What is the Arno Profile System (A.P.S.)?
The Christian counselor administers a questionnaire of 60 questions, which takes fewer than ten minutes for the counselee to complete. After administering the Arno Profile System report (APS), the counselor will send the responses to our office, and receive back a 7-8 page computer analysis (information on APS costs is found on Policies and Procedures page). Four types of reports can be provided: Clinical, Personal, Personnel, or Youth. N.C.C.A. Licensed Counselors also qualify to purchase the APS software and then can generate APS’ from their own office.
The questionnaire measures the counselee’s needs, natural traits, strengths, and weaknesses according to temperament. The computerized APS report provides the Christian counselor with in-depth information and the best way to counsel the individual. The system enables a qualified counselor to identify the counselee’s root problem faster and more accurately.
The temperament identification provided in the APS report identifies three separate human interactions; Inclusion (social orientation/intellectual energies), Control (decision making abilities or inabilities) and Affection (interaction in deep relationships). It also identifies each one of these interactions in two ways, expressed (what we say we want) and wanted (what we really want).
Traditionally, there have been four temperaments: Melancholy, Sanguine, Choleric, and Phlegmatic. In 1981, Drs. Richard and Phyllis Arno established the N.C.C.A. and began seven years of research with over 5,000 individuals in the counseling setting. Their purpose was to develop a therapeutic procedure based on scripture. While researching the temperament models available, they identified a fifth temperament, the Supine.
The Supine has similar traits to the Sanguine, and the Melancholy, but does not fully represent either of those temperaments. The Supine identification describes a person who, by their very nature, is a servant and feels that they have little or no value. They have a gentle spirit and are very social only when they know they have been accepted.
The APS identifies a person’s temperament in each one of the three interaction areas mentioned earlier. For example, a person may be a Sanguine in the Inclusion (social) area, a Melancholy in control (decision making) area and Supine in Affection (deep relationships) area.
The APS does not measure a person’s behavior like a personality test does, which can change throughout the person’s life. Rather, it identifies a person’s inborn temperament. Psalm 139 speaks of it as our “inmost being”. Who God created us to be (temperament) and who we become (personality) through learned behavior can be vastly different, and great inter/intra-personal conflict comes from that. We need to find out who God has created us to be “in our inmost being”, and who we are in Christ, the new nature. By doing this we can learn to operate out of the temperament strengths God has given us, and learn to walk in the Spirit as we realize who we are in Christ, thereby overcoming our temperament weaknesses.
Our temperament strengths were given to us by God; the temperament weakness’ comes from our sinful nature. Both lead us to God because, without God, even our strengths will turn to sin (pride). Because we each have different temperament tendencies, we each have different areas of life (sin) in which we need to overcome. A well-trained Christian Counselor, using the APS report and the Word of God, is equipped to help clients to at the root of their struggles. The client will gain an understanding and appreciation of the strengths God has given them; they will gain a deeper understanding of God’s love for them and who they are in Christ to overcome their temperament weaknesses (sin); and they will have a greater sense of their needs, specific to their unique temperament, and how to meet those needs in godly ways.
The APS, developed and taught by Drs. Richard and Phyllis Arno, is inexpensive and will save the counselor/counselee about eight counseling sessions because it targets the hidden problems immediately. Administering the APS is the first step in the counseling model taught by In His Image Institute of Counseling and Training.
As a licensure candidate, you will learn the Arno Profile System (A.P.S.) for counseling. This easy-to-learn technique has a success rate of over 90%. Thousands of lay counselors, professional counselors, pastors, and pastoral counselors throughout the United States and nine foreign countries are using the A.P.S.
