Course 1 Chapter 2

Analysis Questionnaire and Agape Love Analysis

Explaining the Agape Questionnaire

With Course One you received supportive documents which contain the materials that you will need for the course: an Analysis Questionnaire for Agape Love, word studies which are also called the Biblical norms, and scoring directions. Find the Analysis Questionnaire for Agape Love and use it as a reference for the following text.  You will see various names for the questionnaire in the CBT Coursework, like “Analysis Questionnaire”, “Agape Questionnaire” or "Agape Love Questionnaire Analysis” form, though the word “questionnaire” is usually consistent in the form title.

Question 22. The first thing to notice is that it’s a series of 75 questions. Underneath or beside each question are five potential answers: almost always, sometimes, generally, most often, almost never.  The reason for the five different potential answers is that whenever you’re doing or making an attempt to measure human response through what’s called a self-report questionnaire, you would have to have a way to measure it.  A Likert Scale is a research method that’s used to give people a variety of potential answers, each one slightly different than the other across degrees of behavior, from extreme to the other. Attaching a number to each response provides a record that can be collected to provide information about their behavior.  In this case we attach a number value to their answer that ranges from 1-5 depending upon which response they select. See Analysis Questionnaire Score Sheet.

You’ll also notice the age group.  The reason for the age group is because that’s another research tool.  We use the information for statistical analysis to see if the answers vary by age.  You’ll also notice at the very end of the questionnaire and on any other CBT material is a copyright.  All this material is registered to me with the Library of Congress under the name of Cognitive Biblical Therapy.

The last facet of the questionnaire that is has been written using the qualities of agape love from I Corinthians 13:4-8a. Each quality of love has been used to develop 5 different questions.  In my doctoral research I developed these dealing with any relationship: marital relationships, child-parent relationships, employment, relatives, brother-sister, and a relationship to God.  Using each quality of agape love, I developed Biblical norms or standards for relationships.  Those norms are what love is: patient, kind, does not envy, is not rude, does not boast, is not proud, rude, self-seeking, easily angered, and keeps no record of wrongs. It rejoices in the truth, protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres and never fails. For each norm (quality) five questions were developed from word studies using the original languages of the Bible using Strong’s and Vine’s concordances. 

For example, what does patient mean? The questionnaire may ask, “Do you remain quiet almost always or almost never?” From the word study, patience has a much different meaning than doing nothing, being quiet, gritting your teeth, tolerating junk, and doing nothing.  Rather, patience is a process of Biblical response that starts with asking Jesus to help you, “what am I doing?”  Our goal is to respond in a godly manner. So, if Jesus when He’s mistakenly accused does not bury his feelings, or pop off and say, “Who do you think you are?” So, what response would Jesus have? The questionnaire will measure how difficult it is for the client to remain quiet when mistakenly accused.  That answer will be given a number value on the Likert Scale of 1 – 5 according to the continuum of very patient or not patient at all.  The scripture shows that it should almost never be difficult for you to remain quiet when you’re mistakenly accused, because you have knowledge and a confidence in a relationship to God that’s stronger than the accusation.  You know you’re righteous, Jesus Christ gives you that, so being wrong doesn’t mean you’re stupid or you have to be afraid.  It means that God’s going to help you do something about it. God will show you the truth so that you can look the person in the eyeball and say, “I need to talk to you, because I have a problem with your accusation. Here are my facts and help me understand what you mean.”  In other words, your response, your patience is going to be productive, not destructive. Most people don’t understand that.  Not only that, but they don’t understand kindness or rudeness or being trustworthy.

All these qualities that God talks about in this passage on love, has to come from God’s Holy Spirit living in you.  Measuring each of these qualities (norms) is the first step of the methodology. The analysis of love behaviors is through the questionnaire.  I have developed 15 different questionnaires now for different relationships.  The questionnaire for children 10 years of age or olderand a questionnaire for children 10 years of age or younger have the same norms, but fewer questions. With this understanding, you are able to explain the questionnaire to the client as the first step in finding out objectively what the presenting problem is based on. The analysis will guide you in their counseling and alleviating the problem. The analysis will show them the place where they are in order to move forward in learning and changing.

