Ep. 13 - Is It Wrong for Christians to Seek Therapy?

Navigating the dense forest of podcast content, we recognize a thirst for depth and authority that seems to have faded in the cacophony of voices. We've taken that as our mandate: to bring you an engaging and educational discourse on the saturation of the podcast landscape. Our latest episode promises to take you on a journey through the rise of mental health issues, the debates around therapy among believers, and the essence of Christian counseling. With our backgrounds steeped in psychology, theology, and philosophy, we confront the counter-narratives head-on, questioning the necessity of therapy for Christians and exploring the healing power of an integrated approach to counseling.

Have you ever wondered how theology and psychology can coexist within the framework of counseling, or how trauma can shape one's mental health, especially within the Christian faith? Our discussion traverses these intricate terrains, featuring a conversation with a pastor friend who bridges the gap between scriptural sufficiency and the value of professional psychological practices. We unfold the layers of how counseling methods have evolved, leading clients towards authentic self-discovery and change. Our examination of trauma's impact on the body and mind, and the vital role of nurturing safe, healthy relationships, casts new light on the significance of understanding and healing from our deepest wounds.

We don't just pose questions; we delve into the impact of parenting on our perception of God, provide practical advice on when to seek counseling, and offer resources for those navigating mental and relational health challenges. Our episode is a tapestry of insights, weaving together the common threads found in therapy for Christians and non-Christians alike, while also addressing the unique challenges posed by our differing worldviews and experiences. Join us for this profound exploration that promises not only to enlighten but also to offer a beacon of hope for anyone on a path to healing.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Can I tell you about a pet peeve? Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1: 0:04

So I was talking to a co-worker about this today, actually, where everyone seems to have a podcast. Like the market is saturated with podcasts and as I thought about that, it became a little. It can become a little discouraging. Like, you and I are just like two small fish just starting out, we're brand new and we're in this huge ocean of podcasts. Just the market is awash with information. Um, people, you know, putting tons of money into like production sets and everything to get their, get their stuff, trying to, trying to trying to figure out the, the algorithms to get their engagement and and generating clickbait and this is, I think, where my pet peeve is like, uh, hey, you know, people say don't hate the player, hate the game, you know.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Okay, so, um, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of material out there of people just just spouting their opinions, um, they, they get on, they plug in a microphone and then they just start giving their shallow opinion about something and they don't have like authority behind what they say. And I think what I said to my co-worker was that you know, um, authority comes through like education and trials, and then I forget how I said it, but basically, authority comes through like discipline. Oh, authority comes through discipline and study, and then credibility comes through trial and suffering.

Speaker 1: 1:29

I like that, and so a lot of people just haven't gone through those fires. But with us just starting out with this podcast, I think the niche and I think what we both desire to bring to the conversation. We both have our credentials. We both have professional credentials in our fields. So we've studied a long time. We know a thing or two, because we've seen a thing or two, about these ideas of psychology, philosophy, theology, religion, therapy, all these things. So, yeah, the pet peeve of mine was just this idea that there's so much out there. But my desire is that when people listen to this show, that they learn something and they can take something from it. You know whether or not we're engagement farming.

Speaker 3: 2:17

And again to that part I mean again we're being starting off. What essentially is the key marker is our persistence. We keep putting out content, something's going to connect, and again we feel happy about the content we're providing because we're trying to give that information out.

Speaker 1: 2:34

What were you saying about like the 20 episodes?

Speaker 3: 2:36

It's about, I think it was 65, 72% of people who start a podcast don't get to episode 20. And we are already on episode 14, 15, nice, well, with this one, we recorded three today, so this is probably puts us close to 1920. Oh sweet, so we're almost.

Speaker 1: 2:52

I unless you quit before. Well, I had my two weeks notice drawn up. I was gonna hand it to you yeah, this is getting challenging, yeah, yeah it's ain't working out, ain't working out. You know we'll be in good company you gotta find my podcast soulmate somewhere else.

Speaker 3: 3:07

Okay, okay okay, so all right.

Speaker 1: 3:09

So, um, the the topic we're going to discuss today is therapy and is it wrong to seek therapy, and it's another thing about our podcast is that we always try to narrow it down to a specific question. Each podcast is dealing with a specific question that we want to answer, and this one is about is it wrong to seek therapy? Now, why would we be asking that question? Because our culture is experiencing, I think, a surge in mental health problems. We'll get into that a little bit into the episode. There's a surge, I think, in people seeking therapy, even Christians, and then there seems to also be this reaction to that, and I see it in the social media sphere, especially in twitter and other places. Twitter is not real life, but, you know, it has impact on real life because there's people out there who spout their opinions, you know, and it affects.

Speaker 1: 3:57

It affects other people, and there seems to be this pushback, seems to be this pushback that, uh, therapy is either a waste of time or it's it's overdone and uh, people need to just go pull themselves up by their bootstraps, go touch grass, as they say a lot. Go touch grass like ground yourself in reality. Uh, go do practical things and and just practically fix your life and you'll be fine, you don't need therapy. So there seems to be this reaction to maybe an over almost in the medical field, people being medicated so much, and now there's this reaction against all medications, and there seems to be something like that with the therapy world as well. And so the question we want to ask is is it wrong to seek therapy? And specifically for Christians who are listening to this, is it wrong to seek therapy? Should I seek therapy if I'm dealing with something?

