Abstract
Because of a duolistic cultural tradition assumed to be biblical, many Christian helping professionals tend to conceptualize an individual's psychological difficulty as originating within either the spiritual, soulish, cognitive, or biological domain, depending on the context in which it occurs. Consequently, various methods of inquiry and treatment are prescribed based on constructs consistent with the perceived origination of the disorder. A Hebraic model of the person, however, conceptualizes the various dimensions of personhood as existing along a mutually interactive continuum in which the divinely inspired aspects of the human condition are directly apparent in the biopsychological aspects, without intermediate metaphysical states or constructs. Furthermore, this holistic interpretation is consistent with the New Testament term soma, often translated as “person.” As such, the Hebraic model vouches for the adequacy of the philosophical assumptions of a psychological science, and it can allow such a perspective to penetrate more thoroughly the analytical and treatment strategies of Christian helping professionals.
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