A Summary and Critique of the Contributions of Larry Crabb

A Summary and Critique of the Contributions of Larry Crabb

By Henry A. Virkler, Ph.D.. Professor of Counseling (Now retired)

Palm Beach Atlantic University

Revised September 2023

I. Background

A. Earned a B.A. in psychology from Ursinus College.

B. Received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Illinois.

C. First served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois.

D. Next served as Director of the Counseling Center at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.

E. Spent several years in private practice in Boca Raton.

F. Then spent several years as Chairman of the Department of Counseling at Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana.

G. Served as Chair or has taught in the Counseling Program at Colorado Christian University for 14 years. He resigned as Chair in May 1996 but continued to teach there.

H. He has written more than 25 books. (Explanation: Some books have two publication dates. Usually the first is for the hardback edition and the second is for the softcover).

1. Basic Principles of Biblical Counseling (hereafter abbreviated as BP) (1975, 1991).

2. Effective Biblical Counseling (abbreviated as EBC) (1977, 1986).

3. The Marriage Builder (MB) (1982, 1992).

4. How to Become One with Your Mate (1986).

5. Encouragement: The Key to Caring (ENC) (1986, 1990).

6. Understanding People: Deep Longings for Relationship (UP) (1987).

7. Inside Out (IO) (1988).

8. Men and Women: Enjoying the Difference (M&W) (1991, 1993).

9. How to Deal with Anger (1991).

10. God of My Father (Father) (1993).

11. Finding God (FG) (1993, 1995).

12. Hope When You’re Hurting (Hope) (1996, 1999).

13. Outside In (1997).

14. Understanding Who You Are: What Your Relationships Tell You About Yourself (Who) (1997).

15. Connecting: Healing for Ourselves and Our Relationships (Connecting) (1997).

16. The Silence of Adam: Becoming a Man of Courage in a World of Chaos (1998). With 2 coauthors.

17. The Safest Place on Earth: Where People Connect and Are Changed Forever (1999).

18. Bring Home the Joy: Best-Selling Authors Share the Secrets of Adding Enjoyment and Vitality to Your Marriage (Larry Crabb et. al., May, 2000).

I. Dr. Crabb went to his eternal reward on February 28, 2021 at the age of 77

II. Historical Progression in Crabb’s theorizing: Crabb was a very creative, prolific writer and theoretician. In reviewing the development of his thinking, I believe three identifiable stages can be seen as of this point in time: Crabb’s attitude in certain key areas appear to have changed during these three stages. I believe it will be easier to understand the more thorough analysis of his theory that follows if we discuss some of those key areas briefly in this introduction (documentation of some of these points will be given later in the outline so as not to obscure the initial statement of these trends).

A. Attitude toward the solvability of many of life’s problems

1. In his earlier writings Crabb seemed to portray the idea that people who were well-trained in Scripture and in counseling techniques could help Christian clients solve many of the problems that they face.

2. In the second stage of his writings it seems that he had changed his mind in this regard, and taught that we may need to change our beliefs about the solvability of many of life’s problems. Some problems may need to be accepted and lived with rather than solved. Following are two quotes (out of many which could be given), that exemplify this view:

a. “People can be divided into two groups: those who think that life works (or could work if certain principles were followed), and those who know it doesn’t . . . . The difficult conclusion that honest people eventually reach is that only some of life works that way. An even more difficult conclusion is that it’s often the most important parts that don’t . . . . [According to this first group] people suffering from depression should [after counseling] feel happy again. And sometimes they do. But not always. Not even most of the time” (Hope, pp. 23-25).

b. “Our struggles come in two categories: Either we struggle to manage what can be managed (like a stalled car or a warm refrigerator); or we struggle, foolishly, to manage what can never be managed (like an angry wife or a sullen teenager) . . . . The fundamental problems of our existence, the problems that really matter, fall into this second category, problems like unhappiness, family breakups, suicide, loneliness, and rebellious kids. Most of the concerns we bring to friends, pastors, and counselors—uniquely human concerns—cannot be figured out and repaired” (Hope, pp. 33-34).

3. In the third stage of his writing (Connecting, and The Safest Place on Earth) this attitude (that many of life’s most important problems have to be accepted rather than solved) continues, although it does not seem to be quite as pronounced as in the second stage of his writing.

B. Attitude toward integration of psychology and theology

1. In the first two stages of his theorizing Crabb was an advocate of integrating psychology and theology, always giving priority to Scripture as the source of truth but using psychological insights that were compatible with Scripture. He called this “spoiling the Egyptians,” after the biblical story of the Israelites who received the donations from the Egyptians as they left for the land of Palestine and used those donations for a new purpose–to furnish the Tabernacle of God.

2. In these first two stages Crabb rejected two approaches sometimes taken by Christian or biblical counselors:

a. Crabb asserted that “if properly approached, the Bible is sufficient to provide a framework (italics mine) for thinking through every question a counselor needs to ask” (UP, 21). He doesn’t mean that there is a verse in the Bible that specifically addresses every counseling issue, but that the Bible gives enough instruction to provide a conceptual framework to understand and deal therapeutically with every non-organically-caused psychological problem.

b. He stated: “The Bible is sufficient to answer every question about life, but not because it directly responds to every legitimate question. The idea of biblical sufficiency for counseling rests on the assumption that biblical data support doctrinal categories which have implications that comprehensively deal with every relational issue of life” (UP, 63).

2. In his latest book (The Safest Place on Earth) Crabb appears to be rejecting an integrative approach. Here is a sampling of his statements: “For guiding the church in providing soul care, I grant neither an authoritative nor a supplemental role to the discipline of psychology (p. 7) . . . “I believe in the Bible’s authority and sufficiency for the work of counseling. . . An integration model denies, if not biblical authority, at least biblical sufficiency” (p. 8).

3. Continuing a little later he disagrees with the idea of integration when conceptualizing why people experience problems. “For years, I worked hard as a counselor, trying to figure people out. Why has this teenage girl stopped eating? What is the relationship of early abuse to a current struggle with multiple personalities? Could my client’s sexual addiction have grown out of a poor relationship with his father that made him feel inadequate to relate to his wife in a sexually mature way? And what can I do about it? What’s the most effective treatment I can render as a paid professional?

