Psych and Theo Podcast
Ep. 17 - What is Our Critique of John MacArthur's Take on Mental Health?
Can mental health issues such as PTSD and ADHD be solely attributed to emotional or spiritual struggles? Get ready for a thought-provoking discussion as we unpack John MacArthur's controversial comments on these conditions. With clips of his initial statements and subsequent clarifications, we critically analyze his view that these issues stem from grief and survival guilt rather than physiological factors. While we respect MacArthur's ministry, we delve into the complexities of integrating spiritual and psychological approaches to mental health, shedding light on the bio-psycho-social-spiritual model and modern research on trauma and neuroplasticity.
We explore the generational divide in mental health perspectives, contrasting the older generation's "tough it out" mentality with the younger generation's approach. Using historical context and references to ancient physicians like Galen, we lay the groundwork for a future series on psychotropics and their role in treating PTSD. Our discussion emphasizes the multifaceted nature of trauma, manifesting in responses such as fight, flight, or freeze, and the shame and stigma survivors often face. By challenging the notion that PTSD is merely unprocessed grief, we underscore the necessity of creating a sense of safety for trauma clients and the importance of addressing both emotional and physical responses before effective therapy can be implemented.
Our episode also delves into the debates surrounding medication for PTSD and other mental health conditions. We highlight the varied needs of individuals, the potential over-reliance on pharmaceuticals, and the importance of a well-regulated counselor in helping clients learn self-regulation. The conversation emphasizes the legitimacy of seeking medical and mental health professionals for healing, stressing that while God can heal miraculously, He often works through His people. Finally, we reflect on the possibility of respectfully disagreeing with someone we deeply respect, using John MacArthur as a case in point, and setting an example of informed and respectful discourse. Tune in for an insightful discussion on faith, mental health, and the journey to healing.
Episode Outline
0:02 - Controversy Over Mental Health Comments
9:18 - Addressing Mental Health and Faith Beliefs
19:59 - Understanding Trauma
33:31 - Trauma and Treatment Options for PTSD
37:19 - Mental Health Treatment and Medication
51:29 - Healing Through Faith and Counseling
55:08 - Disagreeing With Respect
Can mental health issues such as PTSD and ADHD be solely attributed to emotional or spiritual struggles? Get ready for a thought-provoking discussion as we unpack John MacArthur's controversial comments on these conditions. With clips of his initial statements and subsequent clarifications, we critically analyze his view that these issues stem from grief and survival guilt rather than physiological factors. While we respect MacArthur's ministry, we delve into the complexities of integrating spiritual and psychological approaches to mental health, shedding light on the bio-psycho-social-spiritual model and modern research on trauma and neuroplasticity.
We explore the generational divide in mental health perspectives, contrasting the older generation's "tough it out" mentality with the younger generation's approach. Using historical context and references to ancient physicians like Galen, we lay the groundwork for a future series on psychotropics and their role in treating PTSD. Our discussion emphasizes the multifaceted nature of trauma, manifesting in responses such as fight, flight, or freeze, and the shame and stigma survivors often face. By challenging the notion that PTSD is merely unprocessed grief, we underscore the necessity of creating a sense of safety for trauma clients and the importance of addressing both emotional and physical responses before effective therapy can be implemented.
Our episode also delves into the debates surrounding medication for PTSD and other mental health conditions. We highlight the varied needs of individuals, the potential over-reliance on pharmaceuticals, and the importance of a well-regulated counselor in helping clients learn self-regulation. The conversation emphasizes the legitimacy of seeking medical and mental health professionals for healing, stressing that while God can heal miraculously, He often works through His people. Finally, we reflect on the possibility of respectfully disagreeing with someone we deeply respect, using John MacArthur as a case in point, and setting an example of informed and respectful discourse. Tune in for an insightful discussion on faith, mental health, and the journey to healing.
Episode Outline
0:02 - Controversy Over Mental Health Comments
9:18 - Addressing Mental Health and Faith Beliefs
19:59 - Understanding Trauma
33:31 - Trauma and Treatment Options for PTSD
37:19 - Mental Health Treatment and Medication
51:29 - Healing Through Faith and Counseling
55:08 - Disagreeing With Respect
Well, all right, everyone, welcome back to the Psych and Theo podcast. Tim and I have an exciting topic that we're going to be discussing today. Thank you for joining us, Thank you for being, for supporting the podcast. We love hearing comments. You know, week after week, and we have some.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's. You know it's growing too. People are sharing it and I keep getting texts or phone calls from people saying, hey, we just listened to the podcast. We thought it was great. We're like Sam's awesome, tim's got a lot to work on.
