When you look at the offices of a biblical counselor and a talk therapist, you will see many similarities. Both seek to create a safe place to talk and share your thoughts and feelings while receiving feedback to guide you forward. However, some critical differences distinguish between biblical counseling and traditional talk therapy. The last post detailed 3 and this post gives three more.
How we define “normal”
Both biblical counselors and traditional talk therapists help people assess if they are responding in normal and healthy ways to the stressors of life. Traditional Talk Therapy usually defines “normal” by what is statistically most common. On the extreme end of behaviors, “Abnormal Psychology” defines severe deviations from normal in our response. However, even common psychological diagnosis categories presume that the way that most people do respond is the way that most people should respond. Biblical Counselors have greater confidence in the Bible to guide us to understand what is normal and what is healthy.
Many normal responses are often not healthy responses from a biblical viewpoint. Most therapists rely heavily upon their study of psychology to determine the limits of normal or healthy. Biblical counselors will expectantly search the Scripture for
To continue...read the full-length post originally published on this site.
