Constraints of Convention To Kill a Mocking Bird Essay Example

Constraints of Convention To Kill a Mocking Bird Essay Example Constraints of Convention To Kill a Mocking Bird Essay Constraints of Convention To Kill a Mocking Bird Essay Being subjected to constraints of any kind is an encumbrance many individuals endure at some point throughout their life. However, one’s ability to overcome a challenging situation truly defines them. Harper Lee explored the topic of an individual’s response to living constrained by conventions or circumstances specifically in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. By developing strongly established customs in the small town of Maycomb, Lee is effectively able to communicate the complex social system and constantly indicates that the root of the problems in Maycomb are connected to the unrealistic conventions that are present. Consequently, many characters in the novel must make difficult decisions – follow along with the traditional community, be able to develop their own stand and live against tradition or a little bit of both, just like Miss. Maudie. Ultimately, the importance of attempting to live unconstrained by conventional boundaries is conveyed and reinforced by Lee’s thoughts about an individuals need for freedom, balance of moral and ethical principles and for the sake of truth and honesty. Everyone should be entitled to freedom, but evidently, people did not believe so in the past. In the 1930s, the economy crash and the Great Depression that followed posed severe difficulty for many individuals. Yet, during that time, society’s conventions were still present. One example of these customs was the racial segregation that separated individuals, giving white people more opportunities than black people. Not only was the current economic situation challenging, but also the segregation removed all possible freedom from the black community. In the novel, Tom Robinson and the other members of his community are simply trying to gain the freedom they deserve as human beings, and Atticus is trying to help them gain this right. When Atticus is making his conclusive speech for Mayella Ewell’s case, he begins to discuss the â€Å"evi

Winston's advertising Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Winston's advertising - Term Paper Example Advertisements involve a number of techniques to attract consumers. Some advertisers focus on a particular age group and design the advertisement on their perception about what the people of that age group would like to see (Haase, 1931 pp 67-80). On the other hand, other advertisers use a different approach to target their customers. They make up a plan to target their customers by dividing them in the gender groups. Some also target the customers using a cultural diversification approach and target people belonging to a particular culture. There is a wide range of techniques which are used to target audience for different products. The common theme of those advertisements is the use of texts and visuals to attract the customers. Designing an advertisement campaign for children would require the marketers to use cartoon characters, colourful pictures and creative art work to attract them, whereas, such an advertisement would fail to grab the attention of professional people to sale machinery or equipments. Hence, the use of symbols, language and illustrations is of immense importance in targeting audience and increasing sales. This paper aims to analyze the advertisement of Winston Cigarette. The advertisement under consideration is published in various magazines like Popular Mechanics, Times Magazines and so on. The advertisement targets the teenagers and males aged between 20 and 30. The symbols, metaphors and textual details are all attractive to the male counterparts of these age ranges. The Role of the Media Used: The advertisement is published in Popular Mechanics magazine November 2004 (p. 41). Magazines are a great source of profit for the companies as they help in gaining and retaining customers. People like reading magazines in their spare time and go through the creative advertisements and try to avail the best product in the available resources. Moreover the promotional campaigns make the most of magazine advertisements which allow the consumers to avail their desired product with favourable packages or discounts. Magazine advertisements further help in directly targeting the target groups. For instance, if a business requires a marketing plan which is mostly encountered by children, children magazines and books may be successful in achieving this goal. Hence we can say that magazine advertisements are highly targeted to the desired population and may reduce the likelihood of being unsuccessful. If the advertisement is not creative enough to capture a large population it is still safe as it will reach to the targets view. The next advertisement may help reducing the losses of the existing marketing campaign. The advertisements by media are very important to get the message of the manufacturer to the consumers. Semiotic Analysis The semiotic analysis is helpful in evaluating the success of advertisements in capturing the attention of consumers by the use of symbolic and textual information. The symbolic features of an advertis ement also give some information about the product. The advertisement under consideration carry many features that worth an in depth semiotic analysis. Firstly the advertisements contain eye-catching pictures and excellent colour contacts to grab the attention of the consumers. The advertisement has made use of different font styles and sizes to make it look more unique. The use of font sizes and styles greatly depend on what the advertiser really wants to tell the customer and what is necessary or obligatory to include but not desired by the advertiser. The advertisement is designed for the marketing of Winston, a cigarette brand. This advertisement involves more textual features than the visual ones. It contains a number of creative and clever sentences that provide a sense of winning and uniqueness. Underneath the product image in this advertisement are the words â€Å"Additive free – Naturally smooth†. These tricky words do not mean that it is safe to smoke these c igarettes or they are not

Martime Delimitation and Territorial Questions Between Qatar and Essay

