Christ-Centered Therapy

The Practical Integration of Theology and Psychology

Neil T. Anderson, Terry E. Zuehlke, Julie Zuehlke

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9780310861331
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling

Depending on whom you ask, the term Christian counseling can mean anything from secular psychology practiced by a Christian to biblical counseling that completely shuns psychological insights. Christ-Centered Therapy thoroughly integrates psychology and practical theology. A book written by experts from both fields, it utilizes the contributions of science in an uncompromisingly biblical framework. Here at last is a powerful resource to help you—pastor, counselor, or spiritual advisor—understand the complex problems of people and address them with the wisdom of God's Word and the power of his Spirit. Insightful and practical, Christ-Centered Therapy unites the wisdom and expertise of pastoral theologian and best-selling author Dr. Neil Anderson and professional Christian counselors Dr. Terry and Julianne Zuehlke. The first part of the book equips you with an understanding of the different issues involved in integrating theology and psychology. The second part helps you turn theory into practical application. You'll also find appendixes that offer personal testimonies, provide professional forms, discuss the role of psychiatry in managed care, and present the Steps to Freedom in Christ.

1

Values and Worldview Clarification

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Just because so many lies flourish in the realm of psychology does not mean Christians should abandon it. Instead, Christians must bring God’s truth to a deceived discipline.

DAVID A. NOEBEL

Psychology as a disciplined study did not originate from Christian sources. Moreover, psychology entered the curriculum of Christian education in a significant way only in the last half of the twentieth century, no doubt because the historical and prevalent stance taken by the field of psychology has been that spiritual values have little or no place in counseling—a position caused by, among other factors, a competing worldview, political correctness, a liberal church, and an inaccurate understanding of science. In contrast to the historical view, we maintain that the spiritual values reflected in worldviews play an indispensable role in the clinical decisions made by therapists and in the lives of clients who come for treatment. Psychotherapy is not, in fact, devoid of a worldview but embraces either a Christian or an alternative spiritual perspective.

Thus, current trends to acknowledge the presence of conflicting worldviews within the professional community reflect a welcome change. For example, the American Psychological Association (APA) mandates that psychologists take an informed view of religion as one of the several significant dimensions of human differences or diversity—or else make appropriate referrals.¹ In addition, the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on Religion and Psychiatry recommends that the religiosity of an individual be addressed in clinical practice.² Both ethical guidelines require the development of a knowledge base and a competency at all levels of mental health provision: education, training, research, and clinical practice.

The truth that religious values have a crucial place in the ethical practice of mental health counseling is beginning to gain official recognition. Fuller Theological Seminary psychology professor Siang-Yang Tan observes, “A biblical approach to counseling … that explicitly utilizes Christian religious values or perspectives and interventions (prayer, use of Scripture) and relies on appropriate spiritual gifts and the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit, makes unique contributions to counseling effectiveness, especially with religious, Christian clients.”³

BIG BROTHER AND THE HEALTH CARE ENVIRONMENT

Clearly these are changing times for the mental health profession, which is resulting in a significant amount of confusion. On the one hand, the United States government is starting to limit the establishment of bureaucratic structures around many aspects of its citizens’ lives and is turning matters of private and family concern over to individual citizens. To compensate for its shrinking involvement, the government is looking to churches and private-sector organizations to provide for the needs of the people in their respective communities.

The health care system, on the other hand, is not shrinking but rather expanding its regulatory control. It manages care through cost controls and by “rationing” health care services. Managed care’s influence in the mental health field has established bureaucratic structures that regulate practices in counseling. In addition, the actions of state licensing boards, professional practitioner organizations, and the court system serve to maintain a politically correct stranglehold on Christian practitioners. Consequently, the community of Christian mental health consumers and practitioners has been limited in its ability to mutually determine its values and spiritual approaches. Although secular, humanistic, atheistic, agnostic, and Eastern forms of spirituality are accepted because they are regarded as “politically correct,” the values and worldview of biblical Christianity on which this culture and its freedoms are based have been increasingly met with hostility.

THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH

This turn of events should not surprise us, for Scripture warns of a coming apostasy (see Matthew 24:24, 37–38; 1 Timothy 4:1). In simple terms, an apostate is anyone who has the form and function of religion but who lacks the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit and a commitment to absolute truth. Similarly, apostate churches are those that endorse the cultural misbeliefs and practices of our morally backslidden culture. Instead of righteously influencing society, such churches have become its prey, for whenever we abandon the authority of Scripture we lose our moral compass.

The apostle Paul encourages us to “preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:2–4). Sadly, all too many churches today have become at best irrelevant or at worst proclaimers of a false Christianity that fails to address issues such as public and personal morality.

Adverse legal decisions have also contributed to ushering the Christian influence out of the public arena. Examples of such decisions include the banning of school prayer, of Christian symbols on public property at Christmas, and of prayer at graduation ceremonies or sports events. Through the political and legal processes in this country, we are being pressured to practice our religion within our four walls, to stay out of politics, and to stop interfering with society.

