Summary The book, Psychology, theology, and spirituality in Christian counseling, written by McMinn, M. R. (2011) gives advice for combining psychology, theology, and spirituality in the arena of counseling practices along with everyday living. Mark McMinn a director, professor, and a fellow of the American Psychological Association shares information by way of this book for others to use as a go-to guide when they want to know how they are measuring up when introducing prayer, scripture, sin, confession, forgiveness, or redemption into their daily living. McMinn’s (2011) goal is to share with counselors the realization of theology, psychology, spirituality, and religion as one entity and to offer suggestions for addressing the challenges …show more content…
He feels counselors should develop clear, appropriate guidelines before using prayer in counseling sessions. McMinn (2011) sees scripture as a powerful intervention tool that keeps us focus on truth of professions when intimidated by change and unstable standards of right and wrong (p. 145). Counselors should take careful assessment of the client’s needs, ethical guidelines, and the therapeutic relationship before introducing scripture in counseling sessions if it is to successful. McMinn (2011) states scripture helps with spiritual growth and significant changes can be seen in the lives of counselors and clients if scripture is internalized and personalized outside of counseling …show more content…
I remember some years ago when I was attending a long-time family church where many of the members ‘great grandfathers, grandfather, and fathers actually built the church. As the years rolled on, the younger generations of these families believed the church belonged to them and they resisted and fought every type of change that came along. At the time I began attending this church, I did not know there was a problem of that nature nor did I know how or why it began. There were several families’ disagreements that ended up with families not speaking to each other. Families were fighting, backbiting, and trashing so often until the pastoral leader of this church recommended each family member go through Christian counseling classes. The pastoral leader thought this would help with finding the actual cause, how it began, as well as how to resolve the
As a Christian counselor, we have the power of the Word on our sides, but so many of us do not understand how to properly apply scripture into the counseling relationship in an effective manner. In Interventions that Apply Scripture in Psychotherapy, Garzon (2005) attempts to accomplish the following; educate individuals on the various techniques one can use to apply scripture, and to encourage and stimulate God ordained creativity in the hopes to create new techniques and methods for applying God’s Word in the counseling relationship.
This is David Entwistle 2nd edition book published in 2010 by Wipf and Stock in Oregon. Entwistle is a Christian and a licensed psychologist; he has affiliations with Molone University in Canton, Ohio serving as chair of the Psychology Department and has taught courses related to his licensed field. This book clearly is not written for any newcomers to religion. However, it was written for those interested in the integration of science and religion. The authors’ purpose for writing this book was to define the relationship between psychology and theology. There are three specific areas this book touched upon to help readers’ better approach psychology and Christianity in a personal and more professional manner: The context of philosophical issues and worldview, to help the readers become aware of assumptions or beliefs- making the reader a more critical evaluators, and to introduce and familiarize the reader with five paradigms for integrating psychology and theology.
This paper will be reviewing the book “Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity: an introduction to worldview issues, philosophical foundations and models of integration, by David N. Entwistle. As the title states, this book discusses how to integrate psychology and theology. It also dives into to why it is so important to be able to integrate the two. Entwistle explains that just because the two are different does not mean they should be separated and that we have to use both our worldviews. “Weaving together perspectives from psychology and Christian theology can help us understand and appreciate humanity more fully than we could either perspective alone.” (p.3)
Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling written by Mark McMinn and published by Tyndale House in 2011 notions towards the idealization that Christian counselors need to be privy in the most recent psychological methods as well as theological theories. “This is a book about counseling processes techniques” (McMinn, 2011, p. 150). McMinn also alluded that Christian counselors benefit from having a spiritual maturity. With having these attributes counselors are better prepared to take note of prayer, Scripture, sin, confession, forgiveness, and redemption. McMinn (2011) model flows in the direction of healing while equating to a more advantageous relationship with The Lord Jesus Christ as well as with other relationships (McMinn, 2011).
In Tan’s article, “The Use of Prayer and Scripture in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy” published by the Journal of Psychology and Theology in 2007, he discusses integrating prayer and scripture with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Tan uses examples of integration from real-life counseling sessions that he has been involved in, as a counselor. Tan’s article first discusses the usefulness of CBT and other behavioral techniques in counseling (Tan, 2007). Tan discusses very early in his article that CBT is as effective as antidepressant medications and is more effective that cognitive therapy alone according to a recent placebo study (Tan, 2007).