“Those are the questions most counselors ask. They may be the wrong ones. I think they are” (p. 55).

B. Attitude toward what causes people to have problems in living

1. In the first stage and first half of his second stage Crabb used traditional psychological theorizing and techniques to understand why people were experiencing problems and how to best respond to them as counselors (see above quote).

2. In a rather dramatic about-face Crabb now asserts that psychopathology should not be understood primarily in terms of damaged psyches that need expert attention, but of disconnected persons who are desperately lonely for deep, accepting, relationships.

3. “Beneath what our culture calls psychological disorder is a soul crying out for what only community can provide. There is no ‘disorder’ requiring ‘treatment.’ . . . We must do something other than train professional experts to fix damaged psyches. Damaged psyches aren’t the problem. The problem beneath our struggles is a disconnected soul” (Connecting, p. xvi. Italics in the original).

4. In The Safest Place on Earth he cites with approval from the book Successful Psychotherapy: A Caring, Loving Relationship by C. H. Patterson and Suzanne Hidore the idea that counselors “should abandon all hope of identifying specific diagnosable disorders and coming up with specific technical treatment plans. They should instead focus on one simple yet profound idea—that the essence of all successful psychotherapy is love” (p. 48).

C. Attitude toward professional Christian counseling and counselors

1. For many years Crabb has been involved in training Christian counselors.

2. However, in his three most recent books (Hope When You’re Hurting, Connecting and The Safest Place on Earth) he has raised significant questions about the role of professional Christian counseling and counselors.

3. For example, in Hope When You’re Hurting Crabb asserts that the majority of people who need healing do not need the expertise of professional counselors, but could receive that help within the body of Christ, if elders (mature Christian men and women) could be taught that people need deep, honest relationships, and those elders could be encouraged to help people accomplish the goal of establishing such relationships (p. 138, 169).

4. Crabb does not believe that most churches and church elders are doing that effectively now, but he believes they could, and they should be trained to be able to do so. He devoted much of his time in his later years to encouraging this to happen.

5. At times he even seemed to be saying that counseling by Christian elders would be more effective than counseling done by Christian mental health professionals (e.g., “I believe the church can become a healing community with more power to do good in troubled peoples’ lives than can ever be available in a counseling center” Hope, p. 169).

6. In The Safest Place on Earth he goes even further, saying: “I am having a hard time coming up with a reason to train psychotherapists or counselors. The master’s counseling program where I teach has largely shifted to a spiritual formation model of personal change. Our focus is on developing students into spiritual friends and spiritual directors” (p. 48).

7. “I have taught graduate counseling for nearly twenty years. My earnest conviction is that we would do well to discard the vocabulary of professionalism, to no longer speak of patients, diagnosis, treatment, and psychotherapy. The very same concerns would be better and more powerfully addressed if instead we talked about souls disconnected from God, themselves, and others; about soul care and soul cure; about spiritual discernment into the workings of Flesh Dynamics and Spirit Dynamics; about spiritual friendship and spiritual direction” (Safest Place, p. 181).

D. The purpose of including these ideas in the introduction is to say that in order to accurately understand Crabb’s theory we must understand these shifts in Crabb’s thinking over time.

III. Theory of Structure

A. Ontologically Crabb was a dichotomist: he said he is not a "physicalistic reductionist." He believed that there are intangible parts of a person, such as thinking and feeling, that are not reducible to our physical body.

B. Functionally some of his statements sounded more compatible with holism (See for example, Effective Biblical Counseling (EBC), pp. 87-88)

C. Note: The following concepts could be considered either personality structures (and therefore would belong in this section) or could be considered personality processes (and therefore would be considered in one of the following sections).

D. Nous: the conscious mind. The part of a person that makes conscious evaluations including moral judgments (EBC, p. 90).

E. Phronema: the unconscious mind. That part of the personality which develops and holds on to deep, reflective assumptions. The reservoir of basic assumptions which people firmly and emotionally hold about how to meet their deep longings for significance and security.

F. We have two sources of input: (1) God through the Bible, and (2) Satan through our unconscious minds.

G. Kardia: heart. The basic direction of a person's life. The heart represents a person's fundamental intentions. For whom or what do I choose to live?

H. Boule and thelema: will. The capacity to choose. As I read Crabb, there seemed to be some change in emphasis over the years. His earliest books seemed to agree with the Adlerian notion that the will is not free but is determined by what we believe (soft determinism). His next few books seemed to emphasize more strongly our responsibility for our choices. His last few books seem to have a pessimism about how successful we can be in conquering our sin nature, even when we depend on God to help us do so, although they continue to emphasize personal responsibility.

I. Splagchnon: emotions. The capacity for feelings. Any feeling that is mutually exclusive of compassion involves sin.

1. Wrong emotions are described in EBC, pp. 104-105.

2. Wrong negative emotions can be traced to a wrong assumption about how personal needs can be met.

3. Guilt: comes from believing that what God provides is not enough and then going outside God's will to secure it.

4. Resentment: comes from believing that the fulfilment of our needs is threatened by something that God has allowed to happen to us.

5. Anxiety: fear that God will not supply something we need (EBC, pp. 105-106).

IV. Theory of Motivation

A. Crabb’s early theorizing: Five basic propositions about motivation (EBC, p. 76).

1. Motivation depends on a having a deficit in our lives.

2. We are motivated to do certain things because we are convinced that those behaviors will cause our need to be met.

3. We believe that some thing will meet our need. That thing becomes our goal.

4. When we conclude that a goal cannot be reached we experience negative emotions.

5. All behavior is motivated. All behavior makes sense if we understand the person's goal and his beliefs about how best to reach that goal.

B. Two basic needs (Crabb now prefers the phrase “deepest personal longings”)

1. Significance: a realization that I am engaged in a responsibility or job that is truly important, whose results will not evaporate with time, but will last through eternity.

2. Security: a convinced awareness of being unconditionally and totally loved without needing to change in order to win love. Loved by a love that is freely given, that cannot be earned and therefore cannot be lost.

3. This kind of security can only come from God's love. This kind of significance can only come from being involved in God's kingdom.

