Last week we published Dr. Adams’ list. Here is mine. What would you add?

1. Minimize your counselee’s problem. It was important enough to him to seek counsel.
2. Tell your counselee that you understand what he is going through. You probably don’t. Tell him Christ does.
3. Use psychological labels and jargon.
4. Debate counseling models and methods with your counselee.
5. Give homework that does not directly relate to the problem.
6. Delay addressing his problem thinking you must build a relationship first. Build a relationship by addressing his problem.
7. Adjudicate disputes between two people.
8. Overwhelm your counselee with too much homework.
9. Let your counselee’s emotions dictate the agenda.
10. Let other things distract you during a counseling session.
11. Fail to laugh and enjoy a humorous moment when appropriate.
12. Try to make a point with a long list of verses. Instead, explain carefully the one or two verses that best meet the need.
13. Fail to take good notes during the session.
14. Charge your counselee for the privilege of counseling with you.
15. Commiserate with a depressed person—help him!
16. Excuse failure to do homework.
17. Allow someone, whose own life is out of control, control yours.
18. Have your counselee read Scripture during the counseling session. You read it TO HIM—clearly, as he follows along in his Bible.
19. Yawn
20. Fake it. If you don’t know what to do next ask the counselee to pray for you as you study the issue during the coming week.
21. Do another pastor’s work for him. Insist that your counselee’s pastor come along to the counseling session.
22. Become angry with an angry counselee.
23. Pity a pitiful counselee.
24. Think more highly of yourself than you ought.
25. Speak in abstractions, be concrete.
26. Assume your counselee understands the biblical principle or passage you are referring to.
27. Let your counselee settle for relief from the immediate problem.
28. Give up.
29. Settle for some substitute for church discipline.
30. Promise absolute confidentiality.
31. Ignore or gloss over doctrinal differences.
32. Fail to secure commitments from your counselee.
33. Confuse repentance with regret.
34. Monopolize the conversation. Listen!
35. Talk about a counseling case with someone who has no reason to hear about it.
36. Fear litigation because you have obeyed Scripture.
37. Back down when you should stand firm.
38. Fail to handle the Word carefully and honestly. Do your exegesis!