About us

The Christian Wholeness Framework Dr John Warlow is the original developer of the Christian Wholeness Framework (CWF).  John was preparing for his psychiatry exams in the 1980’s when he ‘found’ the framework. John says he is more the ‘finder’ than the ‘founder’ of the CWF. God revealed it to him as a way to integrate biology, sociology, theology, psychiatry and psychology, to give a wholistic understanding of human nature. Although a few minor adaptions have been added over the years, the basic format remains the same as when John ‘found’ it.

Living Wholeness is the name of the Not for Profit Company registered with the ACNC in Australia. This company forms the legal platform from which all Living Wholeness work is carried out globally. The Living Wholeness Community uses the CWF as it’s ‘operating system’ or ‘language’. Living Wholeness is also often used in the title of training materials.

Dr John Warlow is a Christian child, adolescent, and family psychiatrist. He was born in Northern India, to missionary parents, educated in Southern India and the UK. He then married Jill, a Kiwi/New Zealander, and now lives in Brisbane, Australia.  John teaches CWF within a Pastoral Care in Mental Health course at the Brisbane School of Theology. He also continues to see clients, supervise, train and develop CWF training materials for the Living Wholeness Community internationally.

Dr. Carolyn Russell, married to Norton,  is a Brisbane based family physician and counsellor, counselling supervisor and educator. Carolyn has journeyed with John for over 30 years now with CWF, and was foundational in helping with the establishment of Living Wholeness in Asia. She is a valued member of the senior training team for Living Wholeness, training counsellors in Australia and the Asian region, and a member of the advisory board. She also lectures  in pastoral care using CWF at Queensland Theological College, Brisbane.

Dr. David and Mrs. Susanne Nikles: David is an Australian family physician who more fully entered the field of counselling training over the last 20 years. Susanne, also Australian, originally an Occupational Therapist, completed her Master’s in counselling in the 90’s. They were serving in East Asia since 2005 and in response to the needs around them  for personal transformation and counselling training, they sought a robust approach that could integrate psychology and theology. Doctor John Warlow introduced the CWF to them and has continued to journey with them as they learned and trained it in Asia for the last 20 years. They found it be most helpful approach to integrative Christian counselling they had encountered in their 30 years each of professional life.

As the work grew, in 2021, David and Susanne invited others who had extensive training and experience in using the CWF, and who had all served internationally, to become the executive team for Living Wholeness. David is the CEO, and oversees the general operations of Living Wholeness. The executive team oversee the  strategic planning, development,  and training for Living Wholeness.

Broad Uptake: There was high uptake with Asian counsellors and pastors, and this seemed to be because the CWF is a picture language, with shapes and steps, easily transferable across language barriers, theologically and psychologically robust, and personally transformative. Living Wholeness has also been effective in training counsellors and pastors and bringing personal transformation within wider Asia and beyond. One of the goals embedded in the trainings is that graduates take and train the material in their own language and culture. The graduates from these courses have formed a team of over 100 excellent volunteer trainers who are now training others all over Asia. 

The Living Wholeness Community offers a range of training and courses, for a range of interested people from friends and family, pastors and leaders, small groups leaders, lay, community and pastoral counsellors, and professional counsellors, and educators. These courses are offered in broader Asia with some uptake in Europe and early days in Africa.

During the last decade more work has been done in the area of writing on the Christian Wholeness Framework, with now around 10 books either completed or in progress. Some of these are available through this website. Increasingly the team are being requested to train pastors in pastoral counselling at theological colleges both in Australia and Asia.

The team are also researching training outcomes using the Framework.

Graduates from the longer courses are invited to join the Master Trainer four-year training which takes them deeper as counsellors, supervisors, trainers, researchers, and course developers. The Living Wholeness community is made up of alumni who have found Living Wholeness to be so helpful, wholistic, thorough, foundational, and life changing, that they want to share this with others.