Speaker 1: 4:52

So let's get into that a little bit. So, as we always do, let's define our terms so that people know what we're talking about, because we're not talking about physical therapy, like I injured my knee and I need to go rebuild my knee. We're talking about, you know, mental health kind of counseling therapy. So, um, explain to us what what this kind of mental health therapy, professional counseling, is, and then tell us about different types of counseling, because there's not just one type so let's get into this, Ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 1: 5:22

the Sam Landa is about to go. Let's do this, let's do this.

Speaker 3: 5:30

Well, I really appreciate the question. Obviously there's a lot of history behind counseling and specifically with Christians, because the argument or the question is it good to go to counseling, Is it good to seek therapy? Really stems from a Christian's perspective is that you're not depending on Christ enough. You have the Bible, you have prayer, you have your community. That should be more than enough for you to kind of handle your problems and in one sense, from a research and counseling perspective, it makes a lot of sense because those three factors religion, people who attend church regularly, who pray, who are with family, who are in community they fare better than those who do not do those things. Then you have this other aspect of okay, so, if I have God's word, should that solve all of my problems? Well, what you hear a lot of pastors say is that it has the answer to every single life problem that we have, and I would agree with that.

Speaker 3: 6:28

What we don't agree with, or what we don't fully understand, is the process to get there. For example, we all know that we need community. In the very beginning of scripture we see that God says it is not good for man to be alone. He creates, he. So it starts that first community there in the beginning. So we need community, we were created that way community with God, community with each other. So I think where us as Christians get it wrong is what does the process actually look like? And it looks different for every single person. Pastors are going to say if you do A, B and C, you'll get this answer over here. But it's much more complex than that. So we look at a couple of different forms of counseling. So what is traditional, secular counseling? How did that start? So the person who's usually referred to here is Sigmund Freud. Right, and Freud did what was called psychoanalysis, so he did a lot of dream interpretation.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Who was Sigmund Freud for our?

Speaker 3: 7:25

listeners. The father of modern psychology is who he would be known as, and one of the common pushbacks that he receives from pastors or just anyone in general is he had this hyper fixation on sex, on this relationship between how all of the early stages of development orient themselves to something having to do with sex. So he talks about this complex relationship with his mother. Well, not him himself, but he did have kind of a traumatic experience with his parents. He was not a religious person, actually had a negative view of God, maybe even an atheist, but his whole philosophy was this aspect of things that you can't really measure. It was what's going on internally, right, Called the id, the ego superego.

Speaker 1: 8:10

I don't get too much into that. That problem you're referring to is, I think, the Oedipus the Oedipus complex. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:16

Okay, so he's the one who started that.

Speaker 3: 8:18

And everyone you hear. You're like what in the world? It's kind of weird, that's kind of weird and it is yeah and but. Again, those are things that, how it started off early, he had these interpretations of certain things that he would see now, where we are today, have a lot more research processes to protect the people that are being observed and also to protect the um well, the experiment itself. We have internal, internal revenue boards that review what you're presenting. So there's a lot of new things that are being done where you can measure certain things.

Speaker 3: 8:50

But then you have what's traditional Christian-based counseling, and this is well, let me actually explain New Thetic Counseling because this is where the pastors would probably line up is where it's only Bible, only that you can use. So it's a scripture, it's a prayer. Go apply this in your life and that will help you. Right, and for a lot of people they would say that that worked. But that was the culture at the time. There was no Christian counseling.

Speaker 3: 9:13

During the 70s, 80s, 90s, 90s had started to sprout up a little bit, but there wasn't a lot of Christian counseling. We didn't know how to develop that. It was just here's scripture, here's a verse. Take that with you. That's more than enough. That's what we would call euthetic counseling or biblical counseling, just straight from scripture. I actually have a friend who's a pastor and we would talk about this all the time and he would say no, this is more than enough. I'm like yeah, but you're forgetting the relational process. We're relational beings. That's how God created us. So this is where the integration piece would come into play, where we're trying to tie together theology what does God teach us about how he created us? And then psychology what are the behaviors and mental processes that are happening. So the process is where we often disagree, right?

Speaker 1: 10:00

If only there was a podcast that tried to do that, tried to web psychology and theology together.

Speaker 3: 10:06

Yeah, Psych and Theos sounds like a pretty good one.

Speaker 1: 10:08

I guess we'll check that one out. If you're listening to this, someone should start one like that.

Speaker 3: 10:12

I agree. Why don't we do that?

Speaker 1: 10:14

Have you ever seen the end of the movie?

Speaker 3: 10:15

Dumb and.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Dumber, dumb and Dumber. They're walking down the road in this bus. It's a 90s movie, but it's you know, it's a 90s movie, but it's a bus full of beautiful women pull up and they're like we're looking for two guys, two guys who can, who can put lotion on us and for the competitions, and they're like you are in luck, there's one, yeah, there's two guys in that town, right down the road. Yeah, anyway, sorry, I'm like we're the second yeah, yeah, yeah anyway sorry, that was a major major, uh turd.

Speaker 1: 10:44

yeah, sorry, that was my folks getting us off track. Okay, so you talked about traditional secular counseling based on Freud, and then traditional Christian-based counseling is sort of the integrative model. Trying to take the principles from professional secular counseling and wed that with scriptural principles and theology. Any other forms of counseling.

Speaker 3: 11:05

I mean right now where people are moving to at least Christian counselors. They want to be more integrations. There still are New Thetic counselors. They tend to be. There's one very popular one. It's called J Adams.

Speaker 3: 11:16

He was kind of like the pioneer of biblical counseling and you know he had these tenets of, you know, truth confrontation. I mean he was hardcore. There's no relational component to it For him, it was specifically scripture only right. One that I appreciate that I learned a lot from was Larry Crabb. Actually a lot of his books are right here.