The church, however, must inform the culture by means of a compassionate voice of truth and empower its members to take righteous stands in the marketplace. The church is supposed to be “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15), but if we fail to proclaim that truth in love, we will cease to be the salt and light of our culture (see Matthew 5:13–16). Law, education, and politics will function in a vacuum without Judeo-Christian principles influencing their actions. The church is not the executor of the state, but it should be the conscience of the state; to do so demands that the church remain true to God’s Word. For example, it is difficult, if not impossible, for the conscientious Christian counselor to encourage a client to abandon a homosexual lifestyle when the “church” is vigorously debating whether to ordain homosexuals into ministry.

THE COUNSELOR AS ETHIC IS TANDSCIENTIST

The decreasing role of pastoral counseling and discipleship training, as well as the phenomenal growth of clinical psychology in the past thirty years, signal another critical shift in our culture. Prior to 1960, the local pastor was the primary choice for those seeking personal help and guidance. Since then, however, discipleship training has functionally been replaced by professional counseling. Compare the number of people helpers who have been trained as disciplers or pastors with the number of those who have been trained to be psychotherapists. From a biblical perspective, disciplers and counselors are essentially identical. A good Christian counselor is a good discipler and vice versa; the primary difference between pastors and professional Christian counselors relates to the amount of theological or psychological training they receive. Yet today people are more prone to seek help for a personal problem from a psychotherapist than from a pastor.

Because of these spiritual, legal, and social changes, psychotherapists and other mental health professionals have become the primary caregivers and dispensers of moral guidance in our society. Psychology as a discipline allows the powerful mantle of modern science to be placed on the counselor’s shoulders. Therefore, practitioners not only have taken on implicit roles as experts in the area of morality but also explicit roles as experts in science. Since, moreover, science often opposes God and promotes “values-neutrality” (which is itself a value), many professionally trained mental health practitioners share a commitment to “objectivity” and “neutrality.” Consequently, practicing mental health professionals generally harbor a high degree of antitheistic sentiment, which, in turn, typically promotes non-Christian values in the name of objective science and values-neutrality.

Researchers and educators have long argued that spiritual values can and should be kept out of psychological theory, research, and practice. As a result, most therapists are trained to believe they can be a blank slate, an objective and scientific technician, a nonjudgmental listener and evaluator, and an embodiment of clinical pragmatism and humanistic idealism.⁴ A closer look, however, reveals that spiritual values are hidden beneath theoretical language. The language of psychological theories invariably speaks of humanity’s search for meaning, self-actualization, and the realization of one’s own human potential. These psychological orientations contain the spirituality of secular, humanistic, agnostic, and New Age worldviews, which are erroneously seen as “scientific.” Because these orientations differ from the monotheistic spiritual perspective, they are not regarded as being related to spiritual values.

As noted above, the field of psychology has a historical bias against theistic spiritual perspectives, a bias that has remained largely unrecognized and unchallenged. Despite compelling evidence that it does in fact embrace identifiable values, psychology still presents itself as holding to an objective, scientific, and valueless stance. German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883) called monotheistic religion the “opium of the people,” thus relegating its value to that of a mere anesthetic for the uncritical mind. Yet the system he was proposing was most assuredly driven by spiritual values, even though it presented itself as scientific.

To make matters worse, psychology has not only erroneously claimed values-neutrality but has openly discriminated against practitioners whose values differ from those of institutionalized psychology. For example, Terry recalls a member of a state board of psychology stating that any therapist who prays with a client is engaging in unethical behavior. Terry and Julie also know of a psychologist in private practice who was reprimanded when he prayed with a particular client. Even though the client claimed to be a Christian and had consented to prayer in the sessions, the client complained to the board of psychology that this psychologist had prayed with her!

In 1980, Brigham Young University psychology professor Allen Bergin ignited open discussion about psychology’s historical bias against theistic and spiritual approaches. In his bombshell article Dr. Bergin

• stated that interest in values issues has been increasing among health professionals.
• challenged therapists to make their values explicit. Therapists who are theistic should openly disclose this orientation, as should humanists (atheists and agnostics), utopianists, and New Agers.
• revealed the value assumptions that had been covertly advanced in the major schools of thought in the profession.
• described openly theistic and spiritual belief systems.
• showed that humanistic and behavioristic ideals were in opposition to monotheistic values.
• confronted the profession with its negative bias toward monotheistic values.
• encouraged all therapists to be open about their values and less subtly coercive with clients.
• challenged non-Christian therapists to be culturally sensitive and respectful of monotheistic clients.
• called for the infusion of monotheistic spiritual values into mainstream psychology on the basis of careful scholarship, just as infusion of other values bases needs to be studied and examined.⁵

More than a thousand professional people are reported to have responded to this article, and many leading individuals endorsed its general themes without necessarily agreeing with every specific value. Their support served as the impetus to move forward with the exploration of the relevance of spiritual content in counseling.

