A thought on witnessing with perhaps an application to counseling as well....

"It is only when I begin to understand a people, only after I have recognized in them my own ineradicable inclination to play a game with God that I can begin with the elengchein. (Elengchein = a big word for showing them that their false religion is a sin against God for which they need to repent) I must feel a community or fellowship with this man; I must know myself to be one with him.  As long as I laugh at his foolish superstition, I look down upon him; I have not yet found the key to his soul.  As soon as I understand waht he does in a noticeably naive and childish manner, I also do and continue to do again and again, although in a different form; as soon as I actually stand next to him, I can in the name of Christ stand in opposition to him and convince him of sin, as Christ did with me and still does each day." H. Bavinck