Speaker 3: 11:38

So Larry Crabb influenced my own approach a lot because he was getting hit from both sides where the New Theta counselors were saying to him he was a hit from both sides where the new theta counselors were saying to him he was a psychologist and they were saying to him you know why are you bringing psychology into the realm of counseling when this is the work of the ministry?

Speaker 3: 11:54

And he was saying, well, I see value in doing research and what the research shows about human behavior and, uh, human, uh, the human condition, what they're suffering with. And then then for the psychology field, he's in that field and they're saying, why are you bringing in spirituality into the field of counseling, you have different types of integration today, so some people are more research-based, some people are more practical-oriented. But the idea is that you're trying to integrate what you know about scripture, biblical principles, with what we're finding in the research. And research is always changing too, because culture changes. So research can always give some mixed results depending on what era you're studying and reviewing. Values change, culture changes and so on. But yeah, so those are kind of like the big three, and I guess the misconception about Christian counseling is that we're still holding on to Freudian roots. I guess anyone who's not educated on the journey that would be a misconception from the Christian side.

Speaker 1: 12:50

Yeah, because they don't want.

Speaker 3: 12:51

They think that we're only using psychology, and, again, this is also informed by the shows that you watch, right, and the shows that you watch are typically going to be a counselor who's just exploring feelings and saying, okay, well, tell me more about how you feel, blah, blah, blah, which is a part of counseling, right, but then it's what makes you happy, right. So the focus is on what the client, what's going to make them happy, and sometimes, though, what makes them happy might actually be very bad for them. So the belief from Christians is that you're not confronting that because you're looking out for their best good. So if they want to go do this, that is immoral. You're supporting that. But no, there's part of counseling is you also challenge people's ideas and you help them confront themselves with two things that they're saying that they want but will actually be a detriment to them. So a perfect example of this and Crabb talks about this, he says he had a guy come into counseling. He's a Christian counselor.

Speaker 3: 13:53

So this guy comes to Crabb and he says I've been feeling really down lately and you know I really want to just be happy. I'm tired of being sad, I'm tired of being lonely. You know I'm married. But you know, I'm just not happy anymore. What can I do to be happy? And Crabbe asks him. He says so. Your goal for counseling is that you want to be happy day all night. Right, I want you when you go on that cruise, I want you to buy all the drinks you can, meet as many women as you can, sleep with as many women as you can and really just enjoy everything that you have there. I mean, you're going to be in the ocean, you're going to be meeting new people, enjoy all the entertainment entertainment and tell me how that goes. And the counselee, the client who came in, says he's confused by it. What do you mean? Aren't you a christian counselor?

Speaker 3: 14:53

it's like crab responds yeah he says so why are you giving me this advice? And crab turns him and says, uh well, you said you wanted to be happy and happiness is temporary. He said but if you want something else, if you want joy, then it's probably going to require something much more challenging than that, obviously. And it kind of hit him. It's like I'm seeking the wrong thing, right? Happiness is a pursuit for a state of mind that we're in. So that's kind of how he confronted him with his own desire I want to be happy. Here are things that will make you happy, but they won't provide lasting fulfillment, right. Be happy, here are things that will make you happy, but they won't provide lasting fulfillment, right.

Speaker 3: 15:32

So sometimes clients will come in and they'll want to improve an area of their life, but you see them thinking a certain way but making different decisions. Another example of that could be someone who wants to change their living situation with a parent. So that's kind of the clientele they work with. And then they'll say you know, I just want my parents to just leave me alone and let me be independent, right. But then they'll say something like but I fully depend on them for my finances and they should be paying my car and all this stuff. So there's this expectation you want to be independent, but you're also kind of saying that they should be doing all these things for you. There's a conflict there. Help me understand that, right. So those are gentle confrontations for people, and I think Christians don't think that that happens in Christian counseling. They think it's just like we're going to only going to seek their happiness, their fulfillment, even at the expense of doing something that will hurt them or others.

Speaker 1: 16:25

So, like the main, yeah, the main misconception that you guys, you guys being professional counselors, you guys over there that you receive from the Christian world is that it's not biblical, and you guys are just focused on this kind of secular methods and individual happiness and self-fulfillment.

Speaker 3: 16:50

The traditional model includes a very directional approach, meaning they come in, you're the expert. This was old school, right? This is old school counseling. They come in, you're the professional, you know what needs to be done and you tell them what to do. Right, but what's happened throughout the years is that that actually doesn't work, because you're just telling people what to do without them realizing why am I doing what you're telling me to do? They don't come to realization themselves as to the incongruence that they're seeing in their lives. So the reason why we ask questions is for them to process how do what? Do I actually think about this idea?

Speaker 1: 17:28

do? What do I actually think about this idea? You know, that's interesting, though, but, like now, from your experience, is there a a middle ground there where, like, maybe a person is a client, is like confused and they're sort of, you're trying to get them to ask these questions, but they're just having a hard time. So you got to come and say, look, this is the thing that you probably need to do, and here's why, you know, is ever, ever that kind of situation?

