CollegeLife

What comes to mind when you think of psychology, and how it relates to Christianity? Do college classes/cultures fully explain our behavior in words? Well, yesterday in College Life Kevin Huggins explained how psychology has formulated throughout the past decades and “How Psychological Models View the Human Soul.”Psychology is an ever-changing topic with the interval of theories being about twenty years because new theories are determined to find the force behind human behavior. The past decades of Psychology can be broken up into four groups:

• First Force Psychology or Psychodynamic Psychotherapy thought that the primary force behind human behavior was unconsciousness drives in a person’s soul. Some subgroups that fall within the First Force are: Psychoanalytical, Transactional Analysis, and Neo-Freudian. (During the 1950’s)
• Second Force Psychology or Behavorial Psychotherapy thought that the primary force behind human behavior was a person’s present environment. Groups that fall within this category are: Behavorial, Multimodal, Systemic, and Feminist. (During the 1960’s and 1970’s)
• Third Force Psychology or Humanistic Psychotherapy thought that the primary force behind human behavior was human choice. Person-Centered, Reality, Gestalt, and Narrative were some subgroups of the third force. (During the 1980’s and 1990’s)
• Fourth Force Psychology or Postmodern Psychotherapy thinks that the primary force behind human behavior is spiritual calling. The three subgroups are Empirical or Outcome-based Psychotherapy, Integrative, and Tanspersonal. (In our culture today)

With psychological theories ever changing, the one theory that truly answers the nature of our human soul and behavior is the Biblical Counseling Theory. This theory explains that all souls share a nature by dependency-on resources that only God can provide, duty-to serve the God who created them, dignity-to choose their own behavior/character, and depravity-that compels them to advance their own interest at the expense of God and others.

So after diving into psychology, what is your view of it? Does the Biblical model of the soul overcome the four models viewed over the years?

In other news, this is a reminder of the study of Hebrews tomorrow night at Greenbrier 7pm. After Tuesday Nights, you are all welcome to come out to the Chick-fil-A (on Kingston Pike). It’s going to be way cool!