Review of "The Christian Counselor's Manual" by Jay E. Adams

I had this as a text book in college when I was too young and inexperienced to understand the ramifications of taking what it taught to its logical end. Due to a situation we had recently, I decided to download "The Christian Counselor's Manual" so I could reread it and understand what happened.

I have researched online to see what experiences others have had with this type of counseling and I've found among some good stories a number of horror stories. What I see are otherwise caring, compassionate pastors, who through this training, become like Job's counselors in the counseling session, accusing hurting people of sinning because they are hurting.

This type of counsel is only suitable for playground type squabbles. It is not suitable when abuse of any kind is in the picture or where the other party continues to perpetuate the problem. What has become apparent to me in these cases, is the victim who comes for help is shamed, blamed and confronted for sin while the abuser is not dealt with. Indeed, one case I read, an abused wife was sent back to reconcile with her husband and told to be a better wife. The abusive husband was empowered by this and stepped up the abuse to the point she had to flee for her life.

It is concerning to me that Adams has simplified counseling down to one neat little doctrinal formula based off a few proof texts:

"And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another." -Romans 15:14 

"And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;" -1 Thessalonians 5:12

Confront, concern and change. Gather data. Find sin. Confront with concern for change. Confrontation seems to be the big focus in this book. He uses this word over and over. Why? Because the Greek word for admonish is confront.  Therefore all counseling must include confrontation and change. This is why every counselee, regardless of whether or not they are guilty of anything with regards to the issue they seek counsel for, will be confronted and told they have sinned and need to change. So the abused spouse, even though she has done everything within her power to please her husband, will be confronted and told she needs to change simply because she is the one who came for counseling. All you have to do is read the one and two star reviews on Jay Adams books on Amazon to see this pattern borne out. Here is a link to read about two terrible counseling cases: https://www.heresthejoy.com/2017/09/heres-an-abuse-survivors-plea-about-nouthetic-biblical-counseling/

The link above is very important. After you finish reading this post I encourage you to jump over to that link and read the entire post all the way to the end.  All of it is very important.  Also visit all the links there and read those as well.  You will get a view of Nouthetic Counseling from the point of view of one who was abused.  It illustrates the fact that these counselors simply are not equipped to counsel people who have been abused. Jay Adams does a huge disservice to both pastors/counselors who think his methods are all that one needs to take on these types of issues. 

My other concern is how skillfully Adams has turned his doctrine of counseling into the only right way to do counseling. In essential doctrines there must be unity. In non-essentials we are to have charity. Adams has taken his brand of counseling and turned it into an essential doctrine. Indeed, he calls it Biblical Counseling or doing it God’s Way, which makes it difficult for anyone to argue with it, unless you want to be viewed as a heretic. His book completely trashes anything to do with any other methods of counseling, effectively denying any common grace among other methods. However, he gives lip service to the idea of common grace, but he denies it in practical application. This is but one example of gas-lighting in his book. 

He has made his own counseling cult. Indeed, his book claims those who are trained by him undergo a radical personality change so that those who otherwise would not be confrontational with others become so. Yet, he says, "Human personality is not violated by the program and plan of God. God makes resources beyond the counselee available in His Word by His Spirit through the various channels of grace (help.)." How is a radical personality change not a violation of a person’s personality? Yet again, another example of gas-lighting. Our son went through a radical personality change at the hands of someone we thought we could trust who turned out to be a liar with bad intentions. He altered our son’s personality to reject us and to believe if he was to be a Biblical man he had to be willing to kill. He was brainwashed! I think Pastors and others who take Jay Adams training are brainwashed. Why else would an otherwise caring and compassionate person outside the counseling room, turn into a confrontational person, like Job’s counselors, inside the counseling room.

On the issue of mental illness, Jay Adams says, "The field is growing. Certainly an understanding of the influence of bodily chemistry upon behavior and emotions is only beginning. For instance, recent study indicates that those pathological problems that result from toxic chemical impact upon perception and, consequently, upon personality are probably greater in number than presently is known." 

Adams admits here that there are mental health issues that spring from organic causes that have yet to be discovered.   So how does he propose to distinguish between mental health problems that stem from organic problems and issues that manifest from sin problems? How does the Nouthetic Counselor know which the counselee has?

Just earlier he stated, "I do not wish to argue the point that modern ideas of mental illness are invalid. Many others have made this point with impact. 6 Moreover, I have cited some of this material at length elsewhere. 7 I am concerned here to make but two observations only: (1) the psychiatrist should return to the practice of medicine, which is his only legitimate sphere of activity; (2) the minister should return to the God-given work from which he was ousted (and which, in many instances, too willingly abandoned)." 

I happen to know that food sensitivities can cause many problems that look like sin problems.  If Nouthetic Counselors and Jay Adams would spend three days in the testing room at the Center for Environmental Medicine their presuppositions about mental illness would be turned their head.

When tested to soy, my husband became very angry and he could not control it. When tested to phenol, I became so depressed that I cried like a baby and could not control it.  Once neutralized we were fine.  It explained many of the problems we had been having. At lower levels, phenol was impacting me with panic attacks in the grocery from the plastic produce bags and headaches from Tupperware (I was a dealer).  In lower doses, soy caused depression.

Had we gone to Nouthetic Counseling, these reactions would have been classified as sinful. Most people can not get this kind of testing. It’s expensive and the treatment is $200 to $500 a month and insurance won’t pay any more.  We were fortunate to be able to get the testing and five years of treatment. It helped immensely, but now, years later my husband badly needs to be retested and get back on treatment but we can not afford it, so he suffers mentally.  He has many sensitivities that we can’t figure out. Nouthetic Counselors would confront him for sinning, heaping guilt on him for something that is out of his control.

So it is beyond me why Adams admits there are mental health issues whose causes have not even been discovered yet, and still think it’s a good idea to treat every counselee as if their problems are their fault?  This is cruel and has the potential to cause far more harm than it’s worth.

How is this verse in practice here? "Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men ." -1 Thessalonians 5:14

Jay Adams states, "Counseling methodology, as London rightly has said, is "a moral question that is always answered by the therapist in practice." Indeed, it could not be otherwise. What we do to another man and how we do it is tightly bound up with what we believe about that man."

Indeed!  So if the counselor already has in his mind the method by which he will deal with the counselee before he/she walks through the door, and that method is Jay Adams method, then it will be assumed this person needs to be confronted for some sin in their life and the data gathering will ensue with that bias in mind. It matters not if that person has been sinned against at no fault of their own, they will be blamed, shamed and confronted. So then the Jay Adams method violates Scripture. "He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. "-Proverbs 18:13