Speaker 1:We're working towards this together. We've been really encouraged by your guys' comments and reviews, so please keep doing that. We really do appreciate it. So, tim, what are we discussing today?
Speaker 2:I think we're discussing not only a trending topic and, you know, unfortunately it's fortunately and unfortunately it's hitting someone that you know I have esteemed for years, but in this area I actually disagree on many points yeah, so uh, before we get into this series on spiritual warfare and demonic possession, which will come right after this episode, today we're going to be talking about the controversy surrounding John MacArthur and the PTSD comments that he has made at a conference, and then just on some shows later.
Speaker 1:And on mental health stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's generally a comment on mental health and I think what sparked it was saying things about PTSD and ADHD and things like that. So it caused a lot of controversy, a lot of stirring of the pot, let's say, on social media. So that's what we're going to talk about today is because people are kind of at each other's throats now. Christians are at each other's throats, arguing over this topic of whether aspects of mental health are really mental health, whether they're physiological or physically based and not just spiritual, and that's the controversy around his comments. So we'll play the comments and then we'll take it apart, since I do theology and you do mental health, so I think we are qualified to actually talk about this on our page.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is going to be good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I see a lot of people commentating on it, and it's really poor commentators. It's really not good analysis either, because they have a vested interest in defending something that we think we disagree with, we think is wrong, um, or they're. They're just not going deep enough to discuss the substance of the issue. So yeah yeah no pun intended with substance right yeah exactly, okay, all right, so let's get into it.
Speaker 2:So, those of you who may not be familiar with this, if you're not on social media a lot, you may. You might not have seen these clips, but um, essentially, john mcarthur, he was at a conference several weeks ago where he was posed a question about mental health and, um, he made a comment, uh, about essentially ptsd and adhd there's no such thing as PTSD, there's no such thing as OCD, there's no such thing as ADHD.
Speaker 3:Those are noble lies. So we're going to play the initial clip for you.
Speaker 2:And then he follows it up with some other things, so we'll play the initial clip and then we'll go from there.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that was his original comment. That's what stirred up all of the controversy was saying PTSD is not real, adhd is not real, and saying these things are really grief and other things, and that really sparked a lot of um, uh, outrage, I guess, on on twitter and other things. But then also people started circling the wagons, people who wanted to defend john mcarthur and say, well, either he wasn't really saying that or he definitely was saying that and he's right and everyone else is wrong. So John MacArthur later clarified his comments on a few shows. We have a clip from the Allie Beth Stuckey show where he makes a few more comments on this issue to clarify what he means. So we'll go ahead and play that as well.
Speaker 3:What I I was saying was is there post-traumatic stress? Of course. Is it a brain syndrome? No, ptsd is really grief, survival, guilt. It's having watched your buddies blown to pieces. You got to deal with that grief. But putting a chemical into your body that will alter your brain. There's no way to define people's difficulty in dealing with the issues of life as a brain problem. It's a mind problem. You want to solve your mind problem. You've got to find love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. Those are spiritual virtues that are available in Christ. Don't turn to chemicals. Turn to Christ.
Speaker 1:So a lot to say on these two clips, yeah, so let's unpack some of this.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you are the mental health expert here between the two of us.
Speaker 2:So let's just well, let's start by saying this Both of us hold John MacArthur in high regard. Both of us, I think, really highly respect him. I think both of us in our own respects theology and mental health counseling we are grateful for John MacArthur and his ministry and things that he's done. I even said this on Twitter when this all came out, that I'm really appreciative of John MacArthur. He's shown a lot of courage in a lot of areas, especially during the COVID era, when so many churches were shutting down and so many pastors were capitulating to the whims of the quote-unquote, the science of the day. And well, if anyone in our audience is going to get mad at me for that, we'll take that up later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wrote some papers on that one. So anyway, but John MacArthur took a stand there. He's been a voice of moral courage through the decades in our culture. Okay, so we're both really, really indebted to his ministry, to his writings, his commentaries and other things. I mean, his commentaries are one of the ones that I go to sometimes when I do Bible studies. I typically will get one of his commentaries along with some exegetical and scholarly commentaries. I just like the way that he you can tell he writes as a pastor. So I like the way he writes, so I really am appreciative of a lot of things that he does. But that does not mean that I or you or anyone else has to defend a statement. A very public statement. Yeah, that we believe is is wrong, and not just wrong, but hard, but it's always harmful yeah, because yeah, yeah, so that's where we're coming from.
Speaker 2:Is that? We're not some? We're not some liberals, you know, trying to like bash john mcarthur or something, or progressives? We're. We're essentially some liberals trying to bash John MacArthur or something, or progressives. We're essentially sort of in the same camp, but we're coming at this from a different angle. Yeah, Okay so where do you want to?
