TheoPhostic Counseling:
Divine Revelation or PsychoHeresy?

. . . examines TheoPhostic counseling, a recently devised therapy appealing to Christians. TheoPhostic is a recovered memory therapy comprised of many existent psychological therapies and techniques, demon deliverance teachings, and elements from the inner healing movement, which include guided imagery, visualization, and hypnotic suggestion.

Page Reference Notification

Please note that page references to Ed Smith’s manual (Beyond Tolerable Recovery: Moving beyond tolerable existence, into genuine restoration and emotional inner healing) are for the pagination of the 1997 edition of the manual.  Later editions have different pagination.  Therefore the quotations may be found on different pages than those indicated in our book TheoPhostic Counseling: Divine Revelation or PsychoHeresy. 

Ed Smith has also changed the format of his word “TheoPhostic” to “Theophostic” (without the capitalization of the “P”) and changed the name of his system from “TheoPhostic Counseling” to “Theophostic Ministry.”  In the third edition of his manual he explains why.  He says:  “Ministry better describes what you would be doing.  This may be important to the lay person who lives in areas of the country where it is becoming more and more difficult to counsel without state approval and certification. . . . If you are a lay minister I encourage you to discontinue the use of the word ‘counseling’ as a description of what you do.  The legality of this term may be a point of indictment you might want to avoid” (p. 6).