Topic: How does a counselling model of my choice fit in with a biblical view of a person?
Introduction:
In the given topic, being a counsellor, I choose the counselling model given by Jay Adams as I found it to be a type of logical model that has the involvement of the matters of God as depicted in the Holy Bible. The Nouthetic Form of counselling happens to be refreshing in nature that firmly allows the following of the biblical procedure of solving the problems in life. Nouthetic counselling is the form of counselling that does not wait for long durations to find the result, but it is the one in which there is the belief that the power of a Holy Spirit of God that gives strong proof to the model presented by the Holy Bible. Nouthetic counselling holds good for those who have a strong belief in the presence of God and the miracles he does and thus it can begin with the people who do not believe in such things. As we know that maximum of the people believing in God has the Holy Spirit and God’s word to alter the same, biblical counselling is entirely dependent on the Holy Spirit to change the mindset of the believer as it was an intentional move to get into teaching, reprimanding, correcting and training in the path of righteousness (Bohne et al., 2016).
Jay Adams was born in the year 1929 and is believed to be a Presbyterian minister in the United States of America got involved in counselling early in the era and then vanished with the secular stigmas of the society. With the gaining of a few hands-on experience during his working period with William Glasser, the man who is responsible to have developed “Reality Therapy” Adams thought that he was more engrossed in the ideas that he generated and with the study of the other models he found that he had to generate his model with more of the spiritual edge to it (Shafie et al., 2018). But it can never be denied that Adams had an impact on William with his deep knowledge of spiritualism and this was a fact that no one would admit. Adams’ approach in the process of nouthetic counselling was regarded to be “Black and White” and at the same time considering some of the Christian models of counselling he found that his theory was not impolite. The nouthetic counselling has been coined by Adams and it has been derived from a Greek word “Noutheteo” that has been translated as admonish or warn. Hence we see a large of stress on confrontation and the model in itself is more secular in nature than the other models developed in Christianity.
The model given by Adams brings s in together the three elements in it like the following:
1: The effect in the personality of a person and the changes in behaviour.
2: The vocal confrontation process involving two people
3: Motivation by Love: This is between the goodwill of the client and the glory of God.
According to Adams, he thinks that his views are biblical and he proclaims that the Bible has recognised the human body into two parts, one being the outer visible part of the body and the secondly the inner part consisting of the heart that consists of both the soul and the spirit. Each and every part of our life has been destroyed by the sin that we do and that happens since the day we commit it in the form of sickness and a lot to suffer from. He says that the human heart happens to be devilish and not good without Jesus Christ and adds to it by saying that there is hardly any chance to improve for the non-Christians during their rebirth. Adams has never recognised that a bodily psychological area can be the reason for mental health issues and if not growing from a physio-organic cause as just ignorant of the sins and the ill behaviours that are never accepted as sins. He never regards emotions and feelings with respect rather see them as parts of human behaviour. There is nothing like problems with emotions but according to him all of these happen to be behavioural changes of human nature and they are to be regarded as sins (Kourkoutas & Giovazolias, 2015). Problems are regarded as unbiblical patterns of human behaviours and they are meant to be altered properly at times. Adams found that there can be the possible chances of demons getting involved in human life’s but he has never treated them as important as he thinks that demons cannot be common in the developed parts of the United States but can only be found in the uncivilised parts. Nouthetic counselling mains aims at the biblical approaches that involve the initial step of conversion for those who are not Christians and then the process of sanctification for those who are and the words uttered are Love to the glory of God” that holds the meaning of “ A relationship conditioned upon responsible observance of the commandments of God.” While Adams always insisted on salvation for the individuals as an act of God’s grace, he looked into Christianity as the terms of correct human behaviour that was not what the actual scenario was.
Before getting into nouthetic counselling, Adams believes that he should know the background information of the person well in advance so that any problem in the future could be handled and avoided. During the process of background information check, it can be figured out whether a person is Christian or not and the ones, not Christians will be presented with the gospel and it can be continued only if there is a positive response from the client in the manner. Adams further argued that when we try to help non-Christians, it cannot be treated as help as this might even reduce the sense of the need for the gospel. Adams uses the Bible directly to find the problems and the thought process of the client and then makes use of changes in the behaviours to ensure the alterations. He uses the use of awards and punishments that can be achieved from the approval from the counsellor and the model is correct or not can be checked in the response to the biblical questions to the client. Adams knowingly uses the assignments involving reading and learning by heart the passages from the Bible that can be the way of implementing the behaviour changes. The main intention behind the process of counselling is to find the behavioural changes of the client from performing something to presenting something that can be pleasing to the counsellor that the behaviour becomes automatic at one point off time. The primary aim of this process is the establishment of Biblical patterns of behaviour in the life of the client. All the followers of Christianity need to be competent to counsel in a sense that says that they can help others and help to figure out the sins that they have committed but this can only be an informal behaviour of some days (Kourkoutas & Giovazolias, 2015). Only a destined person with a position has the life of calling a counsellor and Adams never recognised the places for other professionals. Most likely, he stated that there were not any spaces left for the psychiatrists and similarly had the feeling that the profession of medication has unsorted the pastor’s role. Adams had strong beliefs that there are just types of counselling available around the globe one being divine counselling and the other one being devilish counselling.