Speaker 1:go, take it from the top.
Speaker 2:Where do you want to go?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, one of the things that you know thank you for hitting on all those different points about our respect and esteem for MacArthur Definitely been an influential voice in my life as well, especially growing up with my dad as well. But yeah, I mean, once I started hearing MacArthur comments on the topic of mental health, I always felt that there was something that doesn't sound right. There was this over-spiritualization of this mental health crisis that I felt he wasn't really either understanding of or he was just trying to re-emphasize in the culture that scripture should always supersede everything else and if you have enough scripture, then that should heal a lot of these other areas, because we were talking a little bit about just how we view humanity and the fallenness of man. Part of it is that we fail in these different areas of our lives, and the mind is one of them. But when it comes to mental health, probably the first one I'm going to trace back just a little bit so I could jump into the specific statement is he was talking about depression and one of the things that he was telling he was answering a question from an interviewer and they asked him you know, what do you think about depression? Is it a real thing. He's like you know it's not a real thing. You know it's a over emphasis on all your problems and that's all it is right. But depression the reason why people push so much against depression or anxiety or at least I've seen a lot with macarthur is that because there's some very specific scripture verses that seem to address anxiety and seem to address depression very specifically. So the assumption is that you're doing something wrong if you're not able to overcome that. Right, because it's right there in the bible and we are not denying anything that the scriptures teach.
Speaker 1:What we always look at is what does the process look like? So from a mental health perspective, the point makes sense. But there's a process to healing Like. No one just heals like that. Now we've heard many different testimonies where people have you know, they became saved or they pray to God and they have these miraculous healings. But that's not everyone and I think we fail to realize that is that not everyone experiences that type of healing. For many it's long term. For many they don't experience any healing at all. They kind of endure it and go through that whole process.
Speaker 1:But when we think about the generations, the older generation, tim and correct me if I'm wrong with this, the older generation seems to have more of an emphasis on this. Like you got to tough it out, you got to push through. This is just something that you're not having enough faith in, right? The younger generation is almost on the flip side, where everything is a problem and nothing can be solved. It can't be. You know, it's not scripture, it's not this. It's not even going to a counselor, like everything's a problem for them. So you have these two different cultures in the same environment and they're pushing against each other. Right. One is saying you're not having enough faith. The other one is saying well, faith is not the only thing. That's that's relevant here. So all that to say what we're at this, at this crossroad, here we're okay.
Speaker 1:What did john macarthur say in regards to mental? He's saying it's not a real issue. And what we're saying is that what mental health is? It's a reflection of the fallenness of man in all these different areas, as we've talked about in counseling bio, psycho, social, spiritual, right and all of them impact each other. So if there's something wrong with one area, it could influence one's spiritual state, one's emotional state, one's mental state. So I think that's where I can place a little foundation for our topic today is that his statement on mental illness. It's wrong, it's flawed, and we'll talk a little bit more about that right now. But what were your thoughts about it? Just as you heard him comment on that, for me it was immediately you're wrong because you're not really addressing the mental health issue. You're just looking at it from one perspective, which is the spiritual part, but that's not really what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So my gut reaction was this and I said when I first heard the clip, I'm like, oh, this is just demonstrably wrong, like, and I, I kind of put my head in my, my hand, my head in my hand or my face, you know, face palm kind of things. Uh, because you know, I, I, I like John MacArthur and I just don't want to see, I, you know, in the tail end of his ministry. I don't want to see him making these kind of comments where it's like it's it's just provably wrong, scientifically provably wrong, like the.
Speaker 2:What I mean by that is, I think he's made an oversimplification and this speaks to some of the older mindsets within evangelicalism of simplifying this between there are brain problems and then there are mind problems, and brain problems are essentially, that is, by their nature, physical, and then mind problems are essentially spiritual and there's no overlap between the two. Those, those two tracks don't cross, okay, uh, that that itself is an oversimplification of human physiology and what we know now from mental health. Um, it's unfortunate because, you know, like modern research in mental health has uncovered all these connections, especially in the research of neuroplasticity, of how the mind and the brain work together. They can work together.
Speaker 2:They affect one another especially trauma, ptsd yeah so macarthur seems either seems to be in complete denial of that or um intention like unaware over, or just intentionally downplaying it or ignoring it, uh, of that relationship between, the symbiotic relationship between mind and body. This is a, this is something that is really not new. I mean, you could, you can find um mental health or attempts to treat mental health, even in in ancient literature.