C. Romans 1 and human needs (EBC, p. 72) (This diagram doesn’t transfer accurately into substack format. See the book for a more accurate rendering.)

Basic human needs can be met only by God

Significance

Security

Without God the highest needs which can be met

Power

Pleasure

Inevitable long-term consequences of a life without God

Violence

Immorality

D. Drawing from Maslow’s theory, Crabb believed that self-actualization is the only stage that is not ego-centric, the only stage that does not operate from deficit motivation, the only thing that produces something close to Christian maturity, EBC, p. 80.

E. As Christians we should move through the bottom four stages of Maslow’s hierarchy on "wheels of faith." We should always operate from a position of fullness, not from deficit motivation. Motivation that comes out of fullness is worship and service. Crabb called this Expression Motivation (in contrast to deficit motivation).

F. If personal needs can only be met fully in a personal God, then only a Christian can reach the stage of self-actualization.

G. Important note: The above is Crabb’s first phase. He later repudiated this model (e.g., “I reject a need-centered, anthropocentric understanding of human nature” The Safest Place on Earth, p. 7). The following four-circle model is an emphasis of Crabb’s second stage in his theorizing.

H. Humans are made in the image of God. Crabb describes a four-circle model of human beings (UP, 114-189). [ See next page for visual diagram.]

1. Since we are made in the image of God, it follows that we must be like God in certain ways.

2. Humans resemble God in four significant ways. These four ways are symbolized by circles, each with an inner and outer ring. The outer ring represents a capacity, and the inner circle represents how fully we have developed that capacity. (These four circles represent motivational processes, not structures.)

(This diagram won’t transfer into substack format. See the book for a more accurate rendering, although it you don’t have access to the book you can draw a diagram with four circles, each with an outer circle that represents our capacity to have the capacity for each of those features, and an inner circle that represents how much we have developed that capacity.)

3. Personal circle: symbolizes our capacity or need for love (security) and meaning (significance).

4. Rational circle: represents our capacity to think and process information.

5. Volitional circle: represents our goals.

6. Emotional circle: represents our feelings.

7. Note: Understanding these four circles is crucial to accurately understanding Crabb’s middle stage of his theory of motivation, individual differences, health, pathology, and counseling. Therefore, make sure you understand the four-circle diagram (and the meaning of the inner and outer circles) well.

I. Third stage of Crabb’s theory of motivation: In his latest books Crabb said we Christians have the potential to live in either of two rooms (Safest Place on Earth, pp. 61-65, 69, 83, 87,89, 106, 110, 114, 129).

1. The Lower Room: This is the room that we design ourselves, representing our lower nature. It is the room where we have learned how to meet our psychological and other needs through our own efforts. We are stubborn independents, determined to manage our own lives and meet our own needs (i.e. to self-actualize using our own resources). “The passion coming from the Lower Room is to feel good quickly, to manipulate life’s circumstances to maximize our experience of pleasure and to minimize the pain” (p. 138). People living in this room see no value in brokenness nor in trusting God to meet their needs. The Bible calls this the flesh. Since we live as if we must meet our needs, we attempt to control others so that we are able to make this happen. Since we are the only ones to protect ourselves, we spend much energy in self-protective strategies. We try to do well in order to receive acceptance from others.

2. The Upper Room: This is the room that Christ gives to those who ask him. [For the non-believer, the room is there (i.e., one’s eternal soul) but “the electricity has not yet been hooked up.”]. When we live in the Upper Room we rest in God’s grace. We don’t have to prove our worthwhileness or acceptability because this is already provided in God. We no longer have to strive—we only have to accept and receive God’s grace. We enjoy worshiping and praising God. We enjoy seeing others grow. We do not have to try to control others or protect ourselves from them, since our needs for acceptance and significance are met in Christ. We have a passion to obey because of the acceptance we have experienced in Christ. Psalm 27:4 typifies our lives (“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”).

V. Theory of Development

A. In his early books (first stage) Crabb borrowed heavily from Adlerian and cognitive psychology

B. Elements of Adlerian psychology borrowed (these are ideas of Adler’s which Crabb appeared to accept and build upon, even though he did not explicitly verbalize each of them):

1. All behavior is motivated by the goals a child chooses (often unconsciously)

2. Every child wants to be viewed as a unique individual

3. Children will find positive ways of being viewed as unique if this behavior is encouraged.

4. If a child sees no positive ways of achieving a unique identity (e.g., if all the positive roles appear to be taken by other siblings, or if parents are threatened by the child's progress, and directly or indirectly discourage it), the child will attempt to achieve a unique identity through misbehavior.

5. Children seek to meet their needs for significance and security either through good behavior or misbehavior

6. A "guiding fiction" is a wrong assumption about how to meet our needs. This wrong assumption produces our unhealthy behavior.

C. Cognitive psychology suggests that the wrong assumptions we make at an unconscious level determine the wrong statements we say to ourselves at a preconscious or conscious level.

D. Adler believed that children can make both healthy and unhealthy assumptions about how to meet their needs for significance and security. Crabb would say that unless the assumption states that our relationship with God is the source of our significance and security, it is not fully healthy and is ultimately destined to collapse.

E. Development of a Fool (where foolishness is defined as the conviction that we can meet our needs for security and significance without God)

Age Stage

0-1 Stage of Naive Foolishness

2-5 Stage of Learned Foolishness

6-12 Stage of Practiced Foolishness

13-18 Stage of Disappointed Foolishness

19-30 Stage of Rearranged Foolishness

31-65 Stage of Stable Foolishness

F. Development of a Fool ties in with Crabb’s newer concept of “living in one’s Lower Room.” As long as one is living in one’s Lower Room, one is at one of the above developmental stages of Foolishness.

G. Crabb in his more recent theorizing moved from a psychological model of development to more of a “communitarian model,” i.e., that people cannot develop in optimal ways unless they (1) give up the effort to be the center of their lives and let God become center, (2) allow a community of other believers to encourage them to live in the Upper rather than Lower Room, and (3) are surrounded by close friends (spiritual friends and spiritual directors) who can envision what their Upper Room looks like, and can encourage them to live there.

