Affirmations & Denials: A Proposed Definition of Biblical Counseling

In this article, David Powlison offers a proposed statement of faith for biblical counseling with accompanying discussion on the topic. Powlison argues that Scripture is about counseling and speaks directly to issues such as diagnostic categories, causal explanations of behavior and emotion, interpretation of external sufferings and influences, definitions of tangible and workable solutions, character of the counselor, goals for the counseling process, configuring the professional structures for doing counseling and critique of competing models. Powlison’s affirmation and denials are divided into sections that address truth, the human condition and its remedy, the process of change, the nature of counseling ministry, common grace and intellectual sin, and reaching a psychologized society.