Sensitive Christian counselors cannot just automatically and quickly confront obvious sin in the life of the counselee without determining what level of trust has been established between the counselee and counselor (Peters, n.d.). That is equally important as it pertains to the case study of Jean. The counselor should not address the sin right away due to the fact that there is no established relationship and/or trust built. Nor can the counselor identify counselee’s temperament, which is also crucial to know before addressing sin (Peters, n.d.).
However, there are more than one way to confront sin, for example; the counselor can have Jean explain her reason for coming to counseling, the counselor can use silence as a non-judgmental form of confronting sin (Peters, n.d.). By the counselor sitting in silence without anybody movement of approval or disapproval, it allows Jean time to reflect on her own sinful actions (Peters, n.d.). Additionally, this form may lead to reflecting out loud, which is another form of confrontation that will be beneficial in the counseling session with Jean (Peters, n.d.). Perhaps, by the counselor encouraging the counselee to reflect on her own actions out loud will turn on a light bulb somewhere, without the counselor taking the active role in directly addressing the sin head on. Additionally, as the relationship continues to form the counselor can being to ask open-ended questions about Jean’s actions that will assist in her seeing the rightness or wrongness of her actions (Peters, n.d.). This may help with Jean’s questionable feelings of guilt about some of her behavior that could have led to the attempted suicide.
Each type of confrontation slowly progresses into the other style, by utilizing these confrontation styles it allows the counselee (Jean) to get more and more comfortable with the counselor as well as addressing the need to confront sin from the counselor in order to correct behavior. Utilizing silence as a form of confronting sin may at times be overlook due to the fact that the counselor may not feel as though they are confronting anything. Perhaps, the image that the counselor has in mind is not similar to the image that is displayed when silence is utilized in the counseling session as a form of confronting sin.
Reference
Peters, C. (n.d.). COUN 506 Week Seven, Lecture One: Counseling methods related to confrontation and confession. [PowerPoint]. Lynchburg, VA: Liberty University Online.

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