Speaker 3: 17:51

No, I think it's so when, when a client comes in, one of the things that it's even hard for them to understand why they're coming to counseling because, remember, they have a misconception of what counseling is. Again, most people know what they see on TV and you'll hear also from clients like I don't really know what to expect, I've never gone in counseling before. So they just start talking. But one of the things that I do early on, and many counselors do, is you kind of set the stage, for here's what the process looks like Today. What we're going to talk about is what brought you in for counseling, like what's the problem and what have you tried, what's worked, what hasn't worked, and what do you want to see different about yourself at the end of our time together. So that's kind of the format of that first session is what brought you in, what have you tried, what's worked, what hasn't worked, where do you want to be five, 10 weeks from now, right? And all of our sessions are oriented towards those goals, whatever those goals are. In that process the client starts to realize and develop a sense of self-awareness where they're like huh, what I'm saying and what I'm doing is not in agreement. How do I fix that problem? And you're just asking more questions Well, what stopped you before? What has worked for you? Sounds like you've tried this and you keep on doing it. It sounds like you're continuing the cycle. They have an argumentative person in their life, a friend who keeps on making dumb mistakes and makes decisions. That is hurting them and they say, and I don't know why they don't listen to me. It's like, hmm well, it sounds like every time they come to you for a problem, you're there telling them what to do and you're frustrated about that. Why not stop telling them what to do? Yeah well, you know, if I don't tell them, who's going to tell them? Well, something telling them what to do? Yeah well, you know, if I don't tell them, who's going to tell them? Well, something kind of contributing to the situation. Here You're building your own frustration because you know your friends aren't going to listen to you, right? So it's those things that they start to realize. Oh, maybe I do need to stop that behavior. And they stop and they slowly create some distance and they're feeling better because they saw themselves as part of the problem, as part of the pattern.

Speaker 3: 19:46

It's a very tricky thing to do the emphasis early on and again, this is where I'll tie in how scripture applies to this as well. The emphasis early on is developing trust. No one's going to care what you think or how you're even present with them unless you build trust. They have to feel that you're trustworthy and that you're safe. And so it's listening, it's reflecting, it's empathizing with their pain, empathizing with their emotion, and then, as time goes on, then there's little opportunities where you get to challenge just a little bit, see how they respond. You can pull back, you can do more. So it depends a lot on the client and counselor relationship. They call it therapeutic alliance is the number one factor for creating change in a counselor counselee's life. Because they have to. They're learning how to build relationship with this person who knows how to relate to them, and they practice that outside.

Speaker 1: 20:43

Okay, so let me, let me ask you this question when do you think so? You answered it a little bit. Where do you think this idea came from? Like therapy is wrong or therapy is a sin. So unpack maybe the biblical basis for therapy. Like, how would you respond to someone's like well, therapy is not biblical. So how would you answer that? Not just from the practical side of what you, what you walked us through with, what therapy does and how it can help people, but biblically? How would you explain to someone like therapy is actually a very biblical concept?

Speaker 3: 21:18

yeah, yeah, think about it as not so much as discipleship, but how humans operate. Humans learn through observation, right? We are very observant of our surroundings. We're observant of people in our lives and we pay much more attention to actions than we do to words, right? I mean, I think it's like 80, 85% of our communication is nonverbal. So what you're seeing people do is what we tend to model or follow after.

Speaker 3: 21:46

So anyone could have great articulation of their ideas and could have great rhetoric and so on, but if they don't have the life that backs that up, you're not going to listen to them. So when you come in for counseling, the former idea was I'm going to the expert and you're seeing something in the expert's life that you're drawn to, that you want. So how does that apply to Scripture? Well, in Scripture, anyone who's following God's word and they're applying those principles to their lives, you see the impact in their lives. How are they with their marriage? How are they with their kids? How are they in the church? Right, you see that and you're drawn to that.

Speaker 3: 22:26

So we typically seek counsel from those that we see something that they can provide value for us. So you would go to that person and say, hey, I noticed this in your life and I just thought you know you could mentor me. Or can we hang? Can we spend some time together? That's counseling. You develop a relationship with someone that you trust. You're asking them to give you advice on something that they're going through, and that's a good discipleship model, right?

Speaker 3: 22:58

Same thing happens in counseling, but it's not as directive, and a good discipler is going to be relational, right, because that's what Jesus did. He related to disciples, he provided truth, he confronted at times, but remember there was a trusting, safe foundation there. Where you can do that is that someone is not somehow depending on God. You can do both things together. Right, you can go to counseling and still trust God's word and still be praying and still be involved in community. Right, and I think sometimes we just think it's one or the other. If you're going to counseling, that means you're not trusting God. If you're trusting God and doing all these other things, then you shouldn't be going to counseling. Like we exclude them and.

Speaker 3: 23:48

I don't think that that's biblical.

Speaker 1: 23:51

Yeah, you know, I would add to that if you don't mind. There seems to be this bifurcation, like a splitting between the physical and the mental slash spiritual, because a lot of most Christians don't have any problem going to a doctor when they have a physical ailment, but when there's a mental problem they tend to reduce that to spiritual, and then if it's spiritual, you don't go to see a counselor, you go to see the pastor or you go and spend time in prayer, and so there seems to be this misconception with all things that are immaterial are spiritual and when they could be mental, like like physiological, something having in the brain or just. You know, we're, like you said, we're relational creatures, so when we observe something physically, it actually has an impact on us mentally and emotionally as well yeah, and, and we need.

Speaker 1: 24:44

we need to recognize what philosophers we call the noetic effects of sin. So you mentioned this, like you know, newthetic counseling, like noetic refers to, like that ability, to that cognitive ability to know things, like our ability to, and philosophy refers to like our ability to reason to truth about God. So the noetic effects of sin mean that our reasoning capacity is limited to what we can know about God. Okay.

Speaker 1: 25:18

So if sin can affect that, then why can't sin also affect our mental ability to be in relationships and to like think through our problems and stuff, and why would we not need help with that too?

