Biblical Counseling Movement by David Powlison Book Review

Tags: counseling biblical sin life history love bible theology framework teaching scripture spirituality morality discipline trauma ministry childhood behavior crime religion

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Summary

Primary Goal

The purpose of David Powlison’s Biblical Counseling Movement is to provide readers with a history of the approach and then to provide readers with Powlison’s own perspective on what works and why. The aim of the book is to provide context about the nature of Biblical counseling, how it has been used throughout history, and then to make rational, common sense assessments about how it can be applied in one’s own life and career. Thus, the primary goal of the book is to give the reader context and the ability to implement the acquired knowledge in practice.

Development of Problems and Personal Need

The issues came about when Jay Adams reasoned that modern psychology was really just “bad theology” as Powlison puts it. There was a personal need among patients and providers who knew better to provide a Biblical counseling approach that could truly address the needs of the modern patient from a spiritual and theological point of view rather than from a materialistic atheistic perspective.

Biblical Integration

The Bible is a big part of this method because, as the author states, he accepts the Word of God as the truth and views Scripture as the message that man most needs to hear. There is nothing in the Bible that cannot help in counseling, and so it serves as the perfect foundation for counseling.

Formula for Change

The formula for change that Powlison recommends is to learn from those who came before, take what works or use the good that the achieved and be directed by that influence. The formula for change for the patient is basically to use the Bible as the source of experience and teaching so that any issues or questions the client has can be answered by turning to the Word of God in the Bible.

Balance of Theology and Spirituality

There is a clear balance of theology and spirituality in the work, just as there is a balance of both in Scripture. The point that Powlison makes is that Biblical counseling comes from multiple perspectives—it comes from the perspective of the counselor and from the perspective of the person being counseled. There is no one single way to look at it. Instead, it can be made sense of from a variety of positions, just as the contextualization of the history of Biblical counseling reveals. The important thing is to be fully integrated into it, to accept the process, and to commit to what God is teaching and revealing about Himself and about what people need to do to reach him and to be happy with Him. Those latter two words need to be emphasized because they really get to the heart of what is important in Biblical counseling.

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Human Personality

The focus on human personality is such that it is defined within the confines of God, sin and misery as is shown in chapter 5. Powlison looks at the system employed by Adams and how it impacted his clientele: the framework is the framework of God and sin—on the one hand is the Supreme Being, the source of all that is good—and on…

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…has to look at the soul. It has to go into the place where the life of the person exists, where the life of God lives and where the point of entry occurs for God’s grace.

Example

This author’s book could impact a counseling moment for me by showing me that the soul has to be the focus. So for example, say that a person comes in who says he does not believe in God but that he has troubles and wants advice. He says that his wife is nagging him and that he wants to throw her out of the house. He says he does not care what God would think because he doesn’t believe in God—but he is worried about whether this is the right thing to do morally speaking. He says that he wants to be a good person and that he wants to do the right thing but that he is not sure whether he can put up with this woman any longer.

I could begin by focusing on the soul and the state of the man’s soul—whether he is in a state of grace or not and building out from there. We could talk about where good comes from and where love comes from if there is no God. If he says that love is just a biological function then we could talk about how there is a right or wrong or a morality of any kind if there is no God. The point would be to get him thinking about how he is in need of God’s love and….....

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