According to him, all that did not come from the World of God is never to be regarded as neutral and can be treated as evil and can never recognise the non-Christian counsellors who would be working. He considered that the scientific methods have never been unbiased but had they been developed by non-Christians they could be deceptive. According to him, all the techniques used in the secular counselling process are proclaimed as self individual approaches and on the other hand, some of the Christians are very much infatuated with some of the serious questions that need answers. Some of the models have to check if they have Christian originality or not. It is worth noting that Adams presented the models more in a manner of confronting rather than the way he would do in the process of practice. At times Adams has found that the counsellor needs no right to be challenging the clients by the patience with which he listens in the first-ever time he starts counselling. He is not meant to come over the unruly and uncaring natures but he happens to come out like a patient father who would take time to listen to all the grieves that the child has been doing or done. While he strongly negates the bad behaviour he showed, he also understands that tends to take the turn towards human sins. One important thing to ponder about is if all of our problems are linked to our sin or not. There has been a lot of controversy over the death of the teenaged girl who was raped. Can we say that future problems were due to any of the sins that she committed at such a tender age? Adams on the other hand argued that she might have. It was never directed to mean that she was the reason behind the rape but it pointed at the fact that she was the reason behind the response to the same.
The moment she will forgive the offender, she will start perpetuating the feelings that negate the experiences and on the other hand, if she followed the Biblical methods to forgive, she can find herself to be much more comfortable in the evening. At times it feels that Adams is right but with time and some people find that the decisions are persuaded to someone intentionally. In a fallen world it may well be that all our problems are ultimately the result of sin, but there could be a good argument to say that sometimes it is not our sin, but the sin of others that is the more immediate cause.
By considering the various models of counselling, we must think about the model given by each one of them. We can ponder about the fact if Adams is really a follower of the Bible or not or does he simply selects the passages in it and then has a base to his model. We can find out the reason why he came up with the Greek word of Nouthetic counselling and what is it made of (Kourkoutas & Giovazolias, 2015). Of course, there are some strong points and some weak points in the method and it has often been regarded as the explanation of his disciples. With the comparison of his model of counselling to the other approaches to counsel others, it can be a tough job not to find a common feature between the former and the cognitive approach of behaviour. Rather we can see that Adams moves more in the direction of behavioural extremes but he wants to see the flaws in the process of thinking and behaving. He makes use of the objective source of the Bible to use the standard of thinking healthy rather than a subjective approach to counselling to the people.
Biblical view of a person:
In accordance with the letter of Paul to Philemon 10, when Paul was sent into the prison, he had a chance to meet Onesimus who was a slave of Philemon. Paul advised him to get converted and own his trust so that he could send him back to his master with a letter of sympathy to ease his return to reconciliation. The Bible says that being resentful to our brothers is not acceptable at all. It happens to be a model that handles fragile situations neither infringement nor compromises of convictions (Shafie et al., 2018). Most importantly he still is in the task of demonstrating the best possible way to present evil is by applying the positive principle and undermining his slavery.
Conclusion:
I completely agree with the model given by Jay Adams named Nouthetic Counselling that this process uses the processes prescribed in the Bible. I also believe that we should be counselling people according to the words of God and we can read that in the psalms 119:105 that says “Your word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path.”
References
Bohne, S., Carrilho, P., Morgan, A., Silva, A. and Silva, M., 2016. European women’s views on specialist counselling for female survivors of domestic violence and abuse. Journal of Health and Social Care Improvement.
Shafie, A.A.H.B., Jamri, C.S.S.B.C., Nurul, M., Yatau, H.B., Wahab, H.B.A., Bin, M.K.A., Rahimi, N.B.M.S., Yusof, S.N.B.M. and Ngoh, C.S., 2018. The Effectiveness of Career Counselling Model towards Career Maturity and Self-Concept Level of Former Drug Addicts.
Kourkoutas, E. and Giovazolias, T., 2015. School-based counselling work with teachers: An integrative model. The European Journal of Counselling Psychology, 3(2).