Speaker 3: 25:30

yeah, no, you're right, man, you're absolutely right. Um, you know we forget that we are biopsychosocial, spiritual beings. That that's how god created us. You know I work with a lot with trauma and a lot of trauma is biological. People have these sensations. I'll give this example and you know again, for those of you who are listening, obviously part of this is just the reality of life.

Speaker 3: 25:55

I deal with trauma and a big part of that. What you'll find is, for example, someone who's experienced sexual trauma, and if they experienced it as a young child, what they know at that time is that it felt good but something about it was wrong. So as an 8-year-old, 7-year-old, how do you make sense of that? As adults, we have a difficult time making sense of just everyday problems. So imagine a 7-, 8-year-old brain that experienced that physiologically felt good, but internally, mentally, spiritually, something's wrong. Here they go through that process and now they're adults and they're wanting to address. Why does it feel weird when my husband or wife touches me that way? Why do I feel like I don't want that? And this has happened.

Speaker 3: 26:41

You know one of our professors is a Christian sex therapist and he deals with these issues with couples. Is that, now that they're married, it's the first time that they touch each other and it triggers something in the wife, triggers something in the husband. How do you deal with that? It has nothing to do with the spouse. It's a physiological response to a childhood trauma that was never addressed. Pre-marital counseling is so important so you can address these areas of life that are not typically talked about. But, again, part of that is teaching the person. How can you get your body to feel safe in a safe environment so it doesn't have that same physiological response? They're not doing that intentionally, they're not thinking about that trauma. It just happens because the body remembers things. So that goes back to this idea where biopsychosocial, spiritual creatures the sin was in the biological realm because it impacted how they feel about themselves, right. But then they start creating this narrative what does that mean about me? I'm dirty, I should have said something. Why didn't I stand up for myself? All this guilt and shame. And you look at them and say you seven, you're eight, what were you going to do? Person was bigger than you. They could have, you know, forced you to do something. What were you gonna do? And it's removing that shame from them so they can then now manage and think about it differently, while also teaching them how to help their, their bodies feel safe. This is how god created and, by the way, the reason why that happens. Again, think about how God created us, our bodies.

Speaker 3: 28:12

The only way to cope with something that traumatic is that the memory cannot be kept in the brain. For that child it's too much. So what happens is that you have this memory that's blurry and it just goes all over the place, because memory is not just stored in one place, because it's emotional and it's also visual, right. So you have different parts of your brain and as you get older, you start piecing things together. Why did I feel that way? Oh, that image reminded me of something, and now it starts recollecting what happened in childhood. You're like oh, my goodness, I've never talked about that. All of a sudden, now you have this repressed memory that comes up for you because you're experiencing it at a different stage of life, where now you can make sense of things, right. So for us as counselors one of the things that we never do, especially when we're working with trauma you never suggest were you abused?

Speaker 3: 29:02

You ask questions Because if you suggest, were you abused, they'll automatically jump there and create a narrative that didn't exist. So you ask questions. Tell me about your childhood, tell me about this, tell me about that. You're gathering information and see if they're piecing it together, but we don't suggest because the mind it's like drawing a you know, drawing a house I draw a square and just one triangle up.

Speaker 1: 29:23

You can finish the picture by saying oh it's a house, and human memory is very, very deceptive in and of itself. It's easy to plant false memories. You know, if someone's in the right state of mind, you know to be, uh, that impressionable. Let's say, in a counseling situation they're extremely kind of vulnerable.

Speaker 3: 29:41

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point they're mostly any emotionally charged situation can stir it up. There's this really good book, you'll appreciate this. There's this book called the Invisible Gorilla and part of it is just looking at how our memories work and how deceptive they can be. To your point. And there was a report in there about a lady who was being sexually molested by a guy. About a lady who was being sexually molested by a guy and what she did intentionally she would turn on the light to look at his face She'd never met this person before and to try to remember his facial features. He would turn off the light. She would turn it on again just to try to remember. Okay, what can I remember? Okay, turn it off. Guy leaves and she's there, calls the police. Can you identify this person? Yes, I tried really hard to remember. I think I can identify him. They bring in five suspects. She identifies one. That's him, that's absolutely him. And they get the guy. And it wasn't him.

Speaker 3: 30:40

It was another one out. It was another one of the suspects. What does that say? Because it was such an emotionally charged event, the mind can't contain all of that information that she was trying to record. It was too much. So in her mind she was just convinced no, I have it together. But it was distorted. She couldn't really identify. Wow. So it just shows kind of the impact. Again, the brain does that to protect people because it's too much, too much to think wow yeah, all right, let's come up for some air.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Well, yeah, um, okay. So let me ask you this are there? Okay? So we've you've answered the question about biblical, the biblical basis of therapy, that there is a there is a place for therapy in the christian worldview. There's a biblical basis of therapy that there is a there is a place for therapy in the christian worldview. There's a biblical basis for it, both a positive one, like it's a form of discipleship if it's christian to christian, but there's also a negative case, for in the sense of sin has affected everything our bodies, our minds, our souls. Okay, so, both positive and negative biblical case for it. Well, let me ask you this Are there methods or beliefs, practices?

Speaker 3: 32:02

presuppositions in the secular counseling world that are incompatible with a Christian take on this or with a Christian worldview, not for Christian counseling. I think the whole idea behind Christian counseling is that you're trying to understand what happened at the garden. One of my professors did a really good job of kind of presenting this to us. He said everything that was there before the fall. That is the optimal functioning human being, and it's interesting because those are the things that we see the problems with today. So, for example, what was there before the fall? There was community relationship with God, perfect relationship with God, perfect relationship with each other right. There was work. There was a day of rest, right. All of those things. If you just look at those five things, all of those things are impacted today negatively.

