My friend, former teacher, mentor, Ed Welch, has posted a blog on the CCEF website on the topic of psychological testing and how biblical counselors might view it. You can see his blog here as well as my comment on their site: http://www.ccef.org/psychological-tests-are-you-or-against#comment-28
Ed, as you will see, isn’t really against testing, recognizes value in it, but [...]
Entries from March 2009
March 31, 2009
The Value of Psychological Testing
March 30, 2009
Readings for Christian Psychology
Had a prospective student in recently asking about good readings to start with before beginning the Masters degree. My answer? It depends on your background and interests. So, I’m going to post a few of my recommendations today for the student with a college/university/grad background in psychology but who wishes to be more informed about [...]
March 27, 2009
Physiology Phriday: Hormones and Behavior
Sex hormones influence our mood and memory as well as a things like sexual desire. It is fairly clear that women with decreasing levels of estrogen (during their cycle or in perimenopause) have a higher propensity for depressed affect. It seems estrogen has an impact on the serotonergic receptors in the brain. Further, menopausal women [...]
March 26, 2009
Further thoughts about conflict
Whether we are two fighting 10 year olds or 60 year olds, we have a propensity to fight unfairly. Yesterday I mentioned the habit of character assassination. Today, I want to go a little further with these techniques (tongue inserted in cheek).
1. Make sure to start out telling the story in such a way that [...]
March 25, 2009
The fine art of disagreeing
Ever noticed that some people can disagree with you to your face but do it in such a way that you are neither threatened nor feeling the need to go to the mat over the matter. What do these folk do differently?
First, they are willing to voice their disagreements. This is preferable to those who [...]
March 24, 2009
Fantasy vs. Desire?
Been thinking about these two words. How are they related, if at all? Does one precede the other? Do you need the ability to fantasize to build desire? Or vice versa?
The reason why I’m thinking about these words is because I’ve been working on some writing regarding the bible’s take on desire. Fantasy, per se, [...]
March 23, 2009
Pastor Health Conference Recap
On Friday, Biblical Seminary hosted the first of what I hope to be many “Pastoring though Church Challenges” conference for pastors. We had a nice 75 or so ministry leaders here to hear plenaries and breakouts regarding specific church challenges and opportunities/challenges to their spiritual and emotional lives.
Everything went just about as smoothly as could [...]
March 20, 2009
Physiology Phriday: Repetitive thoughts?
Have you ever been tortured by a repetitive word, sound, phrase, song, or the like run through your head? Does it happen only during the day? At night when you wake up?
In psychological studies, there are a number of ways people talk about these experiences. Sometimes folks talk about intrusive thoughts/imagery, but this is usually in the context [...]
March 19, 2009
What if a negative person followed you around all day?
Tomorrow I’m posting about the problem of repetitive thoughts. Was talking in supervision, today, about the problem and my eminently wise supervisor suggested that one of the issues about repetitive thoughts is that we forget that they aren’t reality and so we listen to them. Actually, she said it much nicer but that is the best I [...]
March 18, 2009
How often do you change your look?
I know a certain famous speaker/counselor who looks different every time I see him. Long hair, shorter hair, big mustache, no mustache. His clothes are always changing too–usually in rather hip duds. He seems comfortable with personal change.
I, on the other hand, do not. I like sitting in the same section at church or a [...]