Question 23. At this point, the questionnaire will give the client a starting point.  The scores of their responses will show them their current understanding of how they are acting in a loving manner. You will also be able to explain the areas that they are having trouble with. Each area aligns with a specific Biblical norm of agape love. It serves to clearly present the knowledge base of the individual as they have reported, their perspectives on relationships, and the kind of life experiences they’ve had and how those experiences their thinking, actions and concepts.  It will also clarify their emotional makeup, spiritual condition (relation to the scriptures), and their relationship to God.  Each questionnaire regardless of which one they take, will show those characteristics. In a marriage one person has been passive and withdrawn and the other may have been strong willed.  If it’s an employment situation, they will learn how their relationships at work are affecting them.  

Question 24. Whatever the situation, even an eating disorder, they will learn how their concepts are affecting them. There are always situations and circumstances in the person’s life that are going to generate choice for reactions to them. Until you identify for them what kind of choices they make, how those choices are hurting them, and they’re allowing negative situations to impact them, they don’t see it. You want them to understand that God has a plan by which they can be healthy, living in dignity and respect. You can understand yourself, body, mind and soul because you potentially don’t right now.  

But this is the first step and this idea of what’s an initial session like using CBT. Now some of this you’re going to see more clearly by learning what is in the following courses where you will get more understanding and detail of how this all works together.   

In keeping these basic thoughts that I just shared about the questionnaire and introducing these things to the client you want to think about what Biblical purpose the analysis questionnaire fulfills.  It may seem odd to clients how a Biblical norm can be used to help them change. There are so many different psychological theories, that the thought of an absolute (norm) seems ridiculous to most people. But the main difference is that psychology is based on humanism which believes that everybody as an individual, has power, strength within himself. 

The first step is establishing that there are standards, there are Biblical norms that determine the quality of life. Without them, we have junky lives that hurt us and keep us upset.  For example, if you get somebody in and there’s a lot of verbal abuse going on we know that in the book of Ephesians there’s a real simple statement that says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth.” A little further in the book of Ephesians it states that we should be rid of all anger and slander, malice, bitterness, and envy. The basic directions from God is don’t do these things, because they will create heartache, fear, anger, and alienation from each other.  God has provided steps you can take to overcome these tendencies.  It will take time and effort, but you don’t carry this burden alone: God that loves you, and will help you learn how to change so that you don’t continue to harm yourself.  

Question 25. Using the analysis of the questionnaire (see Agape Love Analysis Profile of Biblical Norms), we can see how much you know about agape love. The Biblical norms are based on I Corinthians 13:4-8, which says love is patient, love is kind, love is protective, trustworthy, hopeful, perseveres, never fails.  You can see how much you know about what it means to be patient. Let’s find out how close or far away you are in how you conduct your relationships. The first question, for example, the answers that’s given the value of five, “it’s difficult for me to remain quiet when mistakenly accused” will be the one that says it’s almost never difficult.  Now that’s the answer that’s on the far-right hand side on question one.  

For question two, on kindness, the answer that’s going to be given the highest value or the one that represents the concept from scripture, will be the answer on the far left, “almost always.”  This represents a scoring process that is called reverse scoring which requires the client to always read the choices rather than getting into a set pattern and just choosing the one on the right. You want them to read the question carefully and think about their choice for an answer. The value of the answer changes with each question, for example “Almost Always” has a value of 1 on one question and a 5 on a different question. The client will show their level of understanding by the score they receive. High scores show they understand the concept pretty well; a low score shows a lack of understanding and those will need to be addressed.  

