National Association of Nouthetic Counselors

The bible college I attend intergrated much of the Nouthetic teachings in to their degree program. My professor for counseling is NANC certified. This counseling method believes the Holy scriptures are 100% God's word and can counsel a person for any problem(that I know of.) Nouthetic counselers don't just say trust in Jesus and he will take care of all your troubles, pains and problems. They seek to get to the root of the problem, which in primarly every case is either a lack of love for fellow man or God. After removing the root they seek to restore or help create a fluishing relationship with God.

Nouthetic Counselors seem to take a lot of slack from the other counselors with different mindsets. That Probably being because they actually point out sin in believers and non-believers lives. But they don't just point out sin, but help bear the burden and help move a believer to drawing near to God daily.

Probably the biggest misconception about Nouthetic counselors is that they refuse to accept that drugs can help out a counselee. Nouthetic counselors seek to help people become healed without drugs, no doubts their, but will refer a patient to a doctor when drugs are needed. For the most part people can be healed without the use of drugs for the mind. My professor gives this illustration:

"you go to the doctor and say my tail hurts and the doctor says you have a nail in your tail. The doc gives you some medication and now your tail feels better. problem is he never pulled the nail from the tail. Why not ... to pull that nail would hurt. Later on in life the gentleman stops using the medications and his tail starts hurting again. why? because the nail is still in the tail."

Nouthetic Counselors take a very different stance when it comes to children with AD/HD, anger, homosexuality, forgiveness, self-esteem issues and others.

People and organizations who teach and counsel by this method are: Jay Adams, Westminister Seminary, Masters Seminary and College, Trinity Seminary and as most recent Southern Seminary has hired a gentleman by the name of Sturt Scott from the Masters college to bring this style of counseling to the seminary. Not sure if Southern is going by NANC but it will be similiar.

thanks for the question, I look forward to the feedback.

 

PastorSBC1303,

Another organization which is one of the leading lights of nouthetic counseling can be found here: www.ccef.org The leaders of this organization are on faculty at Westminster Seminary of Philadelphia. They have a full complement of well-produced counseling materials including books, DVD series, training seminars for Christian counselors and a counseling journal that provides food for thought.

Nouthetic counseling is the child of the teaching ministry of Jay Adams. That may scare some people, but in my experience, the current leaders of nouthetic counseling are aware of some of the excesses of Jay Adams and have worked hard to get rid of those excesses and make the counseling philosophy thoroughly biblical. I'd say that the materials are well worth a look.