What Makes Christian Counseling "Christian"?
by Laura Taggart, LMFT

I have often been asked what the difference is between secular counseling and counseling that is distinctively “Christian”. The most fundamental difference between the two is the goal of counseling. For the Christian counselor the goal, unlike secular counseling which seeks to help people feel good and cope, is transformation- transformation of mind, heart, and behavior.

The Christian counselor is keenly aware that it is God who is the healer and it is the activity of the Holy Spirit (the Comforter) that transforms the mind and heart. The work of the Christian therapist is to provide the counselee with a safe and confidential relationship in which they can expose their pain, their fear, their wounds, and their sin, be led into deeper levels of truth, and receive the grace and healing power of Christ’s love.

Christian counseling is not about helping people feel good. As a matter of fact, facing the truth about ourselves and our own sin driven strategies for making life work will initially make the client more miserable. Christian counseling seeks to help clients come to the end of themselves where they may experience deeply their need for God and in Him, experience wholeness and restoration.