Martime Delimitation and Territorial Questions Between Qatar and Bahrain - Essay Example The essay examined how the proceedings and judgments of the court worked to satisfy the involved states. The research paper aims to investigate the issues related with the case of maritime delimitation and territorial questions between Qatar and Bahrain. It discusses the factors that have affected the proceedings and judgements of the court and also describes the progression of the case from time to time in order to show how the dispute was evolved between these two states and what roles was played by the decisions of the International Court of Justice to settle their dispute. Bahrain took the case of maritime delimitation and territorial questions between Qatar and Bahrain before the court in July 1991. The Foreign Affair Minister of Qatar filed an application in the registry of international court in which he made the request to institute the proceeding against state of Bahrain. The application requested the court to resolve the dispute between the two states regarding the sovereignty over the Hawar Island, rights of the states, over the shoals of Dibal and Qitat Jaradah and the delimitation of the maritime area of Qatar and Bahrain (Plant, 2002, p198). The roots of the dispute between these two countries could be traced back to 1965 when the Qatar attempt to settle the issue by arbitration was declined by Bahrain. After the termination of the British presence in Bahrain and Qatar, the King Fahd of Saudi Arabia attempted to resolve the dispute in 1971. These efforts resulted in the establishment of set of Principles for the framework for reaching a settlement that was approved by the representatives of three involved parties Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. These principles were during the tri-parties meeting held in March 1983. These principles clarified that the disputing matters between the two states regarding the issue of sovereignty over the island, territorial

The Multi-unit manager Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

The Multi-unit manager - Essay Example Practical and Implications – The knowledge obtained from this study will help the multi-unit restaurant operation in the development of Human resource in terms of recruitment, selection and training needs. Introduction In the United Kingdom, the service industry represented over 77.1 percent of Gross Domestic Production in 2010 (CAI Fact book, 2011). There are many international hotels such as Hiltons or Accor that have expanded all over the world. In restaurant sector, most restaurants seem to be a small business or family business, which has only one unit. After raising more profit, the business tends to expand its outlets to both national and overseas level. McDonald’s, for example, has expanded its branches, which are approximately 31,000 restaurants in 2010 (Ritzer 2011). Multi-unit restaurants could be defined as a company which rivals in the sector with more than one unit of a concept or theme (Olesen et al 1992). Due to intense competitiveness in the restaurant sector, cost reduction and standardization have been consistently focused on in multi-unit firms in order to get returns on investment of its brand (Jones 1993). In a chain of restaurants, â€Å"manager of managers† or the manager who operates between operations and cooperate level managers is called as the Multi-unit manager (Drucker 1995). According to Goss-Turner (1999), in a multi-unit firm or the multi-unit area responsible for 2 to15 units, the responsibilities of the Multi-unit managers are to concentrate on strategy of business rather than single unit operations. As a result of standardizations that have increased in nineteenth century, the multi-unit has grown along with systematic assessment for selection of training for the multi-unit manager (Goss-Turner 1999). It could be seen that with the intention of expanding in chain, multi restaurant outlets and the multi-unit area need to develop simultaneously. To gain a competitive advantage, the company should be able t o develop quality of their employees especially the multi-unit manager. It can be said that most of the academic study has focused on the role, responsibilities and skills of single-unit operation, but on the multi-unit company. The skills of the area manager are likely to be different from the single unit managers. Umbreit and Smith (1990) claimed that almost all the area managers are recruited from single units. Consequently, the multi-unit managers have faced problems in making the transition from single-units to multi-units because of the role, responsibility and skills that are different from single operation managers. Umbreit and Tomlin (1986) surveyed many multi-food services and highlighted that most functions of the multi-unit managers are related to restaurant operation, human resource, and finance. Subsequently, Muller and Campbell (1995) also showed that human resource was the most significant issue for the multi-unit managers. In addition, in 2009 human resource, restau rant operation and finance were still the major requirements for the multi-unit manager position. For these reasons, at the heart of this study is to analyze the roles, responsibilities and skills of the multi-unit managers in restaurant industry by providing a case study of Pan Asia group. A semi structure conducts interview of the multi-unit

‘Big’ Data Science and Scientists

‘Big’ Data Science and Scientists If you could possibly take a trip back in time with a time machine and say to people that today a child can interact with one another from anywhere and query trillions of data all over the globe with a simple click on his/her computer they would have said that it is science fiction ! Today more than 2.9 million emails are sent across the internet every second. 375 megabytes of data is consumed by households each day. Google processes 24 petabyte of data per day. Now that’s a lot of data !! With each click, like and share, the worlds data pool is expanding faster than we comprehend. Data is being created every minute of every day without us even noticing it. Businesses today are paying attention to scores of data sources to make crucial decisions about the future. The rise of digital and mobile communication has made the world become more connected, networked and traceable which has typically resulted in the availability of such large scale data sets. So what is this buzz word â€Å"Big Data† all about ? Big data may be defined as data sets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, create, manage and process data. The definition can differ by sector, depending on what kinds of software tools are commonly available and what sizes of data sets are common in a particular industry. The explosion in digital data, bandwidth and processing power – combined with new tools for analyzing the data has sparked massive interest in the emerging field of data science. Big data has now reached every sector in the global economy. Big data has become an integral part of solving the worlds problems. It allows companies to know more about their customers, products and on their own infrastructure. More recently, people have become extensively focused on the monetization of that data. According to a McKinsey Global Institute Report[1] in 2011, simply making big data more easily accessible to relevant stakeholders in a timely manner can create enormous value. For example, in the public sector, making relevant data more easily accessible across otherwise separated departments can sharply cut search and processing time. Big data also allows organizations to create highly specific segmentations and to tailor products and services precisely to meet those needs. This approach is widely known in marketing and risk management but can be revolutionary elsewhere. Big Data is improving transportation and power consumption in cities, making our