"19 Kids and Counting" star Josh Duggar, who confessed to sexually abusing five young girls including his own sisters, was sent by parents Jim Bob Duggar and Michelle Duggar to a faith training center belonging to the religious group Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), reports Daily Mail.

The founder and former leader of the IBLP, Bill Gothard, told Daily Mail that he was ordered to send Josh to the group's special facility where the then 15-year-old received counseling.

Gothard, who founded the IBLP in 1961, said that Josh was "cleansed" by a "godly mentor" at the group's Little Rock Training Center in Arkansas. The counseling program included carpentry, "lust counseling" and classes about Jesus' "seven stresses."

Josh's counseling was placed in the trusted hands of IBLP training leader Harold Walker. Walker operated a construction program. Josh arrived on March 17, 2003 and joined other boys on the Integrity Construction Institute program tasked with the renovation of a dilapidated former VA hospital, which IBLP had acquired, according to Gothard.

In addition to working construction, Josh received private faith counseling to "cleanse" him of his inappropriate sexual thoughts. The counseling involved understanding Jesus' "seven stresses," which Gothard explained are "anger, guilt, lust, business, greed, fear and envy, and there are seven commands that can conquer every one of those stresses. Seven commands that relate to anger, seven that relate to guilt and so on."

Gothard, 80, revealed what happened when Jim Bob and Michelle contacted him after learning their eldest son had sexually abused four of his sisters and a babysitter.

"First of all when that [the sexual abuse] came up his father and mother came to me and I, number one, said he [Josh] really should report it to the police, which he did," he said. "Number two that he should get away from the home there and they sent him to a godly mentor in Little Rock and it was there when he really became a Christian."

The IBLP founder said that once Josh became a Christian and accepted his "cleansing," he "became even more delicate and he wanted to follow and please the Lord."

He believes Josh's molestation scandal has been overblown. "It is not like he is a sexual predator, he was a teenage boy," he said.

Gothard lives in Illinois not far from the IBLP's headquarters. He left the organization last year amid allegations he sexually harassed dozens of women, according to Daily Mail.