What is the Difference Between Biblical and Christian Counselling?

There are times in people’s lives that they experience circumstances in which they need some help. They have gone to their pastor but need something more than that, something more in-depth. The person needs counselling.

But what kind of counselling?

If the person is a Christian, they may (or may not) want a type of counselling that will reflect their faith. As they do their research, they find that there are a couple of options, including biblical counselling and Christian counselling.

But what is the difference?

We might hope that Christian counselling will be biblical and that biblical counselling would be Christian. But these two counselling theories are very different.

Biblical Counselling

Biblical counselling has a deep suspicion and rejection of secular psychology, psychiatry, and therapy. Biblical counsellors would argue that those things are at best, unnecessary, and at worst, harmful. They would assert that everything we need to get a Christian from a place of suffering to health, mentally and emotionally, can be found in the Bible.

Having said that, the biblical counsellor doesn’t start from scratch, flipping through the Bible, looking for something applicable to the person they are counselling. There is a whole system of biblical counselling, which looks to Jay E. Adams as their follower.

The basic idea is that the Bible is sufficient for the believer, and that includes counselling a person in a mental health crisis. People have gathers various biblical principles into a way of getting that person where they need to be.

Christian Counselling

A biblical counsellor may consider themselves a Christian counsellor, but we usually mean something else by Christian counselling. This type of counselling is usually closer in method to secular counselling. It will take into account methods and principles that have been developed in the wider area of therapeutic research.

So what makes it Christian? One thing is that the counsellor is a Christian. However, one can be a Christian and a counsellor without identifying as a Christian counsellor.

Each counsellor will integrate their faith differently. Some are just open that they have a Christian faith. Some may include practices of prayer and Christian meditation. Some might share somethings from the Bible.

But at its core, it is building on a foundation that is built by the same sources and theories of psychotherapy in general. This is what a biblical counsellor might have concerns over.

What is Better?

This is beyond my expertise but I do have some opinions. I do acknowledge that some people have been helped by biblical counselling. For some, all they need is to follow the biblical mandate of forgiving the person who has hurt them or to reconcile with a person as Jesus taught.

But I fear that much of the mental needs out there are beyond what biblical counselling can offer. While I see the Bible as the final authority on matters of faith, I do not see the Bible as a mental health manual. We would not (hopefully) go to the Bible to treat physical illness, nor should we look to it for the “cure” of mental illness.

I believe misunderstanding the difference between the kind of anxiety that the Bible talks about and an anxiety disorder diagnosed by a doctor has led to some harmful outcomes.

If I had to seek counselling (and I have indeed seen counsellors for my mental health), I would see either a Christian counsellor or a secular counsellor. I do not see non-Christian advances in psychotherapy as any more of a threat than non-Christian advances in treating physical diseases. When I am sick, I want my doctor to have a Doctor of Medicine and not a Doctor of Theology.

Of course everyone has to make their own choices. I would recommend that people do the research, talk to people who have been through both, and to choose carefully.