VI. Theory of Individual Differences

A. Crabb does not speak to this issue at length, at least in his earlier books (one page B, p.87) separately from his theory of development

B. Probably if asked, he would say that genetic materials determine our potentials and our predispositions.

C. Secondly, interacting with our genetically-influenced potentials and predispositions is the degree to which we are operating from four full circles. (The degree to which we are operating from four full circles is significantly affected by the degree to which we have allowed sin to affect our thinking, so our sin nature is an important factor.)

D. Based on his latest theorizing we would also add the factor of the amount of time one spends in their Lower versus Upper Rooms.

E. Therefore it is plausible to assume, based on his writings, that Crabb would say that individuals differ from each other because of the individual combination of their genes, their history, their sin nature, the degree to which they are operating from four full circles, and the relative amount of time they are living in their Lower versus Upper Rooms.

VII. Theory of Health: Four Full Circles, Living in the Upper Room (UP, 114-212, esp. 125-129, 193-212)

A. Maturity is godliness. Much that passes for counseling never makes a significant change in people’s character, i.e., never moves them toward godliness.

B. Crabb differentiates himself from secular or Christian therapists who believe that self-esteem is something we should nurture. Self-esteem is a weed to be pulled out rather than a fragile flower to nourish. We (as Christian counselors) shouldn’t encourage the development of self-esteem because it has self at the center. Self-esteem is Lower Room activity—the determination to manage life with resources we can control (Safest Place, pp. 135-137).

C. A full personal circle: Being fully convinced that we are unconditionally and totally loved, and this love cannot be lost. Being fully convinced that we are deeply loved and accepted by God and are playing a truly significant role in His plan. Deeply enjoying God.

D. A full rational circle: The ability to think clearly, and a full recognition that our longings for relationship and impact can only be met in God. “Believing that life is in Christ and is in no way available through our own or other’s resources. Regarding ourselves as entirely unworthy of being loved or used by God, but realizing our dignity as image-bearers by accepting His love and cooperating with His purposes” UP, 199.

E. A full volitional circle: A full awareness that everything we do is a choice, leading to the ability to choose how we will act and react.

F. A full emotional circle: The ability to be accurately aware of all of our feelings, and to experience the full range of feelings that God has created within us.

G. A sense of timing and discretion as we interact with others, especially about areas of conflict.

H. Marred joy. A recognition that sins causes much of human life to not be all it could be, and a willingness to wait for eternity for all things to be right. There is an increasing emphasis on the pain that is in the Christian life in books such as Inside Out, Hope When You’re Hurting and Finding God.

I. Not being afraid of confusion as we struggle to understand complex issues. Realizing that temporary confusion is often a necessary part of the process of understanding complex issues and situations more deeply. Refusing to move to premature closure to avoid that confusion.

J. A recognition that we sometimes fail.

K. An acceptance of the fact that painful emotions are part of this life at times.

L. A deepening awareness of how sin pervades almost all of our thoughts, goals and behaviors. A growing awareness of our imperfection.

M. A growing awareness of our dependency on Christ.

N. A willingness to abandon self-protective ways of dealing with other people.

O. Living in one’s Upper Room.

P. Being open to other believers, encouraging them to live in their Upper Room and being likewise encouraged by them to do the same.

VIII. Theory of Pathology

A. Biological factors: Crabb recognizes that some psychological problems have a biological etiology (e.g., some depressions and other affective disorders; pathology based on physical lesions, degenerative diseases, learning disabilities, drug-induced psychoses, etc. He recognizes that medication can sometimes bring symptomatic relief, but seems to be suggesting that long term relief only comes when we change our thinking, live in close relationships, and accept the fact that continuing pain, including emotional pain, may be our lot as long as we live in temporal bodies.)

B. Early Crabb: Diagram of how "well-adjusted" people operate

Start Here

Vague sense of emptiness

v v v

Personal Needs

v v v

Motivation

€

Partial temporary satisfaction

C. Some "well-adjusted" people reach all their goals only to find those goals do not truly satisfy. This may lead to existential despair and in extreme cases even to suicide.

Suicide Vague sense of emptiness v Personal Needs v Motivation

€ €

€ Partial temporary satisfaction Basic assumption

€ €

Existential w w Goal w w w w w Goal-oriented behavior

Despair

D. Abnormal development leading to a psychological disorder (EBC, p. 136).

E. Middle Crabb: Psychopathology as Conceptualized By the Four-Circle Diagram

1. Personal Circle (deep longings for relationship and impact): Pathology can be a result of not feeling secure in one’s relationships, not feeling significant, or both.

2. Rational Circle (images and beliefs about how to best meet our longings for relationship and impact). Pathology can be the result of wrong beliefs or images about how to meet one’s needs for significance and security.

3. Volitional Circle. Pathology may be the result of not recognizing the unconscious beliefs that motivate our behavior, therefore not recognizing these behaviors are a choice.

4. Emotional Circle. Pathology may be the result of not being in touch with the full array of human feelings, or not being in touch with one’s feelings in the moment.

F. The Relative Importance of Sin Versus Psychopathology in Producing Personal Problems

1. In this second phase (e.g., M&W, 1991) Crabb seemed to be moving in the direction of saying that personal sin (the almost automatic desire to put our own needs as the center of the universe) is a much more serious problem than the psychopathology that comes from wounds inflicted by others.

2. To become healthy, Christians must become aware of how self-interest motivates (either consciously or, more frequently, unconsciously) our every thought, emotion and action. We need to be aware of our constant need of forgiveness for our self-centeredness, and be constantly striving to become more other-centered.

3. This is not to be a legalistic attempt to conform to external rules, but a heart-felt recognition of our self-centeredness, a confession of it, a recognition of our daily need for forgiveness, and a daily willingness to move toward other-centeredness.

G. Recent Crabb:

1. Sickness comes from living out of our lower room (trying to meet our needs through our own human striving rather than resting in the sufficiency of Christ found in our Upper Room).

2. We may also experience sickness when our Upper Room is contaminated by Lower Room intrusions, so that we think we are in our Upper Room, but some factors from our Lower Room are present.

3. Sickness also comes from being disconnected from others—living in a state of isolation rather than community.

IX. Theory of Counseling

A. Early Crabb: Counseling must focus on building a relationship

B. Using a confrontational approach with all people is questionable biblically and psychologically. (This was probably a response to Jay Adams and nouthetic counseling.)