Speaker 3: 32:50

People believe in multiple gods. They don't want anything to do with the real God. Relational-wise, everyone's out to get one another. You harmed me, I harmed you. This idea of being sinned against or sinning against another. Then you think about work, like this idea. Depression, the rise of depression rates, because people feel like they don't have something to give or don't feel useful or like they can contribute, right. And then the idea of rest. Who rests? We're always on the go, that's the culture, just always on the go. So these it's interesting to see those things before the fall are the same things that we're seeing negatively impacted now, even in our culture today.

Speaker 1: 33:30

Um that's, that's a good segue. Then to another question I was going to ask you, and that's christians who seek therapy. Um, are they seeking therapy for? Are the things that they seek therapy for unique? Uh, is it like, in other words, christians versus non-Christians? Christians who come and seek therapy? Are they typically different problems than people who are not Christians coming to seek therapy?

Speaker 3: 33:57

Great question. They're the same. Same problems that Christians are having are the same problems that non-Christians are having. The only difference between the Christian and non-Christian is their worldview. Right, so a Christian would have.

Speaker 3: 34:09

The worldview is again, you have some who will over-spiritualize everything. So there's a different type of Christian that comes in and you have one who over-spiritualizes everything. You know, I went through this thing and you know, but God kind of kept me through and you hear their story and you're like man, you went through all of that, I get, god kept you through and you're here today. Man, you went through all of that, I get, god kept you through and you're here today. But when did you process all of that? So it's this denial of all of this trauma that's happened in their past. It's been healed, but it's showing up in your relationships. It's showing up in your behaviors. It's showing up in you overworking, right? Because you're not allowing yourself to feel those deep emotions. It's showing up in your drinking, whatever or vice, any other advice that you may have. So you're coping, you're here, but the way that you're coping with it is unhealthy, right? So they're, they're looking at all these things, they're saying it as I've survived, so I'm okay, that's how they're seeing. So that's the over spiritualized.

Speaker 3: 35:09

And then there's the other person who's going through just similar things that everyone else is going through, but feels that they're doing something wrong. There's a sense of shame I'm doing something wrong. I've learned this principle before, I've done this before and nothing's working for me. You know, does God even care type of thing, right? So they want to be close to God, they want to be close to God, they want to feel close to God. But there's these addictions, there's these things that they have in their lives, that they're like I don't want this, but I keep going back to it, whatever that may be drinking, porn, sex, whatever. They're going to these things and they see that, as I don't want this in my life, it's affecting my relationships, it's affecting my relationship with God. I don't want it. So they're just stuck in this shame cycle. So they see the problem, but they are stuck there. The other ones don't want to see the problem and they over-spiritualize it.

Speaker 3: 36:00

So no difference in the problems that are being brought in by Christians and non-Christians, but there is a difference in how some Christians deal with it than others.

Speaker 1: 36:13

Some over spiritualize it. Others are just stuck in the shame cycle. Ok, so let's talk about that like the over spiritualization and then the shame cycle. When it comes to the differences between men and women, are there different things that men typically we're talking typically generally? You know, men, that men typically seek therapy for, versus what women typically seek therapy for?

Speaker 3: 36:35

That's a good one. I mean, we work with college students, so the ones that are always trending are anxiety and depression. You always have some sort of relationship issue that comes up. I think it's more so in the way that they're coping. They cope differently as opposed to them bringing different problems.

Speaker 3: 36:52

For example, suicide attempts are higher in women, Suicide completions are higher in men, so there's that aspect. Depression rates are higher for women, Anxiety rates are pretty much the same. I wish I could give you some numbers on that. I'm just going to be kind of like the general that comes in, but those are typically the problems that they're having. Today we've done an episode on this, on the lack of connection for men, like feeling unwanted. There's a cultural push to devaluing of men and not needing men. So they're kind of growing up in that culture. So they're stuck, they don't know what to do, where to go, where to find value. So finding ways to do that in counseling is again this idea of providing a trusting, safe place for them to share what they're going through and what they're experiencing. But again, the anxiety and depression, suicide relationship, those are pretty much the four major categories I think.

Speaker 1: 38:04

Okay, so let's get into some maybe practical advice and recommendations we can give to our audience. I thought of a book, as you were talking at the beginning of the episode, when you mentioned Freud and his religious beliefs and everything. So, if you don't mind, there's a book, as you were talking at the beginning of the episode when you mentioned Freud and his religious beliefs and everything. So, if you don't mind, there's a book I read many years ago and it's really, really good. It's not a psychology book, not like a therapy book, it's more of like just philosophy and stuff. It's called Faith of the Fatherless and he's a Christian psychologist who takes on this idea.

Speaker 1: 38:30

Freud had this idea. Freud had this idea of the Oedipus complex and Freud can use that to say that the God, our God, attack. Now, you know way more about this than I do, but like the God, attachment or our sense of God is sort of like this father replacement figure in our lives and the Paul I think his name is Paul Vicks. I might be wrong about that, but I think that's the author's name but the book is called the Faith of the Fatherless and he looks at prominent atheists over the last 200 years and their relationships with their fathers.

Speaker 1: 39:08

So he flips Freud's thesis on its head. It's a really fascinating book, so it's sort of like this auto. It's like a biography short biography of each of these prominent atheists and the relationship they have with their fathers that's great, yeah, and there is a lot of.

