Who Is O. Hobart Mowrer and Why Does He Matters to Biblical Counselors?
Greg Gifford, in a post at the Biblical Counseling Coalition (Jay Adams’ Heritage: How Jay Adams Is Connected to the Father of American Psychology), explains who O. Hobart Mowrer was, and why he is important to modern biblical counselors.
“O.H. Mowrer was an American psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Illinois who lived from 1907 to 1982. He is known for behavior therapy and two-stage theory, something that had great significance in the ministry of Jay Adams. Mowrer was a man who was willing to challenge the status quo of then-modern psychological practices, much like Adams. Mowrer was one who did not see eye-to-eye with his behavioristic predecessors and was willing to publicly challenge and critique them—something that Adams appreciated in Mowrer.”
Jay Adams and O. Hobart Mowrer
Jay Adams said of Mowrer’s impact on his thinking,
“I read some of Mowrer’s works, including The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion, and The New Group Therapy, which he had just published. These books astounded me. Mowrer had gone far beyond my own thinking. He was flatly challenging the very existence of institutionalized psychiatry. He stated outright that the
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