Explore the helpful instruction in the links to the left, or receive personal testing and counseling services in a secure environment. They are offered free of charge. The testing and counseling pages use SSL security, the best on the web.
Secure electronic testing and/or counseling can help to get the redirection/healing process started. It is most useful
for general educational purposes. It is not considered by us, and
should not be considered by you, as an adequate substitute for face to
face testing, diagnosis, and/or therapy by a licensed professional.
If your symptoms/emotional pain or life problems are severe or recurrent,
we encourage you to find in your area a believing and practicing Christian
who is also a licensed mental-health professional. Having said that,
let us attempt to be of service to you now. <//><
What do we mean by "Christian counseling?"
In the professional literature, millions of words have been devoted to
this topic. We will attempt to express what we mean in just a few
words. Please excuse the rather cryptic form of expression below,
used in the interest of brevity.
An authentically Christian counseling
method will be a form of counseling that is "Christian" in more than label
only. Like Scripture itself, such a method will emphasize "renewing
the mind," moral / behavioral accountability, "making disciples," and
intentionally engaging in the important ministries of mutual "exhortation"
and "encouragement." Of the structured systems of therapy taught in most universities, these biblical methods of influence align most closely with cognitive-behavioral methods of therapy. Cognitive-behavioral methods of therapy not only are the most consistent with Scripture; they also enjoy the broadest, deepest, and strongest empirical track records.
To complete the infrastructure of an authentically Christian counseling approach, these cognitive-behavioral methods of therapy need to be united with the biblical understanding of our human condition. We believe this profound understanding of the human condition, combined with these more biblical methods of influence need to serve as the basis for all our attempts at therapy.
By way of contrast, we suggest careful avoidance of accommodation to: Freudian / Psychoanalytic models (unconscious, instinct-driven, human- as -animal models), or Jungian / Analytic Psychology models (occult, pantheistic, New Age, neo-pagan models), or Skinnerian / Operant Conditioning models (materialistic, mechanistic, human- as-machine models), and/or Rogerian / Existentialist models (agnostic, feeling-guided, self- as-God models) --because:
1) these models individually and collectively make the human being out to be a
very different kind of creature than the one described in the Bible,
2) they tend to take people away from instead of toward a biblical understanding
of salvation, and, 3) when one is facing or addressing real-life
problems, these other models and methods practically do not work as well
(as effectively or efficiently) as do cognitive-behavioral models and methods.
In short, we believe we should
use biblically framed, biblically consistent cognitive-behavioral methods as our primary
means of psychological therapy. ChristianCounsel.net
comes from, and attempts to apply, this point of view. Those
who want to further pursue this line of thought can click on the Biblical Psychology link to the left.
A full-length paper, complete
with annotated references, is available there. <//>< This
service is brought to you by:
Mental Health Quiz
Stephen H. Farra, PhD, LP
(MN License #0349)
Examine all of our CC.net links.