Speaker 3: 39:22

I mean, there is a lot of research and data on that. Actually, uh, the more current trending topics is is placed on the significance and impact of fathers on their children. Specifically, play rough play, what that looks like for children, it's that physical touch that's healthy, because a lot of times again, where most damage is being done and Dr Thomas shout out to him one thing that he talks about in his counseling practice is most injuries are done early in childhood and they're sexual in nature, unfortunately, whether that's exposure to sexual things or experiencing that through the abuse of someone else. And there are things that are never talked about because it happened once or twice. So it's kind of just stored away.

Speaker 3: 40:04

But events later on in life kind of spark that memory again and now you're forced to deal with it. Let's face it. But yeah, there is that aspect of having strong father figures in your life can make a huge impact on one's overall well-being. Statistically, even with school, you know, lower crime, lower dropout rates, better performance in school, the involvement of a father With God attachment it's again the idea of you know I can't have a father With God attachment.

Speaker 3: 40:34

It's again the idea of you know I can't have a clear view of God, if I don't even know what a parent looks like.

Speaker 3: 40:39

When the Bible talks about that God cares for your soul and that he can take on your worries and your concerns and all of these things. If you've never had that, that concept seems foreign to you, that principle seems foreign to you. Like, my dad never carried my burden, my mom never carried my burdens, and you're telling me that God, who I've never met in person, can do so. So it's foreign to them. Really.

Speaker 3: 41:00

Interestingly enough, those who do not grow up in a religious home and they come to faith later in life, they experience what's called a compensation theory, which is that whatever you lacked as a child that your parents weren't able to fulfill, now you start reading scripture, you experience community in your church, you experience prayer and all of those things that you needed safety, understanding, patience, grace you experience now in your relationship with God, because you've never had that before. So God essentially compensates for everything that you were lacking as a child. Very interesting. And those who grew up in Christian homes whatever their parents modeled as children, they then correlate that to a relationship with God in their adulthood.

Speaker 3: 41:44

Meaning that if their parents were strict, judgmental, harsh, they will look at Scripture through that lens. God is strict, judgmental, harsh. They will look at scripture through that lens. God is strict, judgmental and harsh. If their parents were caring, loving, attentive, patient, then they can see scripture and read it and say, yeah, god is loving, patient and caring right. Because they have a model for that. They have a foundation for where they can build that relationship. Because they have a model for that. They have a foundation for where they can build that relationship.

Speaker 3: 42:12

So huge importance on how parents relate to their children Parents. So if you're a parent or want to be a parent, one of the things that you're going to model for your children is these biblical concepts, these biblical principles of God's character. That you model it for them so that they can understand when God is patient, that they saw you being patient and they can feel it and they'll experience it God's patience, god's enduring kindness, his grace. That they experience that with you and they also experience the truth part as well. That they know that there's discipline or there's correction for right and wrong. Again, all of that covers what they're going to find in scripture when they see God's character through it.

Speaker 1: 42:51

Sounds like we need to do an episode on that.

Speaker 3: 42:53

I would love to yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:54

Okay, All right. So for audience members who are listening right now, how will they know? And this is kind of just wrapping up with this, and then maybe some recommended resources. So last question would be how would an audience member know if they should seek counseling and then like, how should they go about doing that?

Speaker 3: 43:11

yeah, and I'm really conflicted about this one, simply because, um, we've done an over correction, and what I mean by that is before, in christian circles, it was advised not to go to counseling, right, but now it's like go to counseling anyways, no matter what, you have something wrong with you, go to counseling. So now it's overemphasized to the point where everyone thinks that there's a problem that needs counseling. But maybe it doesn't right, maybe you don't need it, maybe it's just these other aspects of maybe you need to build those relationships. You have the ability to do it, but maybe you haven't wanted to. Now, how do you discern that?

Speaker 3: 43:50

I would have to meet with the person to see what does their daily life look like, right? So I guess a good guiding principle can be what have you tried? So ask yourself what have I tried? What's worked? What hasn't worked? Whatever's worked, try it again and be consistent with it. You know it's funny. We talked about consistency with the podcast or other things, but in life it's kind of the same thing. If you can't see yourself do something consistently, it's hard to see the results right, because we want results fast, right, we want the vending machine approach. I put it here's what I'm looking for. And you think, if you do that three days in a row, sam, I did this for three days in a row and I haven't changed, yeah, and it takes time, it takes a long time. So that's part of what we try to do in counseling, and even then like we could recommend things, but if you're not doing it outside of session, it's going to be fruitless.

Speaker 1: 44:39

And counseling can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to years.

Speaker 3: 44:42

Yeah, and it all is contingent on how much work are they doing outside of the session and what. The issue is right. With trauma, we have longer terms approaches and we do have some goals, but again, trauma is all about safeties. So for someone who has not experienced safety because they had an unsafe parent or an abusive parent or neglectful parents, it will take a long time for them to see you as a trustworthy person, because they'll say, the people who are supposed to give me safety and security and trust are the ones who hurt me. It's very interesting, too, to see the repetition of how this happens People who tend to be abused by their parents. They tend to seek out. Not seek out, but be exposed to other situations where other people will abuse them.

Speaker 1: 45:29

And this is where you come into the truth, because they're looking for that and they that's what they know, like they see it and it's familiar.

Speaker 3: 45:35

But it's an opportunity, it's an opportunist who takes advantage of that who knows what that looks like and they'll take advantage of that. I want to see if there's a book in here let the, let them pray, I think it's called. I think the is called. It's about people in ministry and let them pray. It's P-R-E-Y right, let them pray on the sheep. And it's a testimony of a woman who kind of went through that, how someone groomed her in the church and how everything was just nice and, again, very familiar, but it was a means to an end, right, and she had to stay quiet because this person was a leader in the church and no one was believing her and so on.