C. The counseling approach must be individualized to a person's temperament and needs.

D. Use biblical concepts and psychological theory to understand what is wrong and develop a treatment plan.

E. Early and Middle Crabb: Steps [Relate these steps to the visual diagram (Early Crabb) and to the four-circle diagram (middle Crabb)]

1. Help clients get in touch with their true feelings (clients automatically want to start there). In the four-circle diagram, this is the emotional circle.

2. Help them become aware of the blocked goals that are causing those feelings (those goals are caused by our convictions about what we need to have in order to feel happy—the rational circle).

3. Help them become aware of wrong convictions and personal circle pain (personal circle) by:

a. Clarify biblical thinking (revising the content of the rational circle)

b Secure a commitment to act on the basis of the new assumptions (volitional circle)

c. Plan and carry out biblical behavior (volitional circle)

d. Identify Spirit-controlled feelings (emotional circle, personal circle)

F. Chart: EBC, p. 160

Identify problem feeling Identify Spirit-controlled feelings

€

Identify problem behavior Plan and carry out biblical behavior

€

Identify problem thinking Secure commitment to change

€

Clarify biblical thinking

€

v TEACH v v

G. Most recent Crabb: Do not try to analyze a problem using psychological theory. Do not attempt to develop a treatment plan. Do not diagnose. Instead, listen passionately. Envision what each person’s Upper Room response would look like. Pray that God would help them become all He wants them to be.

H. “Soul care requires two kinds of relationships: spiritual friendship and spiritual direction. Both exist only as part of a spiritual community. Neither is common in the Western church . . . “Rather than thinking in terms of therapists, counselors, pastoral counselors, and lay counselors, I propose thinking of a spiritual community as providing two kinds of relationships: spiritual friendship, which exists among spiritually minded peers who share their lives together, and spiritual direction, which takes place when time is specially set aside for one person to present his or her life to a respected (not always familiar) person who agrees to listen, pray, think, and speak, preferably without pay” (pp. 9-10).

I. Note that Crabb differentiates his approach from pastoral counseling and lay counseling. Counseling by pastors tends to be oriented toward one of three things: (1) answering a theological question, (2) preparing for an event (e.g., a wedding or a funeral), or (3) dealing with a specific problem. It tends to use biblical data and common-sense advice-giving as primary ingredients.

J. Lay counseling tends to be oriented toward problem solving. Depending on context, it may emphasize either brief training in psychological problem solving or in biblical problem solving, or a combination of the two.

K. Crabb differentiates his approach from either of the above, saying that what we need are spiritual friends and spiritual directors. Here is his description of spiritual direction: “In my view, spiritual counseling (or spiritual direction) does everything we now assume can only be done in psychotherapy. It probes the darkness of our deceived and defensive hearts (the Lower Room). It looks for life that has survived terrible assaults (the Upper Room). It enters the depths of pain and agony (the groaning of Rom. 8). And it provides an opportunity to relate in ways that heal (the stimulating toward love and good deeds of Heb. 10:24). . . . “The phrase ‘spiritual direction’ carries some baggage. I don’t use the term to imply that a director has the authority to tell someone else what to do. I refer, rather, to a mature saint called to serve others by pointing the way to God” (Safest Place, pp. 180-181).

X. Therapeutic Techniques

A. Early and middle Crabb

1. Primary level empathy

2. Additive empathy

3. Paraphrasing

4. Questions

5. Teaching

6. Confronting

7. Early recollections

8. Analyzing

9. Cognitive analysis

10. Thought stopping

11. Thought replacement

12. Scripture memory

13. Commitment to behavioral change

14. Exhorting

15. Be able to use the above to do the following:

a. Elicit significant personal events that led the person to develop convictions (e.g., Early recollections)

b. Identify what the client’s four-circle response presently is

c. Identify a biblical four-circle response

d. Help people move from (b) to (c)

16. A full personal circle is one in which the person is persuaded of his worth in Christ to the point where his motivation for life is rooted fundamentally in his love relationship to God.

B. Recent Crabb

1. Crabb states that he now rejects counseling theory and techniques coming from psychology (see quotes in Section II of this handout from Safest Place, p. 7, 8, and 55).

2. He is not very specific about how the church community should carry on its healing role. He says at the beginning of his latest book: “I’m confused about the exact kind of relationship that heals someone’s soul and about how it does work”(p. 6).

3. Later on in that book he attempts to be more specific: “A safe community where souls can rest, love, and heal is a community where people look at one another and are stirred by the Spirit to experience holy passions.

“How do we manage that? We don’t. We become mystics. We put ourselves in the humble position of dependence and let God do it.

“But what does that mean? There still is something for us to do. What is it? As I use the term, mysticism involves neither an emphasis on experience that minimizes the essential value of thought-through, rationally presented truth nor a special interior intensity reserved only for the more ethereal, less practical, and strange saints among us. A plumber fixing toilets and a monk at prayer can equally be mystics.

“Perhaps an attempt at definition will help: Mysticism is the felt arousal of spiritual passions within the regenerate heart, passions that can have no existence apart from a Spirit-revealed knowledge of truth and the promptings of the same Spirit to enjoy that truth.

“The difficulty, or course, is that we’re either managers or bad mystics. We tend to feel all the wrong passions (p. 146).

4. He also says that very few churches have anything approaching the kind of community that he believes will bring healing (p. xiv).

5. His general thought is that people will only receive soul-healing if they are in a community that is worshiping together, where there is the freedom to be lovingly authentic, where they are all envisioning the potential each other has for Upper Room living, and where they are encouraging each other to this kind of living.

6. Crabb also believes that spiritual formation (i.e., forming the life of Christ within us) is primarily a work of the Holy Spirit, rather than something that individuals do to themselves (Safest Place, pp. 125-126.)