favorite websites social networks more efficient, and even preventing suicides. Businesses are collecting more data than they know what to do with. Big data is everywhere; the volume of data produced, saved and mined is startling. Today, companies use data collection and analysis to formulate more cogent business strategies. Manufactures use data obtained from the use of real products to improve and develop new products and to create innovative after-sale service offerings. This will continue to be an emerging area for all industries. Data has become a competitive advantage and necessary part of product development. Companies succeed in the big data era not simply because they have more or better data, but because they have good teams that set clear objectives and define what success looks like by asking the right questions. Big data are also creating new growth opportunities and entirely new categories of companies, such as those that collect and analyze industrial data. One of the most impressive areas, where the concept of Big data is taking place is the area of machine learning. Machine Learning can be defined as the study of computer algorithms that improve automatically through experience. Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence which itself is a branch of computer science. Applications range from data mining programs that discover general rules in large data sets, to information filtering systems that learns automatically the user’s interests. Rising alongside the relatively new technology of big data is the new job title data scientist. An article by Thomas H. Davenport and D.J. Patil in Harvard Business Review[2] describes ‘Data Scientist’ as the ‘Sexiest Job of the 21st Century’. You have to buy the logic that what makes a career â€Å"sexy† is when demand for your skills exceeds supply, allowing you to command a sizable paycheck and options. The Harvard Business Review actually compares these â€Å"data scientists† to the quants of 1980s and 1990s on Wall Street, who pioneered â€Å"financial engineering† and algorithmic trading. The need for data experts is growing and demand is on track to hit unprecedented levels in the next five years Who are Data Scientists ? Data scientists are people who know how to ask the right questions to get the most value out of massive volumes of data. In other words, data scientist is someone who is better at statistics than any software engineer and better at software engineering than any statistician. Good data scientists will not just address business problems; they will choose the right problems that have the most value to the organization. They combine the analytical capabilities of a scientist or an engineer with the business acumen of the enterprise executive. Data scientists have changed and keep changing the way things work. They integrate big data technology into both IT departments and business functions. Data scientist’s must also understand the business applications of big data and how it will affect the business organization and be able to communicate with IT and business management. The best data scientists are comfortable speaking the language of business and helping companies reformulate their challenges. Data science due to its interdisciplinary nature requires an intersection of abilities of hacking skills, math and statistics knowledge and substantive expertise in the field of science. Hacking skills are necessary for working with massive amount of electronic data that must be acquired, cleaned and manipulated. Math and statistics knowledge allows a data scientist to choose appropriate methods and tools in order to extract insight from data. Substantive expertise in a scientific field is crucial for generating motivating questions and hypotheses to interpret results. Traditional research lies at the intersection of knowledge of math and statistics with substantive expertise in a scientific field. Machine learning stems from combining hacking skills with math and statistics knowledge, but does not require scientific motivation. Science is about discovery and raising knowledge, which requires some motivating questions about the world and hypotheses that can be brought to data and tes ted with statistical methods. Hacking skills combined with substantive scientific expertise without rigorous methods can beget incorrect analysis. A good scientist can understand the current state of a field, pick challenging questions were a success will actually lead to useful new knowledge and push that field further through their work. How to become a Data Scientist ? No university programs in India have yet been designed to develop data scientists, so recruiting them requires creativity. You cannot become a big data scientist overnight. Data Scientist need to know how to code and should be comfortable with mathematics and statistics. Data Scientist need know machine learning software engineering. Learning data science can be really hard. They also need to know how to organize large data sets and use visualization tools and techniques. Data scientists need to know how to code either in SAS, SPSS, Python or R. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) is a software package currently developed by IBM is widely used program for statistical analysis in social science. Statistical Analysis System (SAS) software suite developed by SAS Institute is mainly used in advanced analytics. SAS is the largest market-share holder for advanced analytics. Python is a high-level programming language, which is the most commonly used by data scientist’s community. Finally, R is a free software programming language for statistical computing and graphics. R language has become a de facto standard among statisticians for developing statistical software and is widely used for statistical software development and data analysis. R is a part of the GNU Project which is a collaboration that supports open source projects. A few online courses would help you learn some of the main coding languages. One such course that is available currently is through the popular MOOCs website coursera.org. A specialization course offered by Johns Hopkins University through coursera helps you learn R programming, visualize data, machine learning and to develop data products. There are few more courses available through coursera that helps you to learn data science. Udacity is another popular MOOCs website that offers courses on Data Science, Machine Learning Statistics. CodeAcademy also offers similar courses to learn data science and coding in Python. When you start operating with data at the scale of the web, the fundamental approach and process of analysis must and will change. Most data scientists are working on problems that cant be run on a single machine. They have large data sets that require distributed processing. Hadoop is an open-source software framework for storing and large-scale processing of data-sets on clusters of commodity hardware. MapReduce is this programming paradigm that allows for massive scalability across the servers in a Hadoop cluster. Apache Spark is Hadoops speedy Swiss Army knife. It is a fast -running data