Question 26. For example, Question six is about rudeness. In scripture rudeness means to feign ignorance, which means to pretend that I don’t know what I’m doing, so that I can do what I want, to get the response I want, get the thing I want, even if it causes another person or myself to have a sense of pain or suffering or confusion. Rudeness is being willing to use negative emotions or manipulation to get what I want.  Now here’s a classic example, it’s one of my favorites.  Husband and wife sit down and one senses the other is sort of upset, one asks the other, “You seem upset, is there something wrong?” If that person is going to be rude, they may look at them and they may say, with an attitude, “I’m just fine!” They may reply with a wimpy attitude of a victim, “I’m okay.” In either case, one of two responses are usual: one may get angry and reply, “You know I’m so sick of you acting like that.  I ask you what’s wrong and you won’t tell me.” The other common response is the one asking if it’s their fault, which is pretty common and say, “Did I do something wrong, tell me what I did?  Now the upset person, still being rude, will know they have gained some power and control.  They’re going to use that to their advantage and say, “If you don’t know what’s wrong, I’m not going to tell you.”  Or they may continue to play the victim, get all teary and say, “Well, I’ve talked to you a lot of times, and you’re never going to change.”  

Whatever the case, they’re going to score potentially a one or two on that question. When you show them their score, you can ask, “Do you know that can make you appear rude?” God has a definition of rude you have never have heard before. Often people have learned that their method of responding doesn’t work, but they don’t know how to change it. Sometimes they have been successful in their eyes, and didn’t know that is rudeness. In either case, they have to learn a new way and be willing to submit to God, so they can change that behavior.  

Whatever the question, the score will range between one to five, with the Biblical norm being five.  A three, four, or five is an okay answer, but a one or two will be the places where the concept for this question needs to change. These places are pointed out on the graphs, here is why you’re having trouble, and there’s a way to change it.  So these are going to be presented to the person, to the client on this composite graph and on separate scores through the analysis of the questionnaire. The analysis document will visually show the scores and the Biblical norms or concepts they represent. A contrast is shown between what they know and what God’s saying: love is in a good relationship, personal peace or a good relationship to God.

Question 27. Each Biblical Norm has five distinct facets.  The first facet of the Biblical norm is that it comes from a word study in the original Greek and Hebrew using the Strong’s and Vine’s exhaustive concordances. For example, in this passage in Corinthians that serves as a basis for the initial study on agape love, rude has been defined and explained in the concordances. To learn what the client thinks, you can ask, “What does it mean to be rude?” You can share the Biblical norm or the word study with them in the initial session. If rudeness means “to feign ignorance” that would be your exact definition, lexical definition, from the original word study definition. The second facet of the studies is clarifying what the definition means. Feigned ignorance, the original definition, expands to “the decision to pretend like there is a lack of knowledge within yourself,” and then to convey to another person a message of knowing.  You convey this double message because you want something and you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get it, even if you have to treat yourself or someone else in a hurtful manner that is designed to manipulate the other person into doing what you want.  

So far, we’ve taken this original definition that’s come from this word study and we’ve given them the definition and expanded it. You can role play this example for them. Have the client ask you if anything is wrong or something's bothering me.  Then your response would be “No, I’m just fine, nothing’s wrong with me.”  Or it’s “Oh, I’m okay” with whichever tone of voice you wish. Ask the client to tell you what they heard. Ask them, “how do you know that?” They will respond, “Well your tone of voice.”  Remind them what rudeness is. There’s a possibility that some of the problems you have in relationships happen because rudeness is a spiritual issue. The other person discerns that, and then potentially fires back at you with a hostile response. They can begin to get the drift that there are some standards or norms which they may be violating.  

The fourth facet of a Biblical norm is that there are other words that they will connect with.  For example, love is patient and can also mean that love is long-suffering.  Inside this word study there will be other words to reference to, for example, envy can cross reference to being jealous.  Therefore, if love is not envious, it can also mean that love is not jealous.  If love is patient, it can also mean that love is long-suffering.  At the end of each word study of each Biblical norm, there will be a summary that takes all the information and puts it into a synopsis or summary. 

Question 28. In essence you’re trying to present this information for the clients going through the process.  So, you’re giving them this Biblical norm, patience--kindness, to build new scriptural knowledge, showing the contrast between the client’s answers on this questionnaire and the scripture.  This knowledge will lead them to change within whatever they are concerned with in a very practical way. They will change their relationships at work, with a spouse, and family.  There will be spiritual change, emotional change, as well as relationship change. The presenting problem can be addressed, because you’re going to have new knowledge.  God’s going to help you through Jesus. You’re going to have a means by which now this problem that’s plagued you, no longer has a grip on you.