Some Thoughts About Larry Crabb’s Biblical Counseling

Introduction

The late Larry Crabb, through the twenty-five books related to counseling he has published, has been an example of a theoretician who holds a high view of Scripture and who believes that Scriptural truth must always be given priority over psychological theorizing. He also understands psychology and the counseling process accurately, and he tries to integrate the valid insights from psychology with the truths of Scripture. He has done an enormous amount of good through his books and seminars. He has also championed the idea that the term “biblical counseling” does not need to be restricted to those who use a nouthetic approach, i.e., that there are other Christian counseling approaches that can validly claim the title “biblical counseling.” Any criticisms listed below should be understood as relatively minor in comparison with the significant contributions I believe he has made to developing a comprehensive Christian counseling theory.

Foundational Premises

+ Crabb’s idea that Scripture can provide a framework that has relevance for understanding every counseling issue.

+ His rejection of the idea that there is a specific verse and complete therapeutic strategy to be found in Scripture for every counseling problem.

+ Crabb’s rejection of the idea that if there is not a specific verse found to deal with a particular counseling problem, it is not a valid counseling issue.

I. Theory of Structure

+ Call humans “fallen image-bearers.” This phrase captures both positive tendencies within humans (we are “image-bearers”) along with a recognition of our tendency toward sin (fallen).

+ Crabb’s definitions of various Greek words regarding human personality functioning are basically compatible with the definitions of these words found in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (a multi-volume dictionary of NT Greek words).

+ Crabb attempts to relate biblical terms to contemporary psychological language.

± Crabb is ontologically a dichotomist, although functionally he talks as if he were a holist (see EBC, pp. 87-88). He doesn’t provide a substantial biblical or psychological justification for taking a dichotomistic view rather than holistic or trichotomistic view, nor why he remains a dichotomist ontologically when many of his statements and theory seem more consistent with holism.

II. Theory of Motivation

+ Crabb’s writings and theory integrate much of the good thinking of motivational and humanistic psychologists regarding psychological needs (he has now replaced the concepts of “needs” with “deep human longings.”).

+ His belief that our two basic human needs or longings are for security (relatedness to others) and significance or impact (to be engaged in a meaningful task) is compatible with the thinking of Glasser and others. (Glasser, for example, teaches that our two basic needs are to give and receive love, and to feel worthwhile to oneself and others.)

+ Crabb’s ideas, drawn from Adlerian psychology, that we develop convictions (beliefs) about how to best meet our needs, and that these convictions can be either healthy or unhealthy, seem sound.

+ His beliefs that Christians should move through Maslow’s first 4 stages on “wheels of faith” and that their needs for security and significance should be rooted in God rather than in the “reflected appraisals” of other human beings are thought-provoking. There seems to have been some change in his thinking on this issue. Earlier books seemed to focus on the idea that, for the obedient Christian, these needs could be met to a significant degree here on earth. Later books (e.g., Inside Out, Help for the Hurting, Finding God) seem to emphasize the fact that there is much pain and longing here on earth, even for the obedient believer, and that this pain and these longings sometimes will not be met until we get to heaven.

+ Crabb talks about three categories of “human thirst”–longings for physical comfort (represented by an outer circle), longings for relationships with people (a middle circle), and longings for God (an inner circle). He suggests people try to meet their longings from the outside in, but that true fulfillment comes from having our longings met from the inside out.

+ His theory of a four circle model of human personality is thoughtful and interesting. It identifies four important dimensions/processes in human functioning.

− In one of his earlier books Crabb states: “Christians never operate from a deficit, but rather from fullness (EBC, p. 84).” Even though one might say that Christians never need to operate from a deficit, many Christians do seem to operate from a deficit, even though they may not need to if they truly understood their acceptance in Christ. (In light of the tone Crabb has taken in his later books (e.g., IO, Help), it would be interesting to see whether he would still agree with the quotation from EBC given above.)

− Crabb says that God works on the conscious mind through the Bible, and Satan works on the unconscious mind. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that God works on both the conscious and unconscious mind, and Satan does also.

III. Theory of Development

+ Crabb’s integration of Adlerian theory and cognitive psychology provides several important advantages. (1) It gives a historical (developmental), a present-oriented, and a future-oriented (teleological) focus. (2) It recognizes the importance of both conscious processes and those that lie below the level of conscious awareness. (3) The concept of soft-determinism presents a middle path between hard determinism (with consequent lack of personal responsibility) and the opposite view that people consciously choose each behavior they perform.

± His theory of foolishness is interesting, and perhaps can be one focus of a theory of development, although it is important to recognize that a comprehensive theory of development would need to address other areas as well, e.g., physiological, cognitive, moral, characterological development, etc.

± Crabb’s recent emphasis on the importance of healthy connections with other human beings is compatible with the focus of ego-attachment theory, a theory in which there is a resurgence of interest recently. However, Crabb fails to connect his theory explicitly with ego-attachment theory, or bring out any of the rich insights that ego-attachment theory might make to his theory.

IV. Theory of Individual Differences

+ This category is not addressed comprehensively in one place within his books. Probably if asked, he would say that genetic materials determine our potentials and predispositions, and that our history, our sin nature, the convictions we develop, and the degree to which we are operating from four full circles, all combine to produce our unique personality.

± In Inside Out (IO) he also makes the distinction between shallow copers (those who ignore the inward ache and corruption and get on, more or less effectively with life), and troubled reflectors (those who are gripped by an awareness that something is terribly wrong and struggle in their efforts to move along through life). Putting everyone into one of these two categories seems a bit pessimistic. Is there no healthier alternative than these two states? [cf. Rom. 7:7-8:2. In this passage the Apostle Paul describes how we will never be totally victorious over our sin nature in this life. Nevertheless, he goes on to state: “There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). The Apostle Paul sounds like neither a shallow coper nor a troubled reflector.]

V. Theory of Health

+ Crabb’s theory of four full circles recognizes that healthiness includes both the content of what we say to ourselves as well as the healthiness with which we process what we are experiencing (i.e., healthiness means that our ego defenses are not significantly distorting nor repressing accurate self-awareness).

+ He recognizes that changing unhealthy residual effects of past (e.g., wrong assumptions and convictions and the behavior patterns that result from them) is important in moving toward health.

+ Crabb has thoughtful descriptions (in Understanding People) of what healthy people look like. They are people who enjoy God deeply, feel his presence in their lives, are able to live openly and vulnerably with others, can withstand the pain that inevitably comes with such deep involvement, they recognize their dependence and are willing to live with uncertainty, and when they make mistakes, they recognize and repent of them.

