A brief, useful, and sound piece of work on biblical counseling.

In counseling, there are methodological topics like how to organize and plan a session, and there are practical topics like how to help someone with anxiety or depression. Furthermore, there are other discussions that go about a more apologetic work in order to establish biblical counseling as its own distinct practice, markedly different from the dozens of secular therapies on the shelves today. Ganz’s book mostly falls into this third category. I think these distinctions are helpful to think about before picking up a counseling book so as to gain maximal profit and understand what’s in view and to be gained from reading. Specifically in this book, Ganz contrasts the dominant modern psychological movement with a biblical alternative.

It was published in 1993 and since then there have been, in my opinion, a few better and more recent books and essays on this topic. Though it should be noted there is nothing off base in Ganz’s work. He is refreshingly biblical throughout. The heavy lifting apologetic task of demarcating biblical counseling boundaries has, for the most part, been accomplished by earlier (and some later) works, but nonetheless this work is always ongoing.

Ganz does a good job in a couple of specific areas worth noting: 1) He clearly sets out the basic tenets of the major psychological thinkers of the last century, going all the way back to Freud and Jung. For a very short introduction to their work with a brief biblical critique, Ganz delivers. Different answers abound for critical questions like who/what is man, what is the definition of normal, where should people go for help, and what does that help consist of. It is a therapy roulette with such a diversity of opinions! Each proponent has his own spin on these questions. Counseling is derived from a worldview; one with distinct views about man, truth, God, and redemption. Help in the counseling room proposes a truth, a truth that can either be in accordance with what God has revealed or out of step. 2) Ganz does a good job incorporating the role of the church in the discussion. Biblical counseling ought to be nestled inside a larger vibrant local church life. Believers practicing the one anothers, confronting, encouraging, gently probing, and always being patient towards each other is part and parcel to the process. Every church member has not only the ability, but also the responsibility to minister to one another, he says (86).

Ganz himself was a former practicing psychotherapist and rightly notes how many of the so called best practices in psychotherapy are fundamentally opposed to the word of God. In his day, self-esteem was in its heyday, but even close to thirty years later it has by no means gone completely away. Modern therapies are still awash with feel good, do what makes you happy rhetoric. Counseling is heavily anchored in a person centered approach, whereas biblical counseling is truth centered, scripture aligned, with the glory of God at the center. Persons are not neglected, but if someone is passionate and desirous to sin, that simply cannot be affirmed. Ganz says, “the sinful nature of man is far more ready to be coddled than confronted” (69).

I appreciated Ganz’s clarity and experience in counseling and the unique voice he brings coming from the psychotherapeutic background. ( )

When I first read this book I was a bit defensive, having been a psych major myself. But Ganz was a psychologist for many years before he became a pastor. What he says makes a lot of sense. Now I'm a fan. ( )