Christian Counseling: A Synthesis of Psychological and Christian Concepts

Strong describes an approach to counseling that synthesizes psychological processes of change with theological concepts of the Christian faith. Clients are assumed to be self-directing and responsible for their behavior, including the changes that counseling is intended to facilitate. The counselor's junction is to equip clients to enable them to change. The key objectives in Christian counseling are described and the counseling process is reviewed in the light of these objectives. The author discusses the place of justification, responsibility, forgiveness, grace, sin, responsible loving, and prayer in the counseling process. Francis Mc Guire makes a response to Strong's article from a perspective that views Zen Buddhism as an integrated psychospiritual system capable of offering a critique and a complementary viewpoint. Herman Slotkin 's think piece is an attempt to define and clarify some of the language and goals of moral education and propose a civic, nonsectarian perspective regarding value and moral awareness.