Competent to Counsel by Jay E. Adams

Seldom has a book written for pastors, Christian workers, and laypersons received such widespread attention and such avid readership as Competent to Counsel. First published in 1971, the book has been reprinted more than thirty times. It has assumed the role of a classic in the field of Christian counseling. The refreshingly new approach to counseling advocated in Competent to Counsel, now firmly established as nouthetic counseling (from the Greek word noutheteo, to admonish, warn, instruct), obviously was a method of counseling sought by many who may have suspected that secular counseling techniques were not only antithetical to biblical truth but also amazingly barren and ineffective. Adams' thoroughly scriptural approach offered a welcome escape from the deeply worn ruts of secular psychiatry. Competent to Counsel is the seedplot from which numerous other publications by Adams have emerged. To understand why his books are so avidly read by so many Christians, and why thousands of Christians have found nouthetic counseling so satisfying, one must go back to Competent to Counsel. There Adams exposed the nature of Freudian and Rogerian techniques and delineated what he coined nouthetic counseling. Of note, too, is Adams' early insistence that all Christians can become competent counselors.