• Anyone with a life-controlling problem, irresponsible behavior, and/or any addictive-compulsive lifestyle. Belief Therapy will help hurting and healing people understand the difference in a sin and a wound. The concepts of Belief Therapy may be used as part of the treatment process for people suffering from depressed moods, anger, fear, bad habits, codependency, and addictive behavior problems. It has been effectively used in juvenile criminal recovery and relapse prevention.

Treatment Process: Beliefs drive anger or pain. The Belief Therapist's role is to help a client identify lies he believes, process those lies, and replace them with the truth. Unless there is the presence of an organic disorder, a person with a life-controlling or emotional problem may believe their present situation is the cause of their pain. This is seldom the cause. The Belief Therapist may help the client identify a lie that relates to the present circumstance, place it into perspective, and replace the lie with the truth. Sometimes there is the presence of cognitive dissonance, the anxiety caused by holding opposite beliefs at the same time. Very often there is the problems of Positional Identity Disorder (PID): Trying to become who you already are "in Christ." If a client is not a Christian, he has the most serious form of PID.

• Theophostics

What is Theophostics: Theo (God) Phostic (light) is a Divinely powerful and thoroughly biblical approach to counseling. It should not be confused with any other accelerated form of therapy. It is based on the words of Jesus who said, "when the Son of Man sets you free, you will be free indeed!" (Jn. 8:36). Theophostics believes a person's present emotional pain comes from the misinterpretation (lies) embedded in their memories and not from the memories themselves. For example, an incest victim feels shame because she/he was molested but because she/he may believe it was her/his faults (the lie). Theophostics recognizes that we can only "act as far as we can think." Our behavior is limited to the data stored in the mind. Therefore, in order to act differently we must be "renewed in our minds." This renewal must go beyond the cognitive passing of information from counselor to counselee as seen in most Christian counseling. Only the Spirit of the Living Lord Jesus can set us free of the lies we experientially believe. Theophostics understands present behavior to be drawn from "experiential knowledge (that which we have actually experienced) and not from logical truth (data believed as truth but never realized through experiences.) Theophostic Ministry is about renewing the mind at the experiential level of consciousness. Theophostic s recognizes that every emotional pain in the present has an origin, source and beginning. It believes that emotional pain is rooted in this original historical faulty thinking. Therefore, unless the person is able to return to the original memory event where the lie was first embedded, true release of the emotional pain in the present will not occur. The key to Theophostics' effectiveness is its ability to quickly uncover and identify such early embedded lies and lead the wounded person to the place where he is able to receive a direct word from the Spirit of Christ.

Effects and Usefulness: There are three parts to any memory. The memory itself -which is a historical fact and cannot be changed, the emotions that memory generated, and the lies/beliefs that the memory has embedded within it. Sometimes there can be a spiritual component to the memory as well. Some memories are so awful that they become a "home" for the forces of darkness. Theophostics addresses the emotions and the lies/beliefs that the memory has embedded within it. Thus it is a very useful tool for emotional healing.

Some people have very traumatic lives and many memories to process. Also some memories may be particularly potent and have a number of lies embedded in them that need to be tackled. Most people can only tackle 3 or 4 separate memories in one session. Each memory is generally fully healed when it is dealt with. The average person will find that less than half a dozen sessions with Theophostics will produce considerable change and relief. People who have been severely abused may take up to twenty sessions. This is still much more rapid than other techniques and the recovery is complete. That is each memory that is tackled is healed and is no longer a source of intra-psychic pain.

• Nouthetic

What Is Nouthetic Counseling: While the name is new, the sort of counseling done by nouthetic counselors is not. From biblical times onward, God's people have counseled nouthetically. The word itself is biblical. The New Testament was written in Greek, from which the noun nouthesia (verb: noutheteo) comes. It is a term used largely by the apostle Paul which is sometimes translated "admonish, correct or instruct." The term, which best describes biblical counseling, occurs in such passages a Romans 15:14: "I myself am convinced about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and competent to counsel one another." In that passage, the apostle was encouraging members of the Roman church to do informal, mutual counseling, something that all Christians today should learn, as well. On the other hand, the leaders of a congregation are to counsel nouthetically in a formal manner as a part of their ministry: "Now we ask you, brothers, to recognize those who labor among you, and manage you in the Lord, and counsel you."

Nouthetic Counseling Embraces Three Ideas: The three ideas found in the word nouthesia are Confrontation, Concern and Change. To put it simply, nouthetic counseling consists of lovingly confronting people out of deep concern in order to help them make those changes that God requires. By confrontation we mean that one Christian personally gives counsel to another from the Scriptures. He does not confront him with his own ideas or the ideas of others. He limits his counsel strictly to that which may be found in the Bible, believing that "All Scripture is breathed out by God and useful for teaching, for conviction, for correction and for disciplined training in righteousness in order to fit and fully equip the man from God for every good task." (2 Timothy 3:16,17) We believe that all that is needed to help another person love God and his neighbor as he should, as the verse above indicates, may be found in the Bible.

By concern we mean that counseling is always done for the benefit of the counselee. His welfare is always in view in biblical counseling. The apostle Paul put it this way: "I am not writing these things to shame you, but to counsel you as my dear children." (1 Corinthians 4:14) Plainly, the familial nature of the word noutheteo appears in this verse. There is always a warm, family note to biblical counseling which is done among the saints of God who seek to help one another become more like Christ. We consider our counseling to be a part of the sancti-fication process whereby one Christian helps another get through some difficulty that is hindering him from moving forward in his spiritual growth.

By change we mean that counseling is done because there is something in another Christian's life that fails to meet the biblical requirements and that, therefore, keeps him from honoring God. All counseling -- biblical or otherwise-- attempts change. Only biblical counselors know what a counselee should become as the result of counseling: he should look more like Christ. He is the Standard. Biblical counseling is done by Christians who are convinced that God is able to make the changes that are necessary as His Word is ministered in the power of the Spirit.