Speaker 2:Now of course they didn't understand everything that we do, but there were attempts to treat mental health. Certainly there were attempts to treat it through chemicals, because hallucinogenics and other things have been used by human beings for thousands of years. Maybe we should do a thing on psychotropics sometime.
Speaker 1:Oh, you should see we should do a thing on like psychotropic sometime. Oh, you should see, we should do a series on that. I went to a conference last year that was really emphasizing that a lot. And and for ptsd specific, yeah, like md, and it was oh yeah, it was, it was, it felt uncomfortable, it was oh man, we got a lot, we gotta do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I, I know the perfect, I know the perfect guest that we can bring on if we were yeah, yeah, I won't, I won't drop his name.
Speaker 3:I don't want to put pressure on him.
Speaker 2:He'll be like why are you mentioning me in your podcast? You haven't even talked to me.
Speaker 3:You haven't even talked to me, okay.
Speaker 2:So, but yeah, like, here's an example, asclepius, so there's a. There's an ancient doctor named Asclepius. So there's an ancient doctor named Asclepius who I'm sorry, I'm getting that wrong. Asclepius is actually the Greek god whom I'm thinking of, galen G-A-L-E-N. Greco-roman physician living in the first and second century ad. I get that, if I remember that correctly. So there's a. He was famous because he, he lived and worked at a little town called asclepion, which is named after the greek god asclepius.
Speaker 2:This is sits at the foot of the um as the acropolis of Pergamum, the Church of Pergamum in Seven Churches of Revelation. So the Church of Pergamum is in Turkey and there's multiple sections of this ancient city. The Acropolis sits on top of a hill. That's where most of these ancient cities would have an Acropolis, that's where all the important buildings were. It's where you would run to if you got invaded. Everyone would go up there to the top of the mountain.
Speaker 2:Well, at the foot of the mountain is a little town called asclepion, um, named after the greek god asclepius. And asclepius was the god of many things, but among those being like medicine and healing, and galen, or galen, he, he operated there, he, he worked there. And if you go to that site and I've been there twice. There's an ancient hospital that's there and there's an underground tunnel that you can go and sit in and it was for patients who were experiencing like mental illness. You would go in this sort of picture like not a deep underground tunnel, like something that's been dug out and then and then buried again, like a tunnel that's been made, almost like when you're on the playground, you roll through the corrugated pipe tunnels, you know, and you're like it's so cool.
Speaker 2:So picture that, but bigger and made of stone, and people would go down in there and they would sit in this tunnel and in between them, like as they would sit on one side of the other of the tunnel, in between them was this little bitty stream of water that would run through and create that like trickle water sound, and then, at on the top of the tunnel, were these holes that were, um, dug through. Uh, where people you could, you could actually stand on top of the tunnel, which you'd be like on standing on ground basically, and you could speak down into the holes to the other people. And so there were these people that would work for this hospital, that would speak, encouraging things down into the hole to these patients who were sitting down in this tunnel in the cool, damp, dark area, listening to water. And these two things were meant to kind of put them in an environment that was relaxing and soothing and help them to work through kind of their, their mental states.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway, that's that's just an example of, even in ancient times, trying to work, uh, treat people with mental illness. Um, so where was I going with that? Yeah, like the oversimplification that, well, brain problems are just physical, mind problems are spiritual and neither the two shall meet. That's an oversimplification, and it seems that from MacArthur's comments that's what he believes.
Speaker 2:Now maybe that's not what he believes, but it seems that that's. I think that is the logical implication of the comments that we listen to. Yeah, that's what I think. That is the logical implication of the comments that we listen to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah it's an oversimplification.
Speaker 2:So he says things like if you want to solve, if you want to solve mind problems, you need to essentially treat spiritual conditions, and I think that's a, that's an either or fallacy. That, when it you know, when it comes to mental health, is what I think. What follows from his comments is you know there's problem when it comes to mental health, is what I think. What follows from his comments is you know there's problem when it comes to mental health? Um, it's a purely mind problem, and so you can either treat it with spiritual renewal or with chemical treatment. So those are your two options if you have a mental health problem. This, this is seems to be what he is saying yeah is that you have a mental health problem.
Speaker 2:It's essentially spiritual and you have two options. You can choose the spiritual renewal route or you can choose the chemical treatment route, but the chemical treatment is only going to treat the physical brain, which won't touch the mind. So, I think that the division that he's making here is invalid on many fronts.
Speaker 1:Very much so.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Tim. That was, honestly, when I came to grad school for studying my counseling degree. That was one of the hardest things for me to overcome, because I was taught and it was ingrained in my mind so much that medication was just a substitute for excusing bad behavior, right Meaning that people are taking medication in order to control certain impulses or, to you know, to heal some things. And it was saying, well, if I don't get this medication, then I'm justified in doing this bad behavior, whatever the behavior might have been. So I think in from MacArthur's perspective and even the reference that he cited, he said one of the psychiatrists was from like the 1950s.
