What is a Biblical Counselor?

A professional helper is someone who gets paid for assisting someone else.  A lot of the times, it is because the person being helped is unable to do their task or reach their objective on their own.  However, it can also be because they can do it, but it would take a lot longer or it might be a lot messier than if someone else came alongside and gave them a hand.

In the helping professions, counseling in particular—whether the person being helped is a patient (someone who is ill and is in critical need of external support/care/attention performed on them), a client (someone who defines/dictates the problem and objective, but entrusts the process to an expert), or a counselee (someone who cannot see the situation or way out clearly, and needs an experienced person to advise them)—the helper is inherently gifted, formally educated, and/or specially trained to remediate negative issues and perhaps even foster positive growth for others.

This professional definition is not only affirming but authorizing.  (It is an interesting departure from the common use of the word “helper,” which has a pejorative twist to it.) From a Biblical counseling perspective, we see how Eve was referred to as Adam’s “ezer,” a.k.a. helper or helpmeet.  But the same term is used a couple dozen times in the Old Testament for Israel’s battlefield allies or for God Himself as He personally came to Israel’s aid.

So how does ICHTHYSroe define a professional helper from a Biblical perspective; viz., a Biblical counselor?  Someone who comes to the aid of another who is struggling and not only walks alongside them, but fights to win the spiritual war (and therefore everything in the world that stems from that, including physical issues or relational challenges) alongside them (Prov. 11:14; 20:18; 24:6).

ICHTHYSroe Biblical counselors come with training in both theology and counseling; adhering to the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, Chalcedonian Definition, Heidelberg Catechism, and Westminster Confession of Faith… while holding a well-rounded understanding of the disorders defined in the DSM-5 through the lens of comparative psychology (contrasting behavioral, biological, cognitive, existential, humanistic, psychodynamic, and socio-cultural paradigms vis à vis the Biblical worldview).  (*For those who are licensed, we refer to them as Biblical counselors when they are operating within this ministry context.)

Unlike pastoral counselors focusing solely on theology, ICHTHYSroe Biblical counselors have been trained to reframe real-world struggles with the help of instructors who remarkably are all healthcare practitioners holding state-recognized credentials (MD, LPC, LMFT, RPT, PsyD, and PhD) in rigorous scientific fields (Neuro-Psychology, Science & Medicine, Bio-Psychology, Play Therapy) from prestigious secular institutions.

But unlike secular therapists (or the roles that Biblical counselors take in their secular contexts), Biblical counselors (in their Biblical counseling capacities) choose to steer clear of the entanglements that a state-license forces upon the counseling approach and definition of goals.

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