Speaker 3: 46:15

So again you have these instances where it happened again.

Speaker 1: 46:18

And there's that connection between false teachers and predators and abusers in the church.

Speaker 3: 46:25

And those are the things that you can trace it back to some traumatic event or some relationship with the parent, something that happened early on again, not all of them, so don't don't think that because that happened to you that there's something connected to your childhood, but often it is the case yeah, uh, maybe just from a from a layman's perspective on when it comes to the counseling world.

Speaker 1: 46:46

If you're dealing with an issue, and you've been dealing with it for a long time and you haven't quite been able to figure it out on your own, and and maybe you're dealing with an issue and you've been dealing with it for a long time and you haven't quite been able to figure it out on your own, and maybe you're kind of frustrated with the advice your friends give you or something it just depends, but like, but you at least get the advice from someone who knows what they're talking about and they can direct you.

Speaker 3: 47:18

You know one way or the other, you know, and then you know yeah, and I would say I guess one way you know the question was how does someone know if they're um, if they need to go to counseling? So kind of the same way that we start off our first session is what's the problem? We brought you in, so why do you want to go to counseling? So kind of the same way that we start off our first session is what's the problem? What brought you in, so why do you want to go to counseling? What's the problem? Okay, what have you tried? What's worked? What hasn't worked? Right, maybe there's one thing that worked. Try it again, be consistent with it, see if it creates a different result. If not, okay, then you can think about counseling what hasn't worked. Do you need help with those things that hasn't worked?

Speaker 3: 47:52

And, lastly, what are your goals? Like if you were to go to counseling, what would be your goal? That's the hardest part for clients, because they'll be sitting in front of me and say so, what do you want to see at the end of counseling? I don't know. I guess I want to feel less anxious. Okay, what would that look like? So you have to be really specific so it can look so crystal clear in your mind. What does it look like to not feel anxious Meaning? When I go into my office, I immediately feel this tension in my body. I don't want to feel that anymore. Okay, so we can do some practices that could help you, help alleviate that stress. Right?

Speaker 3: 48:25

Some breathing right, some physiological things that you can do, some spiritual things that you can, some meditations or meditation on scripture, not, you know, buddhist meditation so but, um, so, things like that, um, so, if you can answer all those questions, I think that would be a good way to kind of say, okay, can you reach those goals on your own, or you think it'll be helpful to have someone along the way, someone who will listen and guide you, and I think that would be a good way to gauge it. So, um, and I think that would be a good way to gauge it. So, try things be consistent, and if nothing works, then it doesn't hurt. So I would say there's no, everyone needs counseling. I don't believe that, but I do believe that it wouldn't hurt. Yeah, there's no one size fits all. Exactly, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 49:06

All right, so resources you mentioned a couple of books along the way, but what are some resources that you would recommend for people?

Speaker 3: 49:12

oh man, I have, I have so many it could be websites too, and other things yeah, um, and really think about that, because I often approach I mean I'm a big crab fan and he talks a lot about being created in god's uh crap, what's his first name?

Speaker 1: 49:28

larry crab. Okay, people can google him or look him up on amazon here's uh, so I'll show you all these right here you might want to say that here's one that one of my favorites.

Speaker 3: 49:40

this one is really good because it talks about the whole process of changing from the inside out and he gives a very gospel oriented approach to how that change happens inside out. Larry crab, and he has really good theology. I think he graduated from a seminary and then went into counseling himself. And which one was it? Oh, the safest place on earth, that's another one. The whole idea about trust and how you can trust God in the process of your deepest pain. Shattered Dreams that's another one. That's the one over there. Shattered dreams, the everyone experiences that you have.

Speaker 3: 50:17

These are for, these are for non-counselors to read, or these are like I would say this is for clients so like yeah if you're wanting to just kind of understand the process of counseling while also understanding your suffering, because typically it's some form of suffering that leads you to counseling. Right, something's going wrong in your life. Shattered dreams actually a really good one, because it helps you understand how you can experience joy in the midst of your suffering or even after your suffering. So job is often referenced, right, job, you'd say. Man, this guy was faithful and he still suffered all of these different things. Sometimes that that happens, right, you might be going to church and might be serving the Lord and honoring him and you have a great family and so on, and then you have this hardship come upon your life and it's hard to make sense of that, right, but if we understand scripture and how God operates and how God shapes us and molds us more into his image, understanding why you're going through that or what that process means, can be really helpful. So I, chattered dreams is a really good book, so if you're someone who's thinking about going to counseling, I think I would start there.

Speaker 3: 51:18

Inside out, shattered dreams and safest place on earth all by Larry Crabb again, I'm just a big fan and these are. He's deep but simple. They're. They're good reads like you can read through it and really understand where he's coming from. Very relational and strong theology. So those would be good.

Speaker 1: 51:35

Okay, awesome, great resources, all right. Well, I think, folks. That concludes our discussion.

Speaker 3: 51:40

Yeah, it was good though.

Speaker 1: 51:43

Sam Landa coming in with the hot stuff. Hope it was good. Yeah, it was great. I think that really expanded the understanding of a lot of people on what, what therapy is, what its purpose is and the points behind it and the biblical basis for it. So yeah, yeah. So is it wrong to seek therapy? No, no, certainly not.

Speaker 3: 52:03

Yeah, very beneficial, use that little template there at the end. Yeah, got a little template there at the end. Thanks, man. All right, see you next time guys.