David Entwistle's (2010) Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity is geared more towards Christians with conservative evangelical views and provides the reader an outline to different worldview disputes and truth-seeking groundwork that surround the connection that underlies psychology and theology. In addition to analyzing the possible connection of psychology and theology, Entwisle discusses the consideration of integrating Christian faith with the practice of psychology. “Christian understandings of person-hood, the purpose of human life, our need for God, and the ethical teachings of Christian faith are integral to psychology, not merely parallel to it” (p. 199). Entwistle’s viewpoint on this matter is stated clearly. He believes that it is necessary for theology and psychology be integrated in order to fully understand human nature.
In the first chapter of Psychology in Christian Perspective by Harold W. Faw the author talks about psychology as a subject, the different aspects of the subject and how psychology fits into the Christian world. Faw begins the chapter by describing what others think psychology and his views on psychology as well. He describes that “psychology can be described as a systematic attempt to understand human behavior and conscious experience” (Faw, 1995, p. 12). He then goes on to describe the many different types of specialties of psychology which include, neurobiological, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, and psychoanalytic. These specialties are then integrated into the Christian worldview. They are all different so they all fit into
Walker, D. F., Gorsuch, R. L., & Tan, S. (2004, October). Therapists’ integration of religion and spirituality in counseling: A meta-analysis. Counseling and Values, 49(), 69-80.
“Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity” (2010) is about the purposeful integration of psychology and Christianity. Entwistle, discusses the integration of scripture and nature, holding to historic orthodox Christianity that “Scripture and the natural world have their origins in God’s creativity and revelation” (Entwistle, 2010, p. 136). Theology clarifies the Word of God (Bible), and Psychology corresponds with the works of God. A working definition of integration is offered,
Richardson, R. W. (2005). Bowen Family Systems Theory and congregational life. Review & Expositor, 102(3), 379-402.
Worthington, E. L. Jr., Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., & McDaniel, M. A. (2011). Religion and spirituality. In J. C. Norcross (Ed.), Psychotherapy relationships that work (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press
the theories, and the techniques dealing with Christian and secular counseling will require different tactics and approaches for it to be effective
...nseling sessions is very important, because the wisdom of God can guide counselors to be more effective and accurate in helping clients who has been damage or abused. There are issues that can only be treated with spiritual integration, with this in mind, counselors can prevent many situations that with conventional counseling cannot be prevent. Spiritual guidance had been proved to work on circumstances where other forms of therapy do not work, that’s why the presence of God must be present in counseling sessions, in order to do God’s will and be effective with all the situations that day to day are present in our society.
On the down side there are a limited number of educational programs that adequately deal with the issue of incorporating religion and spirituality in therapeutic/counseling settings. This can be attributed to the fact that counseling is based in psychology, a scientific field, which has traditionally neglected issues of a spiritual nature (Nelson, Kirk, Ane, & Serres, 2011) as well as the practice used within the United States to separate education and religion (Cashwell and Young, 2011). This then results in a significant portion of therapist and counselors who are not prepared to address the issue of spirituality and religion with their clients. One would think that with the value many Americans place on the topic of religion and spirituality that there would come a time when a client would want to address this topic during his or her session.
Sometimes, counselors will confront sin in their client’s life when they shouldn’t and it causes more harm than good. The client will feel even more hurt because the counselor “jumped the gun” in confronting them about their sin. As a result, it is important for counselors to wait until the client is ready to confront their sin or to wait until the timing is right. Another caution mentioned in the class sources that counselors often overlook is “counselor self-awareness” (Peters, n.d., Week Seven Powerpoint Lecture Two). Counselors must be aware of their own emotions and attitudes when it comes to confronting sin in a client’s life so they do not become angry with their client because of sin in their life, or even judgmental towards them (Peters, n.d., Week Seven Powerpoint Lecture Two). Counselors need to have an awareness of their own attitudes and emotions before seeking to confront sin in their client’s