Psycho-Bible: Where Modern Psychology Meets Timeless Wisdom

By J.B. Wilson

Upon completing his graduate degree on mental health treatments, therapist and pastor J. Barry Wilson noticed a familiar thread running through each respected model. From Victor Frankle's search for meaning in life, Albert Ellis' paradigm for changing how we think, and Piaget's developmental models, it dawned on Wilson that the core of all this psychobabble held acumen and design from the greatest historical influence of all time--the Bible. Aside from Christian practitioners, many psychologists or psychotherapists today may dismiss the Bible as a book of religious storytelling with little or no relevance to the twenty first century. But in Psycho-Bible, Wilson reveals the timeless wisdom from which much of modern psychotherapy borrows its fundamental models. With a folksy, straightforward writing style that blends the counseling theory with biblical principles, the applications pertinent to mental health in today's hectic world will be at your fingertips. Whether you are an academic, or just someone looking for a little guidance through life, you will discover the relationship between psychology today and the timeless truths running through the Bible. Remember: It's not another book of psychobabble; it's Psycho-Bible.

J.B. Wilson earned an associate degree in biblical studies, a bachelor's degree in business management, and a master's degree in clinical counseling. After serving in various areas of Christian ministry for nearly twenty years, he spent the next twenty years as a psychotherapist in private practice and in a hospital clinical group therapy setting. He also served as adjunct professor of religion, biblical studies, ethics, and theology at Olivet Nazarene University. He is now retired with his wife of 48 years and enjoys writing as a hobby. Other works include, Cleared by Arrest an American Injustice, released in March of 2022, and Terre Haute, scheduled for release sometime in 2023.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781684983544

Book preview

PSYCHO-BIBLE

Where Modern Psychology Meets Timeless Wisdom

J.B. Wilson

Copyright © 2022 J.B. Wilson

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-68498-353-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68498-354-4 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in the story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

This novel is a work of fiction. However, several names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in the story are based on the lives of real people.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Sometimes It Is Too Your Fault

Secondary Gains

Born Again

The Sins of the Father: Breaking the Cycle Breaking the Cycle

If Thine Eye Offend Thee or Whaddaya Think You’re Lookin’ At?

What if This Is As Good As It Gets?

Curse God and Die or Welcome to the Pity Party

The Meaning of Life: It’s a Balancing Act

Who Put the Kids in Charge?

Shaun’s Philosophy

Your Problem Ain’t Your Problem

You Can’t Always Trust Your Feelings

Just MacGyver It!

Endorsements

Foreword

It has been my privilege to know Barry Wilson. Some years ago, I had the opportunity to coach Barry in football and wrestling at Anderson High School in Anderson, Indiana. It took a while to realize that he had a severe vision problem because he worked so hard at all he did to compensate or to hide his disability. As a football coach, I wondered if I should protect him, but I soon learned it was the other players who needed protection. And in wrestling, once he got close enough to see the opponent…well, he never let go. What a joy it was to see his determination to overcome limitations and to succeed!

Later in life, I became acquainted with Barry Wilson, the gospel singer—an inspiration with a wonderful voice and encouraging message. In sharing God’s love through music, Barry is one of the best.

Another way I know Barry Wilson is through this book, where you will see his life experiences expressed in practical ways to help others see that they can overcome adversities. Barry learned to use his childhood difficulties as a motivation to succeed, and this book will inspire readers to better understand and equip themselves and others to do the same.

Through the years, a special friendship has developed, and I realize I have learned more lessons in life from Barry than I was able to give to him—things like working hard, loving God, and helping others. Now, what more can anyone do than that?

Barry, thank you for the honor of asking me to write the foreword to this outstanding book.

—Richard W. Coach Sharp

Preface

I was forty-something when I returned to graduate school and changed careers. Since 1982, I had been engaged full-time in some type of ministry, mostly pastoral, and truly enjoyed the preaching-and-teaching part of the job, which was what I did best. The part I liked least, and for which I felt least qualified, was counseling. Yet that’s what I found myself returning to graduate school for—to earn a master’s degree in professional counseling.

I actually started down that road because of my own experiences needing a counselor of my own. I won’t bore you with details only to say that the stresses of the pastorate got to me once in a while. Well, maybe it got to me a lot. Like most pastors, I discovered that I was pretty much on my own when it came to working through my problems. Pouring my heart out to my district superintendent felt dangerous to me. That was like telling your boss that you weren’t quite up to the job, and maybe he should start looking for your replacement. I certainly couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, confide in my parishioners. What would they think if they found out that I was not the perfect saint that they thought I should be? Seeking counsel from my colleagues felt threatening because none of us wanted any of the others to know just how tough things really were at our churches.

