What is nouthetic counseling?

Counselor is to do their best to listen and give their full attention to the other person. It is not a discussion; the aim is to support the person in the client role to work through their own issues in a mainly self-directed way.

Co-counseling was originally formulated in the early 1950s by the American Harvey Jackins and originated in a schism in the Dianetics movement (itself in part derived from schisms in General Semantics and Cybernetics) [1]).[2] Jackins founded the Re-evaluation Counseling (RC) Communities, with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States. His son, Tim Jackins, is currently the international leader of Re-evaluation Counseling and its main affiliates.

There are a number of smaller, separate, independent organizations that have resulted from breakaways from, or re-workings of, Re-evaluation Counseling. The principal one of these is Co-Counseling International (CCI).

Nouthetic counseling is also called as biblical counseling. It is derived from the Greek word noutheteo which is loosely translated to “admonish” as found in Romans 15:14. Nouthetic counseling is the normal method of counseling before secular psychology was invented in the early 1900s. In this kind of counseling, it is strongly based on the Word of God alone and ultimately rejects the assumption that humankind can discover truth aside from the Bible.

Noutheteo counseling is different from secular psychology and Christian counseling because the former rejects faith and the Bible as a whole while the latter is based on the Word of God and a little part of secular psychology, as well. For it to be called noutheteo counseling, the approach should be based solely in the Bible, Christ, and the church as mentioned in Timothy 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 1:3-4.