This post will be my notes from my Biblical Counseling class. It is a great class and offers great insight into lives of others and my own life, and the struggles we deal with on a daily basis. Hope they are enjoyable and feel free to comment or ask for a copy.
There are four questions that make Biblical Counseling different from other counseling methods
1) How is God portrayed?
A) Secular psychology doesn’t answer this
B) How relevant is God to life inside and outside counseling?
2) How is human nature interpreted?
A) Deeply rooted in question one
B) Unique because the issues you face are not outside of you-you are the issue because of your sin nature
C) Even healing from abuse comes from working on the sin inside you and realizing that they need God
D) If we do not do that we develop three harmful emotion and the only solution is to immerse yourself in the truth
a) Despair
b) Resentment
c) Anxiety
3) How are circumstances weighed?
A) Does God wish to use these circumstances?
B) Does this have anything to do with God?
C) Does God cause, allow, or become oblivious to them?
4) How are the goals and activities of counseling conceived?
A) Psychology works on symptom reduction while Biblical Counseling has a goal of growth
The most common response you will get when trying to help is resistance-which is the beginning of learning
Three types of Counseling
1) Biblical
A) God centered
B) Growth
C) Client/Ministry
2) Christian
A) Client and God
B) Growth and Symptom
3) Secular
A) Client centered
B) Symptom
C) Insurance
You feel what you feel because you think what you think
Question 1-How is God portrayed?
1) Covenant Partner
A) Bond, in blood, until death
B) Covenant ceremony
a) Cutting (animals)
b) Vows and oaths
c) Stipulations
d) Blessings and curses
e) Witnesses
f) Exchanges
g) Sign
h) Ways to remember
2) Covenants
A) Adam and Eve
B) Noah and the rest of creation
C) Abraham
D) Moses
E) David
F) New Covenant
3) God wants to bind himself to us
A) He is a covenant God
B) He wants to be intimately bound to all people
We hold onto sin because we do not see it and we do not see it because we do not ask God
4) Old and New Covenant
A) Galatians
a) Circumcision and Jesus
b) Physical and Spiritual
c) The enemies in the Old are physical and the enemies in the New are Spiritual
5) Betrothal Covenant
A) Father chooses bride from son
a) John 6:44
b) Ephesians 1:4
B) Marriage documents presented to bride
a) Revelation 5:9
b) Matthew 26:26-29
c) 1 Corinthians 11:25
C) Groom gives gifts to the bride
a) 1 Corinthians 12
D) Ceremonial cleansing of the bride
a) Titus 3:5
b) Ephesians 5:25-27
c) Acts 2:38
E) Groom goes to prepare a place
a) John 14:23
b) Matthew 24:36
- Father’s decision
c) John 15:19b
- Bride wears veil in public
d) Matthew 25:1-13
- Bride keeps oil, lamp, and veil beside her bed always
F) Groom and groom’s men return
a) They shout, blow a horn, go to the Bride’s house
b) 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
G) Grooms brings bride to his father’s house for marriage supper
a) John 14:3
b) Revelation 19:7-9
H) Spend seven days in the wedding chamber
I) Bride discards her veil and her identity is revealed
a) Matthew 13:40-43
6) Covenant blessings
A) I will be your God
B) Land to steward
C) Descendants
These blessings come when you honor God and the curses correlate if you dishonor God
Question 2-How is human nature interpreted?
There are three needs that bridge the gap between question one “How is God portrayed?” and question two “How is human nature interpreted?”