analysis system that provides real-time data processing functions to Hadoop. It is important that a data scientist must be able to work with unstructured data, whether it is from social media, videos or even audio. KDnuggets is a popular website among data scientist that mainly focuses on latest updates and news in the field of Business Analytics, Data Mining, and Data Science. KDnuggets also offers a free Data Mining Course the teaching modules for a one-semester introductory course on Data Mining, suitable for advanced undergraduates or first-year graduate students. Kaggle is a platform for data prediction competitions. It is a platform for predictive modeling and analytics competitions on which companies and researchers post their data and statisticians and data miners from all over the world compete to produce the best models. Kaggle hosts many data science competitions where you can practice, test your skills with complex, real world data and tackle actual business problems. Many employers do take Kaggle rankings seriously, as they can be seen as pertinent, hands-on project work. Kaggle aims at making data science a sport. Finally to be a data scientist you’ll need a good understanding of the industry you’re working in and know what business problems your company is trying to solve. In terms of data science, being able to find out which problems are crucial to solve for the business is critical, in addition to identifying new ways should the business should be leveraging its data. A study by Burtch Works[3] in April 2014, finds that data scientists earn a median salary that can be up to 40% higher than other Big Data professionals at the same job level. Data scientists have a median of nine years of experience, compared to other Big Data professionals who have a median of 11 years. More than one-third of data scientists are currently in the first five years of their careers. The gaming and technology industries pay higher salaries to data scientists than all other industries. LinkedIn, a popular business oriented social networking website voted statistical analysis and data mining the top skill that got people hired in the year 2014. Data science has a bright future ahead there will only be more data and more of a need for people who can find meaning and value in that data. Despite the growing opportunity, demand for data scientist has outpaced supply of talent and will for the next five years. [1] McKinsey Global Institute, â€Å"Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity†, June 2011 [2] Thomas H. Davenport, D.J. Patil, â€Å"Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century†, Harvard Business Review, October 2012 [3] Burtch Works â€Å"Big Data Career Tips† http://www.burtchworks.com/big-data-analyst-salary/big-data-career-tips/, accessed December 2014

John Wayne :: essays research papers

Arguably the most popular — and certainly the busiest — movie leading man in Hollywood history, John Wayne entered the film business while working as a laborer on the Fox Studios lot during summer vacations from university, which he attended on a football scholarship. He met and was befriended by John Ford, a young director who was beginning to make a name for himself in action films, comedies, and dramas. Wayne was cast in small roles in Ford's late-'20s films, occasionally under the name Duke Morrison. It was Ford who recommended Wayne to director Raoul Walsh for the male lead in the 1930 epic Western The Big Trail, it was a failure at the box office, but the movie showed Wayne's potential as a leading actor. During the next nine years, be busied himself in a multitude of B-Westerns and serials — most notably Shadow of the Eagle in between occasional bit parts in larger features such as Warner Bros.' Baby Face. But it was in action roles that Wayne excelled, e xuding a warm and imposing manliness onscreen to which both men and women could respond.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1939, Ford cast Wayne as the Ringo Kid in the adventure Stagecoach, a brilliant Western of modest scale but tremendous power, and the actor finally showed what he could do. Wayne nearly stole a picture filled with Oscar-caliber performances, and his career was made. He starred in most of Ford's subsequent major films, whether Westerns (Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, The Searchers ); war pictures (They Were Expendable); or serious dramas (The Quiet Man). He also starred in numerous movies for other directors, including several extremely popular World War II thrillers (Flying Tigers, Back to Bataan, Fighting Seabees, Sands of Iwo Jima); costume action films (Reap the Wild Wind, Wake of the Red Witch); and Westerns (Red River). His box-office popularity rose steadily through the 1940s, and by the beginning of the 1950s he'd also begun producing movies through his company Wayne-Fellowes, later Batjac, in association with his sons. Most of these films were extremely successful, and included such titles as Angel and the Badman, Island in the Sky , The High and the Mighty ( my personal favorite), and Hondo. The 1958 Western Rio Bravo, directed by Howard Hawks, proved so popular that it was remade by Hawks and Wayne twice, once as El Dorado and later as Rio Lobo.

Christian and Secular Counseling with a Bible Word Study Basis Essay

Abstract In order to arrive at a clearer view of Christian counseling, this paper examines the similarities and differences between secular and Christian counseling. It begins with a biblical word study to establish a basis for Christian counseling. The words counsel, comfort, and wisdom are examined in both the Old and New Testament. The Biblical view of counseling is compared and contrasted with the secular view. Relevant ethical considerations are examined, specifically related to the _Bruff v. North Mississippi Health Services, Inc.,_ 2001 case. The paper concludes with a discussion regarding future endeavors in professional counseling including how to integrate the best Christian and secular practices. Christian counseling has been difficult to define because there are two distinct kinds of counseling: spiritual counseling and mental health counseling (Bufford, 1997). Thus, there are many approaches for the practice of Christian counseling that range from the integrationist to the nouthetic position, which has made identifying distinctive features of Christian counseling a complex task. Counselors of the nouthetic approach claim that  truth can only be found in the Bible, all counseling models must be exclusively from the Bible, and any integration of psychological theories must be rejected. The integrationists state that God reveals his truth universally. Hence, they accept and utilize both the techniques and the theories of psychology with Scriptural truth to help their clients heal (Carter, 1999). Realizing the need for both spiritual counseling and mental health counseling, Bufford (1997) defined seven distinctives of Christian counseling. Clinton and Ohlschlager (2002) propo sed ideas for Christian counseling that they describe as a paracentric focus that seems to more accurately convey the essence