Speaker 1:So even at that time they don't have the information that we have accessible to us today. And there's obviously been a lot of research and you mentioned neuroplasticity and so on. So we see the changes that happen in the brain when someone goes through trauma very highly activated regions and some other regions of the brain completely shut off. All those are impacted the brain and you can see that from people who have experienced war, sexual abuse, prostitution, all of these different things, sexual trafficking, I'm sorry. So all of these different areas that just have to shut down certain parts of the brain because it's too much. The brain can't take all of that information the only way. Remember I think we talked about this in one of our episodes that the only way that the brain can continue to function is to completely disregard some piece of information so they can continue to live.
Speaker 2:right, it's looking for survival yeah, and, and that would be, that would be like a disassociative. Yeah, oh yeah easily.
Speaker 1:like you see people who have gone through traumatic experiences in session. You can see them when you're talking about that issue, whatever it might have been it could be war, it could be seeing their buddy be destroyed you know there was a bomb or whatever the case is or rape, anything like that Like you can see it in their face. They just completely daze off and it's like you have to find a way to get back, get them back into the session. But it makes perfect sense. The body has just learned to respond like that to be safe, or they'll be hypervigilant and be too aroused to not even focus on what's going on in the session. So we go back to his point about PTSD not being a real thing. Obviously it is a real thing and it does impact the brain and the brain also influences the mind. Now we were talking a little bit before, can?
Speaker 2:I pause you so. So when he he says ptsd is not real in the first initial comment and then he comes back later and says it is real, but it's like grief so it's like it's an emotional state, not like so when he's saying it's not real in the sense that there's, there's a physical connection there, right, but you're saying that's incorrect, that's saying it's not real in the sense that there's a physical connection there, right, but you're saying that's incorrect.
Speaker 1:That's incorrect because grief is only emotional, but one of the things that we know about trauma is that it's actually more physical, right, because people, your body is meant to respond in ways to protect you, right. So that could be shutting down parts of your brain. It could be just being frozen, right. There's the flight, flight, flight, freeze. And what's the word? Fight, flight, freeze. So people just respond differently. I know people who are in very dangerous situations and they wanted to respond, but their body just froze. Afterwards you speak to them and they say, why didn't I do anything? And they feel so much shame that they couldn't do anything in that moment. But your body's way of being safe was just to freeze. So that's just how your body responded. You have no mental power over that. Your body just froze, right, and for some people they naturally fight, for others they run away. Right Again, the body is just looking for natural instincts to respond to those, um, dangerous situations yeah, I remember an instance.
Speaker 2:I grew that that freeze mechanism you talked about, because most people just know fight or flight, but freeze is a real thing because, I know a friend of mine who um was a.
Speaker 2:He had experienced abuse you know, growing up as a child and um, and then he, he found himself in a situation later as an adult where um, uh, a, let's just say, a partner was uh, making, you know, moves on him, let's say like uh, making sexual advances that he wasn't comfortable with. Uh, and this was a female, a woman you know he's a man and uh, he's a strong guy, he was, he was a cop woman, you know he's a man and uh, he's a strong guy, he was a cop. You know um and uh. But she started kind of making these sexual advances and he was wasn't comfortable with that, but his body immediately went back to the times where he was abused and his body shut down and he froze and then he, he basically uh, she basically assaulted him, you, because he couldn't move, and he felt great shame for that, he felt great embarrassment. Because here he is, this big, strong law enforcement guy, like why couldn't he? He's like no one's going to believe me.
Speaker 2:Right, right Because why couldn't I overpower this little bitty lady?
