2009 - 2010 Academic Catalog - Westminster Theological Seminary

{Course Descriptions}
Practical Theology – Counseling
2009–2010
Counseling
PTC 151 Dynamics of Biblical Change
Purpose:
• To build a firsthand understanding of the
progressive sanctification process
• To enable students to connect biblical truth to the
case study realities and details of lives lived
Topics covered include the nature of idolatry and faith; the relationship
between motive and action; the way Christ’s past, present,
and future grace intersects with and affects how people live their
daily lives; and the interplay of suffering and other situational factors
with a person’s actions and reactions.
Fall semester, three hours. Staff.
PTC 178 Helping Relationships
Purpose:
• To help students develop a functional
biblical counseling worldview
• To help students understand the importance of
heart change as a methodological goal
• To develop an understanding of the role
of Scripture in biblical counseling
• To highlight and practice the critical skills for
effectiveness in biblical counseling
Topics covered include how to build a counseling relationship, how
to gather and interpret data, how to function as an agent of repentance,
and how to guide and assist others as they seek to apply
change to daily life.
Spring semester, three hours. Mr. Welch.
PTC 221 Counseling & Physiology
Purpose:
• To equip with a nuanced and practical biblical
anthropology that will help distinguish between spiritual
and physical issues in the lives of counselees
• To deepen understanding of a select group of acute and
chronic problems having physiological manifestations,
particularly those that affect intellect and mood
• To develop biblical strategies for pursuing
counselees with such problems
• To sharpen abilities to critique the reigning presuppositions
of biological psychiatry that serve to undermine
Scripture’s authority in the counseling process
Topics covered include biblical anthropology and its counseling
implications on neuropsychology, psychopharmacology, dementia,
traumatic brain injury, psychiatry, obsessive-compulsive disorder,
panic attacks and hallucinations, attention deficit disorder, addiction,
homosexuality, and autism.
Fall semester, two hours. Mr. Emlet.
PTC 243 Theology and Secular Psychology
Purpose:
• To teach students how to understand psychologists’
observations, theories, and practices, and how to
engage them critically, humbly, and lovingly
• To reinterpret through a redemptive gaze the things that
psychologists see most clearly and care about most deeply
• To understand where biblical counseling fits in our
cultural context, both within the evangelical church
and within the surrounding mental health system
Topics covered include the skills of reinterpretation and redemptive
interaction; historical overview of the biblical counseling and
the evangelical psychotherapy movements; the lay of the land
in contemporary counseling; assessment of motivation theories
and self-esteem theory; and primary source readings from a half
dozen representative psychologists, ranging from high culture to
self-help.
Spring semester, three hours. Mr. Powlison.
PTC 251 Marriage Counseling
Purpose:
• To help students develop a rich, biblical-theological
view of marriage and relationships that challenges
popular goals for marriage/relationship counseling
and provides powerful hope and direction
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