What happens when therapy has no way to say a goal is wrong?

In this episode, Will Spencer is joined by Dr. Greg Gifford to examine a foundational assumption of modern therapy: that counseling exists to help clients achieve their chosen goals, but without a shared account of moral truth.

The conversation begins with a simple but unsettling question: What if a client’s goal is immoral, destructive, or sinful? If therapy cannot judge goals, what kind of formation is actually taking place?

From there, Will and Greg explore the difference between mind and brain, the rise of diagnosis-based identity, the authority of the DSM, and why Christians often adopt therapeutic categories without examining the worldview beneath them.

This is not an argument against care or compassion. It is a call for discernment, and for recovering a moral and biblical account of the inner life that modern therapy is structurally unable to provide.

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🌟 The Will Spencer Podcast was formerly known as "The Renaissance of Men."

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Mentioned in this episode:

The Will Spencer Book Club

A guided reading community for men and women who want to slow down, think clearly, and understand the deeper intellectual and spiritual roots shaping our moment. We read demanding books together and discuss them live — not to signal intelligence, but to form judgment.

Our first book: "Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity" by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke.

Learn More About "Black Sun"