of Christian counseling. In view of all this effort to define Christian counseling, there is still much diversity of practice among Christian counselors. In an effort to understand the biblical views of counseling, and create a more distinctive picture of what is and is not biblical counseling, a word study on a variety of counsel terms is presented in this paper. Next, the conclusions from the word study are compared to the professional views of counseling including an examination of relevant ethical considerations. This paper will conclude with a discussion regarding future endeavors in professional counseling. Biblical Words Related to Counseling In this section, a word study was conducted to understand the biblical views of counseling. The words counsel, wisdom, and comfort were researched by first using the _Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible_ (Strong, 1996). The range of situations in which these concepts were used in the Old and New Testaments were researched using Richards’ (1985) _Expository Dictionary of Bible Words,_ Vine’s (1940) _Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words,_ and the _Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology_ (Elwell, 1996). Several Bible commentaries were used to illustrate how these concepts were used in the Old and the New Testaments. _Counsel_ The Hebrew words that best communicate â€Å"to counsel† or â€Å"to advise† are ya`ats  and its derivative `etsah. Both words mean advice, counsel, purpose or plan. In the Old Testament, these words are used to describe both the counsel of God and the counsel of man. Ya`ats is used 80 times in the King James Version (KJV) of the Old Testament and `etsah is used 88 times to convey the concept of counsel or advice (Blue Letter Bible (BLB), 1996-2008). When ya`ats and `etsah are used as human counsel, it is usually in the context of counsel being given to kings (1 Chronicles 13:1; 2 Chronicles 25:17). Proverbs suggests that one should seek the counsel of many (Proverbs 11:14; 15:22) because human beings and their counsel are both fallible. However, God’s counsel is infallible, firm, and purposed (Psalms 33:10-11) which is conveyed as such in the Old Testament when ya`ats and `etsah are used. (Richards, 1985). In the New Testament, boule comes from the root word boulomai which means â€Å"to will.† Bouleuo is used 8 times in the New Testament and can mean â€Å"to take counsel, to resolve† (Vine, 1940). The root word boule translates â€Å"to will† or â€Å"to purpose† when God is the context. Its derivative, bouleuo, means â€Å"to take counsel, to resolve† and together with boule is used 20 times in the New Testament. Like the Old Testament, boule is used both to express the counsel of God (Luke 7:30; Acts 2:23) and the counsel of man (Ephesians 1:11; Hebrews 6:17). The compound symbouleuo refers to counsel taken together (John 11:53). One other word used in the New Testament that communicates â€Å"to counsel† is gnome. Whereas boule is counsel as a result of determination, gnome is used as judgment, opinion, or counsel as a result of knowledge (2 Corinthians 8:10). Gnome is used 9 times and symbouleuo is used 5 times (Vine, 1940). _Old Testament usage_. Both God’s counsel and human counsel are reflected through the use of ya`ats and `etsah in the Old Testament. The incidents of Absalom in Samuel 17:11-21 and Rehoboam in 1 Kings 12:1-15 illustrate how ya`ats is used for human counsel and suggests some plan of action to deal with a specific situation. Ultimately, both Rehoboam and Absalom choose a course of action, but there is no certainty in human plans. However, perfect counsel is found in God’s plans (Richards, 1985). Psalms 33:10-11 declares, â€Å"The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the  peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations† (NIV). God’s counsel is inerrant, sufficient, and unchangeable and is at the center of Christian counseling. _New Testament usage._ The New Testament depicts the different ways in which human counsel is given. Symbouleuo is often used when advice is given by one person to another and is usually in reference to plots against Jesus or the early church (Matthew 26:4; Acts 9:23). Gnome is used in an example of sound advice based on maturity and knowledge given by Paul to the Corinth church (2 Corinthians 8:10) and boule is used in the sound advice given by the highly esteemed teacher of the Pharisees, Gamaliel (Acts 5:33-39). Although Gamaliel gave good advice, it was not tested by the standard of God’s word. Nonetheless, God used Gamaliel’s advice to give a needed respite to the young church (Guzik, 2001, Acts 5, D.2). The inconsistent advice given by man contrasts the immutable counsel of God. His truth is the primary source by which Christian counselors test all counseling methods, techniques, and principles in order to offer sound counsel to their clients. _Comfort_ Naham is the Hebrew word most often translated â€Å"to give comfort† in the Old Testament. It is used 108 times in the Old Testament. Many times naham means â€Å"to console† (Psalms 71:21; Isaiah 49:13). Its derivative, tanchuwm, means consolation (Job 15:11; 21:2) and is translated 5 times. Other meanings used in the Old Testament are support, relief, cheer up, and exhort. The last 26 chapters of Isaiah express God’s comfort (Isaiah 40:1) and the future promise of the Redeemer (Baker, 1996). In the New Testament, the words parakaleo (verb) and paraklesis (noun) come from kaleo which means â€Å"to call,† and para meaning, â€Å"alongside of.† Parakaleo means â€Å"to call to one’s side or to summon to one’s aid, but this word and its various forms can mean many other things. This word group can be translated as invite, call, exhort, beseech, encourage, summon, instruct, comfort, and console. Parakaleo is found 109 times in the New Testament. Nine of the NIV’s 17 translations of this word group meaning â€Å"comfort† are  found in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7. In these passages, Paul addresses God’s comfort during times of trouble. _Old Testament usage_. Jerusalem is discouraged over the announcement about the coming Babylonian conquest and future exile. In Isaiah 40:1-2, God tells Isaiah to â€Å"comfort, comfort my people† (NIV) and speak tenderly as you comfort. The people of Jerusalem were broken-hearted and needed comfort. God offered that comfort through Isaiah by instructing him to speak comfort, literally â€Å"speak to the heart† (Guzik, 2006, Isaiah 40, A.1.c.i). The goal of the therapeutic process is to restore the broken-hearted person to a whole life. Clients must believe that healing is possible, but counselors must first comfort their anxious souls (Clinton & Ohlschlager, 2002). The process of change begins with the Christian counselor speaking tenderly to his or her clients’ hearts and reassuring them of God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. Healing begins when a sense of comfort and encouragement grows from knowing that God knows everything, is in control of everything, is perfectly good, and is _on my side_ (Johnson, 2003). _New Testament usage._ Clinton and Ohlschlager (2002) proposed a Paracentric focus that describes the Christian counselor as single-mindedly focused on Christ and the client. In 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, Paul models this idea. Paul’s life is not on focused on himself, but on the Lord and on others. Paul opens his letter to the church in Corinth praising God for his mercy and comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3). Paul uses the Greek word paraklesis that expresses a comfort that strengthens, encourages, and helps one deal with distressful times. In verse four, Paul explains that God â€Å"comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God† (NIV). Paul is thankful that he can experience God’s comfort during times of trouble and use that experience to help and comfort those in similar circumstances (Guzik, 2001, 2 Corinthians, A.2.a.i). In the same way, the Christian counselor, yielded to the Holy Spirit, can meet the client at his or her point of need, and begin to create a strong working alliance (Clinton & Ohlschlager, 2002). The broken-hearted can be comforted, the weak can be supported, the discouraged can be encouraged, and the misdirected can be guided (1 Thessalonians 5:14). _Wisdom_ The basic word group expressing the idea of wisdom includes chakam and its derivatives chokmah and chokmowth. Together they occur over 150 times in the Old Testament. This word group can mean to be skillful, to instruct, or to be prudent. Biyn and sekel are also closely related and usually means understanding or discernment. Biyn is used 170 times and sekel is used 16 times in the Old Testament. Throughout the Old Testament, wisdom is expressed in godly living that is most represented in the book of Proverbs (Proverbs 2:6, 9-10, 12). Wisdom can fit into two categories. Practical wisdom, which is usually found in Proverbs, deals with the issues of an individual’s life, such as family relations (Proverbs 22:6) and personal industry (Proverbs 8:15). Reflective wisdom focuses on theological issues, such as the suffering of the innocent Job and the meaning of life in Ecclesiastes (Elwell, 1996). The Greek word sophia is the word that expresses wisdom in the New Testament. Sophia is translated 51 times, and focuses on the same practice of godly living as described in the Old Testament. The exception is in 1 Corinthians 1-3 where Paul compares the wisdom of men to the â€Å"hidden wisdom of God† or God’s plan of salvation. Other words used are sunesis which means knowledge or understanding (Mark 12:33) and phronesis which can mean wisdom or prudence (Luke 1:17; Ephesians 1:8). Sunesis is used seven times and phronesis is used twice in the New Testament (BLB). _Old Testament Usage._ In Ecclesiastes, Solomon demonstrates how wisdom must be used when teaching or counseling those who are suffering. In Ecclesiastes 12:8-14, Solomon focused on the immediate needs of the people (vs. 8). He â€Å"sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth† (Ecclesiastes 12:9-10; KJV). Solomon understood that divine wisdom would be required to respond to the needs of the people (1 Kings 3:5-14). He also knew that he must offer truth found in Scriptures to direct them towards wellness (Ecclesiastes 12:10) for â€Å"what good will acceptable words do us if they be not upright and words of truth?†Ã‚  (Henry, 1996). Solomon pondered, sought, and used God’s Word to meet the immediate needs of the individual. This is the essence of Christian counseling. _New Testament usage._ James reflects Old Testament sentiments in his advice to appeal to God when one lacks wisdom (James 1:5-7). James is not just talking about knowledge, but about the ability to discern right from wrong. Later, James contrasts personal character that comes from divine wisdom and traits that are destructive and not of God (James 3:13-18). Wisdom that comes from God is â€Å"peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere† (James 3:17). These traits should define competent Christian counselors. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament emphasize the importance to appeal to God for his divine wisdom. Comparison of Biblical Views with Professional Views This section begins by identifying similarities in function and approach between Christian and secular counseling. Differences are defined by examining three different areas: Philosophy of life, counseling goals, and source of truth. In the final section, conclusions are drawn regarding the implications to future counseling endeavors based on the conclusions from the word study, comparisons to professional counseling, and relevant ethical considerations. _Similarities between Biblical and Professional Views of Counseling_ _Code of Ethics._ Christian counseling and secular counseling have much in common, more so in the process than in the content. One area of commonality is illustrated in the American Counseling Association’s (2005) _ACA Code of Ethics_ and the American Association of Christian Counselors’ (2004) _AACC Code of Ethics._ Both ethics codes address basic moral principles – nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, fidelity – that form the framework for ethical behavior and decision making for the professional counselor (Meara, Schmidt, & Day, 1996). Both ethics codes begin by addressing the primary responsibility of the counselor to _do no harm_ to those they serve (ACA,  2005, A.4.a; AACC, 2004, 1-102). Both ethics codes also address the counselor’s responsibility to â€Å"respect the dignity and to promote the welfare of clients† (ACA, 2005, A.1.a). Providing verbal and written informed consent, ensuring that â€Å"the client reasonably understand s the nature and process of counseling† (AACC, 2004, 1-310), as well as respecting client diversity (ACA, 2005, C.5; AACC, 2004, 1-101) are included in both ethics codes to protect the welfare of the client. _Common elements._ Christian counseling and secular counseling also share many common elements in their approach. First, both counseling systems are goal-oriented. Although goals such as spiritual maturity and discipleship are clearly distinctive to Christian counseling, many of the immediate goals, such as alleviation of depression, reduction of anxiety, and control over substance abuse are common goals in both secular and Christian counseling. Second, Christian and secular counselors use many of the same strategies, techniques, and methods to offer hope to the counselee, build a strong therapeutic relationship, develop competencies in social living, provide support, and change destructive cognitive or behavioral patterns (Bufford, 1997). Lastly, effective counselors in both Christian and secular counseling are characterized by warmth, sensitivity, understanding, genuine concern, trustworthiness, and competence (Clinton & Ohlschlager, 2002). _Differences between Biblical and Professional Views of Counseling_ _Philosophies of life (View of man)._ Everyone has a philosophy of life, a way in which one views the world. Generally, secular counseling views are man-centered (anthropocentric) and biblical counseling views are God-centered (theocentric). The worldview of a counselor determines