Speaker 1:And shame reinforces that trauma, right? That aspect of shame just reinforces that belief Now you can't share with anyone. And again, it's just that constant belief and the way that your body feels throughout that. So we're not talking about only something that is spiritual. I mean, it's all of it you imagine. So think about these layers right here, think about this, and this has happened a lot in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1:Think about someone in leadership in the church that sexually abused you as a child or abused someone as a child. That person grows up. Seeing that person be leader, pastor, whatever the case is talking about the love of God, talking about the grace of God, talking about the forgiveness of God, talking about the goodness of God. And this person who was abused by that person, or the victim who was abused by that person, they grew up. So not only was their trauma physical, not only was it emotional, not only was it mental, trying to make connections out of you know, he's there, I'm here, he's a leader, I'm not. There's a power differential there. And then, lastly, spiritual what that made them believe about God. So all of those layers in the traumatic experience. It makes perfect sense how they would influence one another and it seems like MacArthur tries to separate one from the other, right? He's saying that? No, it's only emotional or it's only physical, or it's only mental. Whatever the case is, and it's not, they're all intertwined and I think that's something that's important for our audience to know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let me, I'm going to just devil's advocate if I can push back. So you're saying, well, the trauma, you know that someone's reacting to trauma that they've experienced. You know, let's say, someone who's defending MacArthur will say, well, that's just unprocessed grief. Okay, what's going on in the brain when someone experiences trauma that produces PTSD or something else? Like what's going on in the brain when that happens, Like what's the physical event?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the best illustration I can give is thinking of boxing or MMA, right? So one of the things that an argument that was being made for MMA you can win a lot of different ways. In MMA. You can knock someone out, you can submit them, you can go all five rounds and you win the decision, whatever the case is right. So you're not always getting hit in the head, getting hit in the body, being taken down, so the head is not receiving as many hits as it would in boxing. Boxing, all the shots are body shots or they're in the head, right? So the argument was because in boxing you're getting more hit in the head, you're going to experience more trauma because of all those hits boom, boom, right, it shakes the brain, shakes the brain. With MMA, you're not always losing in that same way. You could just be taken down and get submitted.
Speaker 1:So when we think about trauma, think about it that way. Is it one big shot, one big traumatic event that has changed the way that you live your life? Essentially, right, it could just be one, and for some people they've experienced one traumatic event and they'll say to another person well, I experienced something similar to you, but I'm not being or feeling the same way that you are. But remember, the factor is not just the experience itself. One of the supporting factors for dealing better with trauma is the support system. So, imagine two people, exact same thing. Let's say it's child abuse. And again, this is a very sensitive topic and we don't know who of our audiences experience these things, but I think that's a an example that we can apply here. So, two people who have experienced child abuse. That interpretation in their mind sets up the stage for how they're going to live out the rest of their lives, right? The messages that they have, how their body felt throughout that moment. Who the person was? Typically it's someone who's related in some way, shape or form to the victim, sometimes a family member, a close friend, right? So all of these factors are playing a role in how this person is going to experience the rest of their lives, right? But the buffer to all of that is what kind of social support system that they have there. Do they have someone that they can share that with? Right?
Speaker 1:So you asked about what's happening in the brain. Well, messaging is one right. Two is where are the memories being stored? Right, Because if it was such a significant abuse, form of abuse, then the mind's not going to want to keep or retain all of the details of that Smell, sight, right sounds, all of those things. The mind doesn't want to remember all of that. So if this feel safe, which is what the body wants, it's going to exclude certain details from that process. So the mind is being shaped by this consistent message of I'm dirty, I'm not worth it, I'm good for nothing. Who's gonna want me, like all of these different messages. So it's changing the narrative, is one way which I would say it's changing the narrative of one way, to which I would say it's changing the narrative of how the person views themselves, and there's always a lot of shame attached to trauma.
Speaker 2:So, um, so can I ask a clarifying question? So the brain is wanting to keep the body safe.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And because of that, the brain is creating messages that the mind receives that says, like the. So the brain is is saying don't do that thing because you'll feel dirty, you'll feel shameful or whatever. And it could be a good, healthy thing like, let's say, like, getting married and and having a sexual relationship with your spouse. The brain is saying don't do that because it it's similar to this abuse that you experienced, and so it's telling the mind those things. So the mind creates this narrative of I'm not going to do this, I'm dirty and all that, and avoids otherwise healthy behavior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean. A good example of that is you know, one of our professors. He's a sex therapist and works with a lot of couples and he was talking about how he was counseling a couple during their premarital. The girl had experienced sexual abuse from a family member when she was a child. She never shared that with her future husband. They get married and then when they started to have sex she started to get all of these feelings of trauma from her past. But she thought they was gone, but she had never experienced that again. So basically her body was remembering what she experienced when she was a child and her husband at the time now was the recipient of that emotional response. She thought it was done with right Because it hadn't happened again. It was a one-time event, but her body wasn't feeling the same thing that she was feeling now as a married woman.
Speaker 1:So the Body Remembers Things is a really good book. Actually it's called the Body Keeps the Score. It's by Bessel van der Kolk. Most counselors or students in counseling they're going to know it. But if you don't, if you're not in counseling, that's a really good book that talks about how the body remembers those things.