So we would gather together for the occasional pastoral retreat and annual assembly and tell stories of how great things were going in our respective locales, praising the goodness and blessings of God, and pretending all was peachy. I can’t tell you how many times I heard a dear brother pastor begin his report with the phrase, Now the numbers don’t tell the full story. That meant, Attendance is way down and finances along with it. The congregation is disgruntled, my wife is unhappy, and I feel like I’m dying inside. But I have to put on my happy face and make everyone believe that I’ve still got the victory. I began to notice that our pastors never found anyone to talk to until their world had already fallen apart.

While in my first pastoral assignment, the wife of a colleague confided in my wife that her husband, the pastor, was physically abusing her. She was afraid to tell anyone other than my wife. After much discussion and prayer, we decided that the district superintendent really needed to be told about the situation, not so he could take disciplinary action but so he could get the couple some help—you know, counseling.

I guess I need to tell you that the pastor in question was a very gifted and charismatic leader who had taken a dying church and not only resurrected it but grown it through one expansion program to the brink of a second. The district superintendent definitely did not want to rock that boat and basically told my wife to mind her own business.

Six months later, while in the middle of a great building program, that pastor was arrested for exposing himself to school children. I hold that DS was responsible because he did not get that young pastor help when it could have made a difference.

Through the years, I heard story after story of pastors who tried unsuccessfully to bear up under the pressure alone and paid the price in personal health, marriage, family relationships, and even career loss. I began to dream of a place where pastors could come to escape the pressures of their ministries for a time. It was a dream of a place where they could commune with nature, with God, with their spouses, with their colleagues in an unthreatening atmosphere, and with professional counselors if they desired. I decided to return to school, get the credentialing I needed, and open such a retreat center.

Although I have not yet achieved that goal, the dream started me down a road that I would not have traveled otherwise. Since 2001, I have worked as a therapist in hospital inpatient, clinical outpatient, and private practice setting. I provide care for a very diverse population representing an extremely broad spectrum of mental illnesses. As I was completing work toward my graduate degree, and since I have been a practicing counselor, I have begun to notice something very interesting about theories of mental health treatments. There was a familiarity to many of the counseling models. I had seen most of them before somewhere: Viktor Frankl’s search for meaning in life, Albert Ellis’s paradigm for changing how we think, Piaget’s developmental models, and more. All of these counseling models had such a familiar ring to them.

And then it dawned on me. I had seen all of this psychobabble before in the most unlikely of places—the Bible. I recalled all the scriptures when I taught lessons on topics including personal responsibility, child-rearing, motivation, secondary gains, naturally occurring consequences, purpose and meaning in life, and dealing with post-traumatic stress. There is biblical advice for interpersonal conflict, marriage enrichment, business success, and even diet and weight control.

Through the years, I’ve met a very large number of Christian folks who would never consider seeing anyone other than a Christian counselor. Still others consider all therapy, Christian or otherwise, as just so much psychobabble. But here, I was confronted with the evidence that what modern psychotherapists are teaching as new counseling techniques are at least as old as the Christian scriptures.

A few of the chapters in this book are actually sermons that I have preached during my days in the pastorate. Many more are lessons that I have incorporated into my therapy practice. It is my sincere hope that this compilation of the wisdom of the Bible will help you as you deal with the complexities and stresses of modern life.

Sometimes It Is Too Your Fault

Thou Art the Man

A few nights ago, I was watching TV when a commercial came on featuring this lovely young woman showing pictures of unhappy and frustrated overweight folks who had reportedly tried every diet under the sun with little or no luck. Her pitch went something like this: Have you been frustrated because of your inability to lose those unwanted inches through no fault of your own? (italics mine). Well now there’s good news for you. This new patented formula blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Have you ever noticed that we live in a world where nothing is ever my fault but always someone else’s? A woman driving a stick shift car picks up a cup of coffee at a fast-food restaurant, places it between her legs, takes off, spills hot liquid on some pretty sensitive parts, and sues the food chain for giving her hot coffee. And she wins!

It was bad enough when the tobacco companies were ordered to pay billions of dollars in damages to smokers and their families, but now they are under attack for making their product advertisement attractive to young adult women. Is that not the point of advertising? But you say they lie about the effects of smoking in their ads. Do not other product manufacturers lie or distort in their ads?

Now I’m not a cigarette smoker, and I wouldn’t cry if suddenly overnight the world became cigarette smoke-free. But let’s get one thing straight here: smokers dying of cancer are not the fault of the tobacco companies. Obesity-related health issues are not the fault of the fast-food industry. Getting a ticket