“Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free… Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.  And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” John 8:31-36 NKJV

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 NKJV).

In surveying the effects of mainstream counseling, Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl (1905-1997), concluded that “the dream of half a century century has centered around mechanisms to explain, and techniques to heal neurotic diseases. I believe that this dream has been dreamt out.” [1]

E. Staley Jones made this important observation about the limitations of secular counseling:

“Psychiatry has had as its working basis—insight. Give a patient [with mental/emotional illness] ‘insight’ and it will automatically cure him. That has about run its course—it is proving to be near bankruptcy … Why? Because ‘insight,’ knowledge about themselves, won’t cure them. Can’t. For the disease is not lack of insight, it is something else. It is the lack of giving love and receiving love … If he [the patient] began to care about others, that moment he would be on the road to health. It is self-centered, preoccupation that is the disease. No amount of ‘insight’ will cure that unless the insight is accompanied by a self-surrender to God, and outgoingness to man.” [2]

As a missionary, apologist and author, Jones was concerned that even Christian teaching must advance to being incarnational—the word being made flesh—in believers (Gal. 2:20). He continued his critique of mainstream counseling:

“Education, psychiatry, religious education, and non-directive counseling have for the most part gone on the assumption that it is the truth, the insight, that sets people free. That assumption is now proving sterile … Unless the truth leads to the Truth, the Son who makes you free, is not transforming. It is informing, but not transforming. For to be introduced to the Son, the Truth, means surrender, allegiance, obedience, life-committal —that is transforming, it sets men free. It issues in conversion – Christian conversion, regeneration [and sanctification] … [that] takes place when self surrenders itself as the center to Christ, the Truth, the Son, as the center. Then the Son makes you free.” [3] 

Because Biblical counseling emphasizes renewing the mind (Rom. 12:2) it has some similarities to cognitive therapy. But Christ-centered counseling is more than an educational experience. Even “Exchanged Life” teaching will miss the goal of potential transformation if it neglects an experiential appropriation of Christ as Lord, Life, Liberator and Leader. Teaching can share information, but only the Holy Spirit filling the believer can give inner healing, sanctification and potential transformation (Eph. 5:18; 2 Cor. 3:17,18).

J.B.W.

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[1] Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.   Douglas T. Kenrick noted, “Victor Frankl was a neurologist and psychologist who had been imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, and lost his bride to the gas chambers … Frankl developed the idea of self-transcendence, emphasizing that the more you can devote yourself to another person or an important cause, the more you can transcend the miseries and anxieties of everyday life.” – Shepherd.com

[2] E. Stanley Jones, The Word Became Flesh (Abington Press, 1963), 276.

[3] Jones, 280.