Rev. Dr. George Scipione taught a class this week on advanced issues in biblical counseling. The class was both challenging and edifying. We discussed counseling cases from the typical (pre-marriage, anger, depression) to the very challenging (trans-gender, incest, schizophrenia). At Puritan we are trained to be nouthetic counselors so that the Word of God will be the counselor in all issues of life.I am looking forward to the class assignments. We were given a number of cases to work through from a biblical perspective, a few great books to read (such as Insight and Creativity in Christian Counseling by Jay Adams), and a topic paper. Since I work at a Christian mental health hospital with teens, I chose 'cutting' as my topic. This is an epidemic that needs to be addressed to our teens in the Church.
There are many hurting sheep in the Church and I am thankful that, by God's grace, I a little more qualified to work through some of these issues from the Scriptures.
4 comments:
I guess the question is that do you subscribe to the current fashion that church discipline (after Matt 18:16) goes like this:
1) Counsel the sinner
2) Counsel again
3) Counsel some more (years pass)
4) Admonish
5) Start again at #1
6) Start again at #1 again
7) Stop because both the offender and the victim have left the church?
What books would you recommend for Biblical consoling? I have a friend who was just told his daughter has Down Syndrome and He is very depressed not sure what to tell him.
Thanks
Juan
One more what is "cutting?"
Awesome. I have a friend who was big into the Biblical counseling stuff, it's quite the impressive field. It's good that they acknowledge that there are real psychological problems without excusing them and providing Biblical answers.
Nate just started the class, how can he recommend a book at this point?
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