Pilgrim
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Dr. Adams has a blog that he and his associate Donn Arms update regularly. The category Adams Answers, which answers critics of his method, may be of particular interest.
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"Repent of your sin" is not the solution to everything in the mental realm.
Have you actually read Adams' book or, as you say, you were tempted to read it but did not. One cannot get past the first Introduction to dispel the myth that he ever advocates such a thing. I'm not saying his method has no issues but that is a gross mischaracterization of his work.
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I've read many of Adam's books and I read Competent to Counsel twice (because I thought I reacted too negatively against it the first time, the second time I felt more assured in my estimation that Dr Adams tried to swing the pendelum too far back the other direction and discounted too much of the physical as well as the many legitimate uses of psychology). I find in Welch and Powlison more balance and a less caustic tone.
Modern secular psychology turns everyone into a victim, Adams, in over-reaction appears almost to turn everyone into a perpetrator.
Here is a quote from the link that I provided above that illustrates that dangers of downplaying the physical (or giving the medical/physical side lip service only):
I have a friend who suffers from PTSD—he endured a lot of trauma as a child—and his symptoms worsened after his experience with a Nouthetic counselor who simply told him that he was the one in the wrong and that he needed to repent of his sin. Although he currently attends a seminary that strongly teaches NC, he is in the extreme position where he feels that no good can come out of it, even with a Bible-based approach that would include the Nouthetic method.
Jay Adams and co have one huge fatal flaw: they do not understand that mental illness is as real as cancer, alzheimers, diabetes and any other chronic illness
Jay Adams and co have one huge fatal flaw: they do not understand that mental illness is as real as cancer, alzheimers, diabetes and any other chronic illness (these have in the past been called demon possession. The changes in brain chemistry from such things as a fall, a blow to the head, seizures, dehydration etc not to mention schizophrenia, bipolar (ever see someone cycle? it is scary) and other known mental illnesses are quantifiable and measurable but Mr. Adams and his followers call every mental illness, every episode of depression, anxiety etc "sin" and that both diminishes God and is toxic to the patient. Is this an inexact new and rather imperfect science? As inexact as treatment of cancer was until DNA was discovered, as inexact as treatment of diabetes was until insulin was discovered. My question to you is this: when someone with schizophrenia comes to Mr. Adams or one of his followers, will they refer the schizophrenic to a psychiatrist or call the condition sin and call "treatment" done?
Someone remind me to come back to this thread. I may be the only Reformed psychiatrist in existence (smile). I've also read Adams and have profited from him.
I would suggest to all to also read Powlison's _The Biblical Counseling Movement_ (which I am part way through).
For example, some of Jay Adams’s written statements sound dogmatic, harsh, polemical, triumphalistic, simplistic, legalistic, impudent, reductionistic. Many readers have reacted to this, sometimes with violent antipathy.
As we have seen, Adams considered the diagnosis “sin” appropriate for the
gamut of normal problems in living: interpersonal conflict, unhappy emotions, bad
behavior, faulty beliefs, and typical reactions to suffering. But he also believed it applied
to the most extreme problems in living: “schizophrenia” and other forms of bizarre
behavior.66 The extremes of bizarre behavior – the “mentally ill” – played a significant
part in Adams’s articulation and defense of his system. He believed that most “mental
illnesses” could be unmasked as instances of things the Bible treated under the category
of sin. Just as he reacted to defining the pastor as one who offered consoling promises to
sufferers, so he reacted to defining the pastor as one who should deal with nothing
“more serious than a psychic scratch,” referring more difficult problems to mental health
professionals.
Moral causes of bizarre behavior might be mingled with physiological factors.
Adams was interested in ostensible organic concomitants to bizarre behavior:
Not all peculiar behavior, of course, stems from specific acts of sin; there are
people who have toxic problems, tumors on the brain, brain damage, etc., who
because of physical damage or chemical malfunction perform badly. Such organic problems, external to moral responsibility, might come into play and
modify the counselee’s capabilities to some undetermined degree. Adams never got
more specific than saying “to the extent that it is possible to do so” organically impaired
patients were responsible to obey God.79
In Adams’s view, physiological impairment was an indirect consequence of the problem of sin,one component in that comprehensive
impairment characteristic of the “fallen” state of humankind:
...
In treating people whose behavior was peculiar, Adams was amenable to
cooperation with physicians, and to a cautious use of both medical treatments and
medical research in seeking to disentangle vexing cases.
Adams’s discussion of organic components to bizarre behavior was typically hedged and tentative, a contrast to
his typical style. For example, while he generally opposed psychotropic medications,
finding “the excessive use of pills among psychiatrists and physicians alarming,” he granted that “not all medication is unnecessary.”82 When he wrote regarding depression
that “The physician might uncover some of the infrequent cases of chemically-caused
depression and in very serious cases may help the pastor to engage in meaningful
counseling by temporarily administering antidepressants,”83 he did not seek to resolve
either the ambiguities of “chemically-caused” or to define the parameters of “serious.”
In Adams’s proposed reconfiguration of the professional landscape, he reassigned
psychiatrists to explore such organic problems and not to intrude into the functional
problems. “That there is much for the psychiatrist to do medically to help persons
suffering from problems in living whose etiology is organic cannot be questioned.”84
He never gave a more specific answer to the question of disentangling organic from moral
etiologies.
The number of people “whose problems are organic in origin (as over against those who are simply not ‘making it’ in life because they are not solving
life’s problems biblically) is negligible.”
