and circumstances contribute to the problems people face. Modern Biblical Counselors tend to emphasize gentle confrontation, compassionate care, and a fuller understanding of people as embodied souls. This approach recognizes that the body can contribute to counseling struggles without reducing people to merely physical processes. Modern Biblical Counseling also tends to engage other theories and approaches with greater charity and discernment.

• Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling is a developing approach that builds on the convictions of Biblical Counseling while aiming to bridge the long-standing gap between Biblical Counseling and Christian Psychology. Clinically-Informed Biblical Counseling (CIBC) ultimately rejects understandings of people and problems that are inconsistent with Scripture while affirming that some observations, strategies, and practices from the broader counseling field can be useful when carefully evaluated and biblically governed. Like Modern Biblical Counseling, this approach recognizes that people are embodied souls, but often carries the implications further, especially when considering trauma, psychiatric conditions, the nervous system, attachment, family systems, and other complex counseling issues. In its developing form, this stream has shown a greater willingness not only to engage other theories and approaches, but also to thoughtfully apply selected principles and practices in the counseling relationship. CIBC is also known as Redemptive Counseling. The development of this approach is largely owed to the Christian Marital, Family, and Individual Counseling department at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) and to Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS), with other organizations beginning to contribute, including the Gospel Care Collective (GCC).