+ He believes that simply having all one’s cognitions and behavior correct will not automatically lead to a life of happiness and contentment.

+ Crabb asserts that some of what looks like healthy Christian living may actually be a life of pretense, where there is too much use of denial and repression to deal with the unacceptable within us.

? Crabb states: “Beneath the surface of everyone’s life, especially the more mature, is an ache that will not go away. . . An aching soul is evidence not of neurosis or spiritual immaturity, but of realism. . . There is no escape from an aching soul, only denial of it . . . The effect of widespread pretense, whether maintained by rigidly living on the surface of life or by being consumed with emotionalism, has been traumatic for the Church. Rather than being salt and light, we’ve become a theologically diverse community of powerless Pharisees, penetrating very little of society because we refuse to grapple honestly with the experience of life. . . When we reflect deeply on how life really is, both inside our souls and outside in the world, a quiet terror threatens to overwhelm us” (IO, pp. 14-15).

Some would say that this is an unflinchingly honest description of what true spiritual maturity is, and that most of us live our lives in partial or significant denial. Others would assert that this seems to be an overly-dysphoric characterization of the Christian life–that through Christ there is the possibility of substantial healing for pain from the past, and a substantial sense that Christ is with us each day to go with us through the difficulties we face.

VI. Theory of Pathology

+ Crabb makes a helpful distinction between desires and goals (cf. Albert Ellis’ “I must have . . . . to be happy.”)

+ His diagrams and theory of pathology are thought-provoking and integrative. He suggests a relational etiology for all non-organically-caused psychopathology: “Every non-organically caused problem has its deepest roots in compromised [imperfect] love” (IO, p. 187). For example, anorexics, depressed persons, homosexuals, all were loved imperfectly (because no human parent can love perfectly), and as a result they developed mistaken beliefs about how to best meet their longings for relatedness and impact. Because it is painful to fully realize how much we desire deep acceptance from others, we develop a self-protective style of relating designed to help us avoid the experience of deep personal pain that would occur if we were fully honest and then people rejected us. These self-protective attitudes and behaviors, which keep us from being honest and deeply reaching out to people, are also sinful (IO, pp. 116-117). His discussions on the sin of self-protection and the sin of demandingness are interesting.

+ Crabb’s discussion of personal sin in producing relational problems is very thought-provoking, as are his ideas that confronting sin in Christians’ lives occurs preferably in the thought level (the self-centered orientation we bring to each situation), rather than focusing primarily on compliance with external behavioral codes. (Compliance in our external behavior is also important, but the core of sin is at a deeper level.)

− While there is a recognition that some psychological disorders have a biological etiology, his theory regarding the many kinds of psychological disorders, both those with primarily biological causation and those with combined biological/psychological causation, seems relatively undeveloped.

− Should we understand compulsive sin as the result of the transformation of our crucial longings (longings for God) into sin (IO, pp. 94-96)? Or is the “compulsivity” simply the result of the powerful pull inherent in some kinds of sinful stimulation (such as some sexual temptations)?

? Crabb seems to suggest (e.g., M&W) that behavior is caused either because people are wounded psychologically or because of sinful self-centeredness. Is it possible that there is a third motivation, e.g., legitimate God-given needs that are not in and of themselves sinful? (e.g., “It is not good that man be alone. I will make a companion for him.” Cf. also 1 Cor. 7 for legitimate, God-given sexual desires.).

If there is this third category, then all behavior is not motivated either by psychopathology or sin. It is possible that if our fulfillment of legitimate, God-given desires is not met, we might resort to sinful behavior (e.g., verbal aggression or verbal manipulation, etc.) to try to get them met. In that case the behavior was sinful, even though the need that motivated it may not have been.

VII. Theory of Cure

+ Has three good foundational assumptions (Understanding People) about Christian counseling. (1) The Bible does not give a complete answer for every counseling problem but gives a framework for thinking about every problem. (2) A relationship with Christ gives important resources for resolving psychological problems. (3) The body of Christ provides an important context for working through problems in the Christian life.

+ Crabb’s theory of counseling flows logically from his theories of personality, motivation and pathology.

+ His theory of counseling integrates much of secular theory into a comprehensive framework.

+ Crabb recognizes that we should not counsel everyone the same way. We need to adjust our counseling styles to our clients’ unique personalities.

+ His model has emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components.

+ Crabb’s model integrates Scripture with Adlerian and cognitive psychology.

+ His theory includes several thoughtful critiques of nouthetic counseling.

+ Crabb has an interesting concept that Christian counseling is different from secular counseling in terms of being “over” (to obedience) and “up” (toward sanctification). However, he also stresses that it is much more than compliance to a code of external behaviors–it is full recognition of how our sin nature constantly influences all our behavior.

+ He has a balanced critique of the tendency within some contemporary therapy to focus on “victimhood.” Because we live in a world filled with sinful and imperfect people, we are all “victims” from time to time, and therapists will need to spend time dealing with that pain in their counselees. But we are also all victimizers, and it is equally important that we recognize and deal with that. Either an unwillingness to spend any time dealing with the pain a counselee has about being victimized or an unduly-long emphasis on being victimized without a recognition that we are all victimizers can be equally unhealthy (IO, p. 132).

− Crabb seems at times to fail to recognize that needing support and affirmation from other humans is part of the biblically-recognized condition (e.g., Gen. 2:18, 1 Cor. 12:21-22, Rom. 12:3ff.). Because of our sinful condition we can shift too much of our emotional dependency for feeling healthy from God onto people, but there is a level of dependency on others that is neither sinful nor unbiblical.

- Because his theory of pathology is not thoroughly developed with regard to the multiplicity of various kinds of disorders, his theory of cure is correspondingly not as developed as it might be.

VIII. Therapeutic Techniques

+ Crabb encourages the use of an eclectic, comprehensive set of techniques.

+ He recognizes that techniques can be used in a variety of ways, and what they do can be conceptualized in a variety of ways. Therefore, it is possible to use a technique developed by someone from a different theoretical orientation (even an orientation with which one disagrees) by reconceptualizing and modifying how one uses the technique.