Speaker 1:So again, going back to safety is that whatever they were doing in their sexual relationship with her husband, it didn't feel safe. So now the body starts pulling back, starts responding in ways that she wouldn't want to. Now she feels shame because now she can't please her husband. Her husband feels ashamed because I'm hurting my wife and I don't even know why. Like, what am I doing Right? So the body is where a lot of that information is stored. Sometimes we just don't know where or what's going to be the trigger for it. A lot of people think that they've healed from their trauma, but they've just been living their life without any triggers until they meet someone. And that's typically what happens when you start getting close to other people. That's when those triggers start to come up a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So let me ask you another question then. Well, let's, let's talk about one thing briefly, just so maybe, oh yeah. I think so. Yeah, Neuroplasticity. For those who may not be familiar with that term, I threw it out there earlier in the episode. So just briefly explain neuroplasticity. How does that work? Because I think what we're kind of talking around that a little bit. I should ask that a little bit earlier, like what is neuroplasticity, and how does it play into this conversation?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. Neuroplasticity is basically the ability for the brain to continue to make new pathways, so new ways of thinking, new ways of feeling, new ways of experiencing different events. Sometimes it's done through exposure therapy, like if someone was afraid of spiders per se, you wouldn't go and just throw someone in a room where there's a bunch of spiders, right, tarantulas and so on. You do minimal exposure so you can help the brain remap right the way that it perceives a certain situation, right? So if I'm in here and I have a huge fear of spiders, but the spider's over there in the corner, I'm probably not going to feel as scared as if it was only a foot away from it. Right, but I introduced myself to that experience little by little, teaching my mind hey, I'm safe, I'm okay, I'm not in danger.
Speaker 1:Another way I guess to look at it is if you think about construction on a highway right, you take the same highway all every single day to work, but they're doing construction work on it. Naturally the next day or the next couple of days you're going to want to take that same route, but you're going to say, well, no, they're doing construction on it, I need to take a different route. So you start finding ulterior ways to get to work or alternate ways.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry to get to work and that's kind of the same idea you know exactly how long each light is, and all that yeah, you retrain your mind you know the old lady that's going to get in front of you if you're late yeah, yes exactly, yeah, yeah, so, yeah, I. I like to talk about this in terms of, uh like virtue ethics, because neuroplasticityity shows a real connection between the physical brain and the mind, which is an immaterial property, and the two of them have this symbiotic relationship. The mind chooses certain actions.
Speaker 2:let's say, you develop habits and the brain learns those habits and those pathways and so your neurons start building those pathways of decision making. But the mind, the mind can also be aware oh I've, I've developed a really bad habit here. I need to change, and it can build new pathways that way. So, and I there, there is a. Some people will want to say well, you just if you're experiencing, you know, ptsd or something like that, you just kind of work on it, you know, with neural pathways or whatever and there might be, I want to ask you that's kind of where I'm going with this is, uh, sometimes, sometimes, like sometimes you can work on these conditions with cognitive behavioral therapy, but sometimes they're a little bit deeper than that. Like the physical side is deeper than just building new pathways.
Speaker 2:Yes, maybe get into that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I talk about this a lot when working with trauma clients. It's about maybe a quarter of my caseload is trauma clients and the common theme and I'm on a trauma team as well the common theme for anyone dealing with trauma is to help the person feel safe, right. It's hard to think about new ways of thinking or implementing new messages when there's a shame message going on in the background, when the person doesn't feel safe, right. It's like you know, driving 70 miles per hour on the freeway and I'm trying to, but my car only goes 50, and trying to slow you down so that I can get to you. Whatever it is, I need to get to you so we can go at the same pace.
Speaker 1:So some people are either going to be way advanced or they're going to be way behind in regards to their trauma path, right. So what we want to do is just help the person feel safe. That's goal number one. I have to help this person feel safe.
Speaker 1:If they don't feel safe the CBT, all the things that we're trying to do they won't work, because the person needs to feel safe, their body needs to feel regulated. There might be something in the other person that maybe makes me feel a little bit anxious and worried, and they can pick up on that because people who experience trauma are typically more sensitive to subtle cues and changes in people's behavior and words about them. So they're going to pick up on all of that and all of those things make them feel unsafe, which means that if you're trying to implement a new thought pattern, they're not going to be thinking about the new thought pattern. They might repeat it, but their body is going to be in conflict with the message. So if the message is you're here with a counselor, you're safe, but their body is saying, no, you remind me of my ex, you remind me of my dad, you remind me of my mom, whatever the case, that's what the body is going to say and it's going to crash with that message.
Speaker 2:So there's no progress being made in that session that message, so there's no progress being made in that session. People have to feel safe first, so let me ask you this then, because MacArthur has set this problem up as the society is over-medicated, so your society is trying to treat spiritual problems with chemical treatments.