how he or she thinks about human nature, evaluates and assesses the client, and decides on treatment strategies (Clinton & Ohlschlager, 2002). In secular counseling, the reason for man’s existence and the goals to be achieved are centered upon, and revolve around man. Secular counseling relies on theories influenced by behavioral, humanistic, and existential thought, but those theories have little to offer the client except the  advice that they should care about and love themselves (Carter, 1999). These theories emphasize a basic goodness or a basic depravity in the soul, and focuses on what will make the individual happy, adaptive, and successful. This is their basis for self-evaluation. â€Å"Humanistic psychotherapy has always been hampered by the contradiction of encouraging unlovable selves to love themselves† (Johnson, 2003, p. 84). In contrast, biblical counseling is God-centered. Christian counseling does not place humans at the center of the universe as humanism does. In Genesis, it states that God is the creator, and he created man in his image and likeness to live and rule in a perfect world (1:26-2:25). In spite of the corruption of the fall, man still bears the image and likeness of God and still has authority in the world as dependent creatures who desire to have a relationship with God and other people (Averbeck, 2006). It is this God-revealed concept of the nature of man that biblical counseling, both as a system and as a process of doing counseling, bases its work. Christian counselors understand that all biblical care giving falls within the larger plans and purposes of the Creator. It is comforting to know that in the midst of a contingent, unpredictable life, God, the creator, is always there to meet every need and pour out his comfort to all who seek him (Johnson, 1997). Christian counseling offers what secular counseling cannot: â€Å"the father of compassion and the God of all comfort† (2 Corinthians 1:3; NIV). As man searches for meaning and contentment, God comforts and heals. _Goals._ Though easing the suffering of the client is a goal in both Christian and secular counseling, it is not the ultimate goal of the Christian counselor. All counseling systems have goals of bringing about changes in the counselee, whether they are changes in feelings, beliefs, thinking or behavior. The goals of a counseling system are largely determined by the philosophy of life held. A man-centered viewpoint will yield goals that focus on the relief of suffering and the fulfillment of personal happiness. Secular counseling holds such views. The main goals of secular counseling in treating clients are to help the client alleviate anxiety, guilt, depression, anger and to achieve personal happiness, contentment and self-fulfillment. Secular counselors also give counselees  methods of self-assessment to help them continue to live life with minimal anxiety and hostility (Clinton & Ohlschlager, 2002). Like the secular counselor, Christian counselors seek to change behaviors and attitudes that will bring about happiness, contentment, and greater well-being; however, Christian counseling goes much deeper than changing behavior and helping clients find happiness (Bufford, 1997). The ultimate goals of Christian counseling are to help the counselee experience intimacy with God and maturity in Christ (Ephesians 4:20-24). Placing an emphasis on discipleship and introducing spiritual disciplines in the Christian counseling practice helps achieve these goals. Although both share similar thoughts in techniques and theories, the practice of spiritual disciplines is uniquely Christian and is an important factor in achieving the goals of intimacy and maturity (Willard, 2000). Collins (1996) states, â€Å"Helping that leaves out the spiritual dimension ultimately has something missing. It may stimulate good feelings and help people cope with stress, but it does nothing to prepare people for eternity or help them experience the abundant life here on earth† (p. 15). Though the ultimate goals of Christian counseling are intimacy with God and maturity in Christ, the heart of Christian counseling is the good news of Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:26-27). The power of Jesus makes change, redemption, and new life possible. In the Great Commission, Jesus commands Christians to make disciples and to teach them to how to live as disciples and experience abundant life. The Great Commission differentiates Christian counseling from secular counseling. The work of Christian counselors is incomplete until they have helped the counselee put off the old self and put on the new by teaching and training them to live like Christ (Willard, 2000). _Source of truth_. There are more than 400 different therapy models available today. â€Å"Effective counselors scrutinize theories for proven effectiveness and match them to personal beliefs and realities about the nature of people and change† (Gladding, 2007, p. 190). Never before has it been so important to have a source of absolute truth. Christian counselors believe that the Bible is the authoritative word of God against which they can assess their  beliefs, practices, ideas, and actions. They believe that â€Å"all Scripture is God-breathed† (2 Timothy 2:16-17, NIV) and fully equips them for every good work. Thus, although both Christian counselors and secular counselors use many of the same counseling techniques, the Christian counselor does not use counseling techniques that are inconsistent with biblical teaching. Recent studies on therapeutic outcome encouraged the present emphasis on an eclectic approach in professional counseling. That is, most counselors today are using various theories and techniques to meet their clients’ unique needs. Whiston and Sexton (1993) concluded that a strong therapeutic relationship is significantly related to positive client outcome. Tan (2003a) reported that empirically supported treatments (ESRs) and empirically supported therapy relationships (ESTs) that are specifically tailored to a client’s needs produced the best therapeutic outcomes. Like Solomon (1 Kings 3:5-14), it is crucial that a Christian counselor be a biblically informed and responsible eclectic who prays for the discernment needed to â€Å"fit the right therapy with the right client at the right time and the right stage of living† (Clinton and Ohlschlager, 2002, p. 176). However, the Bible is the authoritative source of truth, and an effective Christian counselor will evaluate the moral and spiritual quality of every theory and method they use in his or her clinical practice. _Ethical Considerations_ Value conflicts between clients and therapists are inevitable, especially for Christian counselors working within a secular environment. Although Christian counselors may not always agree with the values of their clients, it is essential that they respect the rights of their clients to hold a different set of values (Hermann & Herlihy, 2006). It is also essential for Christian counselors to inform potential clients in writing, as part of the informed consent document, about their religious beliefs and values to avoid certain ethical