As we ponder the roles of psychology, the church, the government, and managed care in the delivery of mental health care, we can draw one dominant conclusion: The question is not whether spiritual values are operational in counseling practice but rather which values are operational. Nothing is valueless, since that position is in itself a value! Those who promote the idea that counseling is valueless and nonreligious are advocating a value system of valuelessness. Similarly, those who hold to an atheistic worldview are promoting a religious belief of godlessness and antitheism.

Managed care can be ethical only when it recognizes the legitimacy of monotheistic religious values and stops pretending that alternative religious beliefs are neutral and valueless. A value-free approach to psychotherapy is impossible; therefore, any claim to be value-free should be supplanted by a more open and complete value-informed perspective. Fortunately, long-term and entrenched biases, stereotypes, and taboos are slowly giving way to empirical findings that show positive relationships between mental health and committed religiosity.⁶ While the prevalence of religious and spiritual beliefs is high among the American public, the predominant exposure to other worldviews during the typical counselor’s higher education and the absence of equal instruction in a Christian worldview has produced two generations of largely nontheistic practitioners. Thus, the values of the American public and those of the average counselor may very well stand in opposition to one another. Moreover, research shows that clients move their values toward their therapists’ values, which means that nontheistic values generally prevail.⁷

One example of counseling being influenced by the values orientation of a therapist is seen in the issue of divorce. The predominant Christian perspective on divorce is that it is only permissible when adultery or physical abandonment is present or when an unbelieving spouse decides to divorce a believer. When clients speak to us of their marital difficulties, they will find us working very diligently to preserve these marriages. Even when the biblical grounds for divorce are present, we still seek repentance and reconciliation. We work patiently with one or both parties because of our commitment to the biblical value that marriage is a reflection of the relationship between Christ and his church, whom he will never leave or forsake (see Ephesians 5:22–33).

Secular therapists by and large do not hold to the same value system. Clients have shared with us their experiences with non-Christian therapists who, when hearing that one spouse wants out, will assume the marriage is unredeemable. They typically then recommend divorce as the best option and proceed with divorce counseling. The overriding value seems to be whatever it takes to make each person individually happy and self-fulfilled. If one spouse cannot be happy in the marriage, secular therapists think it best to terminate the marriage. Individual happiness becomes the ultimate value.

This case example reveals that both groups of therapists—the Christian and the non-Christian—are working on the basis of a worldview and a set of values. Does each of these approaches have a significant impact on the client and the outcome? Emphatically, yes! Is one approach value-free and the other value-laden? Emphatically, no! Both are based on implicit as well as explicit values orientations to which the therapists ascribe. The real issue is whether it is better to work from a biblically based, value-informed perspective or to blissfully maintain that values are not part of the equation. Psychologists P. Scott Richards and Allen Bergin state that “persons have spiritual issues that are inextricably intertwined with their presenting problems. Their treatments cannot be completely successful if their therapists do not appropriately address these beliefs and issues.”⁸

PSYCHOTHERAPY: THE PROMOTION OF A WORLDVIEW

The delightful children’s story called The Emperor’s New Clothes has fascinated and entertained readers of all ages for years. In the story, a pompous emperor is fooled into believing he is wearing grand and glorious clothing as he parades before his people. Of course, the emperor soon hears the snickers of the crowd, for he is actually wearing nothing at all. Such is the state of secular psychology today—self-inflated and self-deceived. The professional pride that so readily accompanies titles and degrees often contributes to this self-deception. In the words of the apostle Paul, “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man” (Romans 1:22–23).

The present belief that it is possible to treat persons psychologically in a values-neutral manner is a myth. Equally false is the belief that psychology is only about instincts, motivations, emotional states, and life situations that can be studied scientifically apart from values. Unfortunately, treatment approaches, funding allocations, and disciplinary actions are regulated by the “emperors” of a worldview blind to the truth that values are the very lifeblood of all we do as counselors with our clients.

For example, when Terry submitted to a managed care provider a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) diagnosis of Religious or Spiritual Problem (V-Code 62.89) secondary to a primary diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder, the claim was rejected as unacceptable for reimbursement. The case reviewer believed a focus ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Tables
• Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Values and Worldview Clarification
• 2. Reclaiming a Biblical Psychology
• 3. Diverse Strategies in Christian Counseling
• 4. The Integration of Theology and Psychology
• 5. God, Client, and Therapist in Christian Counselinge
• 6. A Biblical Strategy for Christian Counseling
• 7. Practitioner and Client Assessment
• 8. Resolving Root Issues in the Marketplace
• 9. Counseling Assistance Tool Kit
• 10. Professional Christian Therapy and the Church Community
• 11. Professional Accountability Relationships with Authority
• Appendix A: Spiritual Conflict Integration in Psychotherapy
• Appendix B: The Role of Psychiatry in Managed Care
• Appendix C: Care Ministries Within the Church
• Appendix D: Professional Forms
• Appendix E: Steps to Freedom in Christ
• Notes
• About the Publisher
• Share Your Thoughts