+ The variety of approaches he recommends are compatible with Jesus’ Style of Relating as described by David Carlson. Carlson shows that Jesus encouraged the downcast, strengthened the frightened, taught those who needed teaching, and confronted those who needed confrontation. Jesus did not use one method with everyone.

± The one-year program which Crabb developed at Colorado Christian University (CCU) is sufficient to learn to use Crabb’s model well. However, it’s probably not long enough to teach a person the variety of theories and methods they will need if they wish to become licensed professional counselors. If a Christian is only going to learn one theory of counseling, Crabb’s is probably an excellent choice, but most Christian counselors will probably need to learn a variety of approaches in order to pass national competency exams and be licensed. (Clarification: CCU has now broadened their program to two years and expanded the curriculum so that it is more suited to preparing students for licensure.)

± Crabb’s recent emphasis on “eldering”: It is good for Christians to be compassionately involved with each other when possible. However, I have several major questions about the viability of his model of laypersons ever doing a significant amount of the counseling now done by professional Christian counselors.

(1) In today’s world of downsizing, Christians do not usually have enough time to be deeply involved in the lives of their spouses and children, much less to have intensive relationships with those outside their family. Most people will only be able to spend this kind of intensive time with people if it is part of their vocation.

(2) Most Christians are not trained in facilitation skills, the skills necessary to help a person let down their ego defenses and explore their own deep thoughts, feelings and goals. Nor are they trained in therapeutic confrontation–how to confront in ways that do not raise defensiveness. While a few people may have developed these skills naturally, most Christians, even mature Christians, haven’t. Crabb repeatedly recognizes that church pastors and elders don’t do a very good job of counseling now. They are likely to confront, moralize, spiritually mumble, practice amateur therapy, or give good old-fashioned advice (Hope, p. 173). Does he really think he can change these ingrained ways of responding into something more therapeutic in a few hours in a weekend seminar?

(3) Our counseling is dependent on our models of what causes people to be psychologically unhealthy, what a healthy person should look like, and how to help an unhealthy person become healthier. I fear that the majority of lay Christians have rather simplistic models in all three areas, models which Crabb himself rejects as inadequate (e.g., IO, pp. 45-47, 52).

(4) Would any of us feel competent to counsel after taking one course in counseling, which is three times as long as the typical amount of time Crabb spends training elders?

(5) There are several issues about “dual relationships” which are not addressed when counseling is done by one’s peers and fellow church members, e.g.

(A) Most clients are reluctant to tell fellow church members deeply personal struggles. They would rather tell someone who is pledged to confidentiality and who has no other relationship to them.

(B) Many peer counselors will be reluctant to therapeutically confront a peer because of not wanting to affect the relationship/friendship.

(C) If counseling “doesn’t work” it may harm relationships within the church.

(6) It has been assumed that clients choose counselors on the basis of the severity of their difficulties. Paul Mauger, a Christian psychologist, tested this assumption using the MMPI to identify seriousness of pathology. He found no differences in pathology level of those who chose psychiatrists, psychologists, Master’s-level counselors, pastors, or lay counselors. Therefore we cannot assume that people who have serious problems will not go to elders who have very little training.

(7) Many counseling problems, even when done by skilled therapists, take from 10 to 20 sessions to resolve (See Clinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders (2014) edited by David Barlow. The average number of sessions needed to treat most of the psychological problems in the book, even when done by the world’s leading therapists, is 15.) When done by novice therapists without professional training they may take even longer. I am concerned that the typical elder will tire of counseling most persons long before that. In their impatience they may stop counseling before it has achieved its desired result, or they may accuse the client of being unmotivated.

(8) The large Consumer Reports study of counseling (Seligman, 1995) found that the briefer counseling is, the more likely it is that clients will be dissatisfied with it and will believe that it did not help them achieve their objectives. By virtue of the limited training Crabb gives elders, and the fact that they are doing this counseling in addition to their work, family and church responsibilities almost guarantees that it will be short-term counseling.

(9) In order to counsel effectively, most elders would need expansion of their models of pathology, health, and therapeutic growth processes, the kind of training usually only received in a professional counseling program.

(10) To say this in a slightly different way, I believe Crabb’s goal (in Connecting) is right—we become healthy to the degree that we can participate in healthy relationships. And I believe his plan is partially right—the church could do more to foster such relationships. However, I believe the psychopathology that often produces difficulties forming healthy relationships (maladaptive schemas, selective attention, misattributions, less than healthy expectancies, unrealistic expectations of oneself and others, cognitive avoidance mechanisms) is more complicated than most committed laypersons, or even elders, are equipped to deal with.

People do have difficulty forming and keeping relationships because of maladaptive core beliefs or schemas. However, they are unlikely to change core beliefs just by talking with a layperson who has no understanding of maladaptive schemas and automatic thoughts that keep a person from trusting and sharing deeply.

If the above statement is true (i.e., that people have difficulty forming and keeping relationships because of maladaptive core beliefs and schemas), then it is important that counselors be trained in both ego attachment theory (which helps them and their clients understand the historical reasons why they may have difficulty “connecting”), and cognitive-behavioral therapy (which is probably the most efficient way to help them understand and change the automatic thoughts, intermediate beliefs, and core beliefs that keep them from connecting. Unfortunately, Crabb’s weekend program does not give elders in-depth training in either ego-attachment theory or cognitive-behavioral therapy.

− His model does not teach skills, such as communication skills, conflict-resolution skills, assertiveness training skills, job search skills, time management skills, decision-making skills. For at least some clients, they will need skill-training in addition to changing internal thought processes and goals.

‒ In his latest books Crabb has become increasingly negative about the possibility that counseling can help people resolve most of the more significant problems with which they deal. This premise is open to dispute, since between 80 and 92% of people who go to counselors affirm that through counseling their problems have been solved or significantly improved (Nathan & Gorman, 2015, A Guide to Treatments that Work).

- Crabb is a brilliant theoretician and therapist. He also has insights about people based on decades of academic study of psychology, theology, and the practice of psychotherapy. I don’t think, when he asserts that mature elders can do counseling, that he fully appreciates the difference between himself and the average church elder.