1) Intimacy with God
2) Something to steward
3) A place to belong
When we trust God to give us those three things we honor Him
If we put trust in those three things they become and idol as the usurp God
When you turn a desire into a need you create and idol
When we have experiences the order of events is
1) We have an experience
2) We associate things with that experience
3) We notice variables
4) We tell ourselves it is unpleasant
5) We think it is a bad thing
Instead of doing all that if we say to ourselves, “This is unpleasant, but it is all in my head and I am causing this myself.” it reverses the effects of the order and stops the association
There are three lies that take away from our three needs that are satisfied by God
1) God isn’t…
2) I’m not capable of…
3) I am alone
These lies all appear in more specific forms
1) I should never make mistakes
2) I must please others to be worthy
3) If people knew me as I really am they wouldn’t like me
4) To please others is better than to please yourself
5) I am not capable
6) I am not a worthwhile person
7) If I died no one would notice
8) My opinion doesn’t count
9) My thoughts are dumb
10) I am a bad/flawed person
11) The things I’ve done cannot be forgiven
12) I’m not as smart as others so I am no good
13) I don’t deserve pleasure
14) I will not be attractive when I am older
15) I am not capable of loving people
16) I must live up to my parents’ expectations
17) I am powerless and helpless
18) I should never be angry or irritable
19) Unless you worry about a problem it gets worse
20) If I am a good parent my children will be perfect
21) People cannot be trusted
22) People don’t want to listen to me
23) The world is not a safe place
24) If I’m happy then something bad will happen soon
25) The world won’t survive and neither will I
26) Life isn’t fair and I can’t handle that
27) The world needs to take care of me
28) Most other people are happier or better off than me
29) You need to be smart, rich, powerful, and attractive to be happy
30) If my partner is attractive or unattractive it reflects on me
31) My job is to improve my partner
32) My partner is supposed to take care of me
33) The opposite sex only wants one thing
34) The opposite sex can’t be trusted
35) My partner can’t survive without me
36) I can’t survive without my partner
37) I can’t attract or keep good person
38) All the good members of the opposite sex are already taken
39) What my partner says or does reflects on me
40) I am all alone
41) Nobody understands me
42) This situation is more than I can handle
43) My fear, anger, or depression is bigger than I am
44) I deserve to be mistreated
45) If I can’t do it perfectly I won’t do it at all
46) If I fail it will be devastating
47) I am going to screw up
48) If a someone doesn’t like me it will be terrible
49) I need to be liked by ____ (Specific person)
50) I need ____ (Specific person)
51) I need ____ (Specific event) to happen
52) God is disappointed in me
53) I’m doing good as long as I don’t do what is wrong
54) God isn’t concerned about me
55) God is angry with me
56) I hate myself, I should have known better
57) I am entitled to special treatment
58) I deserve to be able to do as I please
59) Rules are necessary for others but don’t apply to me
60) Since I didn’t get caught I didn’t do anything wrong
61) Whew! I got away with it
62) My behavior is good as long as I have good intentions
63) I shouldn’t have to suffer
64) If I don’t express how I feel completely I am being fake
65) I hate them because they did this to me on purpose and they knew it would hurt me
66) I have the right to hate them and get even
67) I need to take matters into my own hands and settle this like a man
68) One member of the opposite sex is not enough for me
69) People exist for me to use
70) I can look as long as I don’t touch
71) I don’t need anyone else, I can do it on my own
72) I’ll confess my sins to God, but I don’t need to tell anyone else
73) If I obey God I will be healthy and wealthy
74) I am responsible for how others feel
All of our strategies to obey are or to not do something are because we are attempting to control
Personal theory
People are like computers
1) We have two input drives-N and S
A) N receives data from the natural world
B) S receives data from the Spiritual world
C) We are born with a broken S drive
D) We have a default setting to trust the data in the N drive
2) We have an operating system
A) We always seek pleasure and avoid pain
3) We are vulnerable to viruses
A) Demonic world
4) We create mental files in which we store experiences
5) We are all networked together
When we say yes to God our S drives start to work and our default setting is then the S drive
Our newly restored S drive helps us create new mental files and edit or delete each of the existing files
However, this process takes a lifetime, and we are still vulnerable to viral attacks and we are still in networks with others
Those old mental files are activated automatically
Our metal files are formed in three ways
1) Observation
2) Reinforcement
3) Association
Everything we learn we learn to
1) Value it
2) Do it
3) Justify it
All of that being said we can come to two learning outcomes
1) God is never disappointed with us
2) Everyone is doing the best that they can
Two rules of counseling
1) See yourself in your client
2) Do not work harder than your client
Act righteously
1) Eat, sleep, and move correctly (righteously)
2) Psychological righteousness through disabling lies and taking thoughts captive
3) Social righteousness by being with the right people and fleeing the wrong people
Depression
1) “Don’t think I haven’t tried, I have”
2) “I find all of life totally overwhelming”
3) Sometimes seen as normal teenage behavior
4) “I was meeting expectations outwardly while crumbling inwardly”
5) “All day I would just be wondering…”
6) Suicide is the second leading cause of death in college students
7) “Everything about my mind is chained.”