and legal issues as described in the following court case. _Bruff v. North Mississippi Health Services, Inc., 2001_ is an interesting case that illustrates the complexity counselors confront when their value  system and religious beliefs conflict with the client’s presenting problem. In 2001, the United States Court of Appeals â€Å"upheld the job termination of a counselor who requested being excused from counseling a lesbian client on relationship issues because homosexuality conflicted with the counselor’s religious beliefs† (Hermann & Herlihy, 2006, p. 414). This case illustrates both legal and ethical issues related to value imposition and conflict of values between client and counselor. The American Counseling Association’s (ACA, 2005) _ACA_ _Code of Ethics_ states that counselors need to be â€Å"aware of their own values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors and avoid imposing values that are inconsistent with counseling goals† (A.4.b). Working with clients who hold different values can be challenging for counselors. It can be especially difficult for Christian counselors if those values challenge their religious values and beliefs. However, counselors must respect these differing values of clients and take care not to impose their values in the counseling relationship (Hermann & Herlihy, 2006). This case has particular implications for Christian counselors who find it difficult to reconcile their religious values regarding certain client issues. It is important for Christian counselors to include Christ and to incorporate Christian principles into the therapy process. However, Christian counselors’ primary responsibility is to â€Å"uphold the inherent, God-given dignity of every human person† (AACC, 2004, 1-101). Because it is unrealistic to assume that counselors will not incorporate certain value orientations into their therapeutic approaches and methods, Christian counselors have an ethical duty to clarify their assumptions, core beliefs, and values with the client during the intake session. â€Å"It is vital to be open about values but not coercive, to be a competent professional and not a missionary for a particular belief, and at the same time to be honest enough to recognize how one’s value commitments may not promote health† (Bergin, 199 1, p. 399). Personal Applications Current data indicates that no single theory or model adequately accounts for the complexity of human behavior. Counselors will have to learn and apply an eclectic mix of therapy models and techniques to accommodate the complexity of these modern times. Christian counselors will need to consider biological, psychological, spiritual, social, cultural, economic, and environmental factors when assessing, diagnosing, and treating the unique needs of the client (Clinton & Ohlschlager, 2002). Integrating spiritual direction into psychotherapy and counseling enables the counselee to focus on increasing awareness of God and facilitating surrender to God’s will (Willard, 2000). The conclusions I have made from what I have learned about the biblical views and professional views of counseling are that there is a place for employing both psychotherapeutic techniques and spiritual direction in the counseling process, but it is essential to practice such integration in a ethical, helpful, and wise manner. Christian counselors must use discernment when incorporating secular theories and techniques into their practice and they must be wise when incorporating spiritual disciplines into the therapy relationship. The Bible is our resource, it is the foundation for truth by which everything else is evaluated, and it is sufficient in what we need to instruct one another on how to live an abundant life (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Thessalonians 5:13). Christian counselors must refer to the Bible to distinguish good counseling from bad counseling. Both appropriate and inappropriate counsel is illustrated in the story of Rehoboam, who chose to ignore the advice (etsah) of the older counselors, and instead listened to his young and immature peers. Their counsel lacked a careful examination of the situation, and resulted in disastrous consequences (1 Kings 12:1-15). Wise Christian counselors are careful to gather information and examine a situation as they help their clients. It is imperative that Christian counselors consistently ask God for the wisdom (James 1:5) to choose the godly path (Proverbs (19:21). The ultimate goal of Christian counseling is to facilitate the spiritual  growth of clients, rather than simply alleviating symptoms and finding a resolution to problems. Integrating spiritual disciplines into psychotherapy can be an effective tool in achieving these goals in the therapy process (Tan, 2003b). However, as seen in the _Bruff_ case, counselors must take care not to impose their religious beliefs or values on the client. The client’s autonomy must be respected. Counselors must provide sufficient information regarding therapy to the client, and should include spiritual religious goals and interventions only when proper informed consent is obtained from clients who have expressed interest in pursuing and participating in such goals and interventions. Effective Christian counselors must keep informed of the latest and best information on ESRs and ESTs in order to provide the most effective and efficient forms of psychotherapy and spiritual direction to the client (Tan, 2003a). In addition, Christian counselors should, with the consent of the client, integrate spiritual disciplines into psychotherapy. Effective Christian counselors’ primary focus is on meeting the needs of the client. To meet these needs Christian counselors must first comfort the broken-hearted with a comfort (nacham, parakeleo) that consoles while imparting strength, to encourage while offering a hope for a future (Isaiah 61:1-2). According to Grencavage and Norcross (1990), â€Å"the therapist’s ability to cultivate hope and enhance positive expectancies within the client† (p.374) was one commonality found in the qualities of effective therapists. Recent emphasis on ESRs shows the importance of a strong therapy relationship and is in line with the conclusion that healing occurs when we model the God of comfort and love. â€Å"It is ultimately God who is love who brings wholeness and healing to the hurting people that we minister to through psychotherapy and counseling, using the best ESRs and ESTs available, as long as they are consistent with biblical, Christian truth, ethics, and morality† (Tan, 2003a, 2003). References American Association of Christian Counselors. (2004). _ACA_ _Code of ethics_. Retrieved February 27, 2008, from http://aacc.net/about-us/code-of-ethics/. American Counseling Association. (2005). _AACC Code of ethics._ Retrieved February 27, 2008, from http://www.counseling.org/Resources/CodeOfEthics/TP/Home/CT2.aspx. Averbeck, R. E. (2006). Creation and corruption, redemption and wisdom: A biblical theology foundation for counseling psychology. _Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 25(2),_ 111-126. 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