An excellent book for the religious based counselor!   August 29, 2003

Well written, easy to understand....recommended!


Good introduction for Christian lay counselors.   April 10, 2000
  5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I am a clinical psychologist and I have used this book for 15 years in my training of lay counselors at my church. It starts with the premise that psychology and Christian faith can be integrated in counseling to more effectively help people. It covers some basic counseling skills and cautions, and presents a 5-stage problem management model that is applicable to most situational and some chronic difficulties that people commonly struggle with. It provides a good introduction to counseling and illustrates the process through a nice case example that runs through the book; however, it is not sufficient for training lay counselors by itself.

I use Worthington and a book by Kenneth Haugk (CHRISTIAN CAREGIVING: A WAY OF LIFE) to supplement my main text, Gerard Egan's highly successful college upper division or beginning graduate level text (THE SKILLED HELPER), now in its 6th edition. Worthington's 5-stage model is easily integrated with Egan's 3-stage model; however, Worthington is written at a nonprofessional level while Egan is clearly more academically and professionally oriented. ALL of my lay counselors over the years have enjoyed Worthington and Haugk (also nonprofessional) , but some with only high school or limited college education have struggled a bit with Egan.