The way you label a chemical relating to your body is a large portion of how we experience it
The Brain and Psychological Disorders
1) Limbic System
A) Basal ganglia
a) Stores learned patterns and emotions
B) Cingulated system
a) Ability to shift attention
C) Amygdale
a) Volume control on emotions
D) Hippocampus
a) New cells generated and transported
2) Prefrontal Cortex
A) Controls expressions
B) Critical thinking
Our brain uses electro-chemical neurotransmitters
Common medications
1) Antidepressants
A) SSRIs
a) Prozac
b) Paxil
c) Zoloft
d) Celexa
B) SSNRIs
a) Effexor
b) Remeron
C) Wellbutrin
D) MAO Inhibitors
a) Nardil
b) Parnate
2) Mood stabilizers
A) Depekote
B) Tegretol
C) Lamictal
3) Anti-psychotics
A) Haldol
B) Navane
C) Thorazine
D) Clozapine
E) Risperdal
F) Zyprexa
4) Anti-anxiety
A) Beta blockers
B) Benzodiazapines
a) Short term
- Xanaz
- Valium
- Ativan
- Klonopin
b) Long term
- Buspar
5) Psycho-stimulus
A) Ritalin
B) Concerta
C) Adderall
D) Cylert
Avoidance tactics
1) Lie by omission or commission
2) Be deliberately vague
3) Stay under the radar
4) Agree too quickly
5) Play dumb
6) Minimize
A) Use passive language
7) Fantasize
8) Use the silent treatment
Diversion tactics
1) Become historical
2) Make a mountain out of a mole hill
3) Confuse the issue
4) Quibble over words
5) Bring up irrelevant issues
6) Accuse others of not understanding or caring
7) Find out what they know and then confess that part
8) Answer questions with questions
9) I forgot
10) Make it an abstract issue
11) Claim to be changed after doing the right thing once
12) Cry
13) Use humor
14) Pacify your confronter
15) Blame the others
A) Play the victim
Aggression tactics
1) Argue, rage, get big, bow up
2) Use threatening words or behaviors
3) Use sarcasm or teasing
4) Split authority
All lies and tactics can be beaten over time if we believe the truths about us and about God
1) I am a part of God’s family
A) I belong
2) I am never alone
3) I am forgiven, restored, and reconciled
4) I am an image of God and worthy of respect
5) I am God’s beloved and He delights in me
6) I am bound to God and He is bound to me
7) I am able to accomplish what God has for me
A) I am uniquely gifted
8) I am the worst sinner I know
9) I am strongly influenced by my broken N drive
10) I am no longer bound to the desires of my flesh
11) I am being perfected by my suffering
12) I am destined to be like Christ
13) I am doing the best I can given the variables in my life
A) And so is everyone else
14) I am not responsible for how others behave, think, or feel
15) I am never the object of God’s wrath or disappointment
16) I am not the judge of where someone else is or should be in their walk with God
17) I am successfully learning
A) To love others
B) To face my fears
C) To be aware of my emotions
D) To forgive others and myself
E) To return good for evil
F) To never gossip
G) To confront others in love
H) To honor others
I) To submit to authority
J) To confess my sins to others
K) To receive support from others
L) To say “no”
M) To be aware of lies and deflection strategies
N) To be healthy in how I eat, sleep, and move
O) To “befriend” healthy people while still ministering to the “unhealthy”
18) I have a new heart
A) I rejoice in the process of suffering and testing
B) I hear the voice of God
C) I gladly sacrifice for others
D) I grieve when sin is expressed
E) I rejoice when righteousness reigns
F) I anger over injustice
G) I hate evil and love good
H) I am creative and passionate
I) I am grateful in all circumstances
J) I know that God will weave all of life’s events into something good
K) I know that failing to do the right thing will always lead to doing the wrong thing
L) I know that doing the rights thing brings more pleasure than doing the wrong thing
Question three-How are circumstances weighed?
What is on my plate is there to grow me and the people around me
God has a reason for all this
I need to approach this with joy
Question four- How are the goals and activities of counseling conceived?
Biblical counseling has the goal of getting down to the roots of the problem rather than just diagnosing and then treating symptoms
We need to try to reconcile the covenant rather than make some of the symptoms go away for a short period of time
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