In Adams’s view, “sinful influences” and “acts of abuse” only gained purchase in the
human soul because of the susceptibility of sinful hearts to embrace sin or to react to sin
sinfully.
To many critics, Adams view of the dislocation in human nature was too narrow
as well as too shallow. Certain emotional and psychological dimensions of human woe
did not immediately reduce to outworkings of the problem of personal sin. Inner misery,
mental illness, psychological dysfunction, and social maladjustment could not always be
explained either as sin or as organic dysfunction.
Adams writes of both the sin nature and of being sinned against. When it
actually comes down to his theory of pathology, however, he lays most of
the responsibility at the feet of the individual.
...
The outworking of Adams’s actual theory and counseling practice paid little attention to
being sinned against, and in effect treated the impact of such things as negligible.
Again, Adams’s failings were specifically biblical failings. The evangelical
psychotherapists thought that Adams had almost wholly missed the point made in
numerous psalms, that counselees were often more sinned against than sinning. The God
of the Bible cared for those who had been sinned against, and he would meet people in
their sufferings just as he gave grace to them in their sins. God called those who
ministered in his name to an analogous love and patience towards the oppressed, sinned
against, misled.
Adams was often charged with being one of “Job’s counselors” in the
way his confrontational model moved rapidly past suffering as somewhat irrelevant in
comparison to the need to address responsible behavior.
Adams and the evangelical psychotherapists clashed over the
The moral strenuousness of Adams’s discussion of suffering caused many of the
most impassioned outcries against his model of counseling. Many critics thought that he
sounded heartless to afflicted people and passed too quickly over their suffering.
This focus on conscious behavior and thoughts made Adams’s counseling process rapid, but superficial. His counseling, when successful, largely consisted in helping people replace identifiably ungodly habits with purportedly godly habits:
Second, Adams often calls other evangelical "Christian" counselors on the carpet and calls many of them compromisers for using insights gained from secular psycholology. But, I believe that this, too, is a legit practice as long as we do so in discerning fashion.
"Shall we seek to remove guilt feelings (that is, false guilt)? Never; instead we must acknowledge guilt to be real and deal directly with it. Psychological guilt is the fear of being found out. It is the recognition that one has violated his standards. It is the pain of not having done as one knows he ought to do."
Jay Adams and co have one huge fatal flaw: they do not understand that mental illness is as real as cancer, alzheimers, diabetes and any other chronic illness
Can you substantiate this claim?
Someone remind me to come back to this thread. I may be the only Reformed psychiatrist in existence (smile). I've also read Adams and have profited from him.
I would suggest to all to also read Powlison's _The Biblical Counseling Movement_ (which I am part way through).
Jay Adams and co have one huge fatal flaw: they do not understand that mental illness is as real as cancer, alzheimers, diabetes and any other chronic illness
Can you substantiate this claim?
Sadly I can:
OAIM What Is Biblical Counseling
Jay E. Adams states the following in the book “The Big Umbrella”:
“In this country, because of a prestigious alliance with the A.M.A., a psychiatrist is required to have an M.D. But you will soon agree that Freud was right if you read the articles written by some psychiatrists complaining about the necessity to take medical training that they never use in their work and soon forget. The point is this: there is nothing a psychiatrist does with his medical training that a physician couldn’t do just as well, or better. And the physician could do it in conjunction with a pastoral counselor. The psychiatrist may write prescriptions for tranquilizers or other pills now and then, but a physician does that all of the time. There is no need for a specialty in order to prescribe pills.”
Jay Adams The Big Umbrella, p.6, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972.
Jay Adams and co have one huge fatal flaw: they do not understand that mental illness is as real as cancer, alzheimers, diabetes and any other chronic illness
Can you substantiate this claim?
Sadly I can:
OAIM What Is Biblical Counseling
Jay E. Adams states the following in the book “The Big Umbrella”:
“In this country, because of a prestigious alliance with the A.M.A., a psychiatrist is required to have an M.D. But you will soon agree that Freud was right if you read the articles written by some psychiatrists complaining about the necessity to take medical training that they never use in their work and soon forget. The point is this: there is nothing a psychiatrist does with his medical training that a physician couldn’t do just as well, or better. And the physician could do it in conjunction with a pastoral counselor. The psychiatrist may write prescriptions for tranquilizers or other pills now and then, but a physician does that all of the time. There is no need for a specialty in order to prescribe pills.”
Jay Adams The Big Umbrella, p.6, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972.
Three final areas of possible difference with Adams are: (1) The Bible was not written as a counselor's textbook, (2) some truth or knowledge about human behavior can be gained through common grace investigations by even secular psychologists. First, I do not see a system of counseling to be found in Scripture. I see info we can use to draw some conclusions, but the main purpose of Scripture is not as a counselor's handbook. Second, Adams often calls other evangelical "Christian" counselors on the carpet and calls many of them compromisers for using insights gained from secular psycholology. But, I believe that this, too, is a legit practice as long as we do so in discerning fashion.
Matthew your post brought to mind two passages;wretchedness is the constant companion of wickedness so that the unbeliever really should find no comfort at all in his state of rebellion against God.
19I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.
20But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
21There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
3Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee
Matthew your post brought to mind two passages;wretchedness is the constant companion of wickedness so that the unbeliever really should find no comfort at all in his state of rebellion against God.
19I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.
20But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
21There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
3Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee
The unbeliever does not live in the "real world" in that he or she attempts to re-define God's world...into their own fantasy world. This does not lend itself to proper mental health.
and physical illnesses which have a symptom of depression (or a side effect of sorts).