This course is based on How to Handle Adversity by Charles Stanley. When troubles come, we usually ask why. But the more significant question is “How should I respond?” This course can help you personally and can provide a Biblical resource for you in counseling with others.

Christian Counseling is the systematic application of Biblical principles a counselor uses to approach dealing with circumstances, relationships, and situations of life from a Biblical perspective. Christian Counseling distinguishes itself from other schools of counseling by acknowledging that the Scriptures give us everything necessary to help us understand our mental processes, our actions and reactions to life, our emotional needs, our attitudes, values, and beliefs. Christian counseling also acknowledges that the only authoritative foundation governing man’s thoughts, words, and deeds is based upon the commandments, precepts, and principles found in the Bible. Christian Counseling stems from the belief that the Bible, the Word of God, is sufficient to meet all of the needs of men, women, and children no matter what situation or question may arise.

Beck was researching depression under the psychoanalytical understanding that depression resulted from anger turned against the self and was examining dream content in order to find this ‘retroflexed anger’.  However, what caught his attention was that depressed clients had a pronounced negative bias in their interpretations of themselves leading to strong self-disparagement. He came to believe that systematic errors in logical thinking caused depression. These thoughts were understood to be ‘automatic’, derived from generalizations of past experience.