Speaker 2:My question for you we know we've talked about trauma, neuroplasticity, the relationship between the brain and the mind Is there a place for chemical treatments, let's say medication or other things, chemical treatments for something like PTSD, even if temporarily or permanently I'm going to leave that wide open for you does do some forms of trauma and uh, forgive me for the being imprecise in this language, but like ptsd, being like a reaction to that trauma or a response to that trauma. Do some forms of that require temporary or permanent treatment like medication?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, and it depends right. It depends right. It depends on the client, depends who the person is, depends their support system. There's a lot of, a lot of research being done on on grit and perseverance, on you know, how does a person bounce back? Right? And I think we did an episode on that resilience. So there's those factors. There's a support system, there's skills that they have disciplines. So there's so factors. There's the support system, there's skills that they have disciplines. So there's so many factors involved.
Speaker 1:So some people are going to require more longer-term care, Some people are going to require less. But the whole goal behind that whole process is helping the person feel safe. If they can experience safety with you as a counselor, then it's about finding other people who can kind of replicate that same type of safety for them, right? Usually, when you think about people with trauma or anyone really, you're looking at two different emotional regulation systems, Right? And if one is dysregulated, it can impact the one who's regulated Right.
Speaker 1:So if you start dating someone, or people are in relationships, if the other person is always dysregulated and let's say you come in and you are regulated like you're, you know, you understand your emotions well, and so on this person could dysregulate you, but the same thing can happen in the opposite, where you could provide a sense of security for this person who's dysregulated right. So it's relationships is really the interaction of two nervous systems, if we can look at it that way. Right, and with trauma, it's especially that we go into counseling. You're hoping that the counselor is well-regulated so that the dysregulated client can now know what it looks like to be regulated.
Speaker 2:But can can medications? Is there a place for medication in treatment of PTSD?
Speaker 1:let's say yes, it can definitely help, but like anything, it's only one factor out of the whole treatment process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So those who just want to chalk things up to medication and be dependent on medication MacArthur has a point there that that's not basically inappropriate probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we have to be honest, or?
Speaker 2:overly simplistic. Let's say, you know it's trying to treat everything with a single solution medication.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, for us in the counseling field, like we're frustrated, at least with Christians. You know, obviously we're working in a Christian setting.
Speaker 2:We're frustrated, oh, I'm frustrated with Christians. I'm not even in the medical space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, there is this overemphasis on just medicating people. It's like you go to the doctor and they say, oh, you have these, this anxiety. Okay, let's medicate you, right, when it could be something else. It could be emotional, it could be mental, it could be physical. Right, for some people it could be as simple as their diet and exercise, right, yeah, and when we talk about depression, it's, it's that could be one of the aspects of it, right?
Speaker 2:yeah. So it's a good point. So to push. But to push back on MacArthur somewhat on this, he says if when you use chemicals you risk harming the brain. So he kind of sets this up as if you're trying to treat a spiritual problem with chemicals. All you're doing is risking harming the brain. So it's sort of a a no-win situation here right and, I think, using chemicals. Is that right or wrong?
Speaker 1:well, if he's referring to dependence, it can be, because some people do become dependent on these medications and they'd rather have you know they make this pro-con list of okay, if I take this medication, I'll have to take this, for, you know, the next six months to a year.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to sacrifice sleep, right. So maybe it's working to help with dealing with other people or being able to have relationships and work and function at work, but they're losing sleep or they feel just a little bit more anxious than they usually would, right. So it caused different symptoms, and that's what most people do when they take a medication they're assessing am I willing to deal with the side effects for it to actually help with my sleeping or to help with my anxiety or depression? For some, they hate it, like I know a number of students who started taking medication. They just didn't like it. It removed the depression, but then they felt anxious or they felt something else that they just didn't like, so they stopped taking it.
Speaker 2:They'd rather deal with that than with the side effects, and if they come off a medication maybe too soon or improperly, it can have some negative effect. Some people keep.
Speaker 1:Usually what you'll see is they'll start with 10 milligrams and they'll go up to 20 and 50 they build the tolerance to build a tolerance for it. So they don't want that anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but for some they keep on doing that and the doctors are like, okay, well, you know, this is as much as I can give you, and they just kind of plateau there well, let me ask you this are there some mental illnesses that require medication to resolve and here I'm going to just leave with that like maybe schizophrenia or DID or something like that We'll get into in our spiritual warfare series. But are there some mental illnesses that something has gone wrong physically in the brain that can't be corrected with CBT, let's say, or other things? It requires something else to treat this mental illness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean obviously not being a psychiatrist in regard to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm putting you on the spot, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, the only way that I could frame it is it's one element, and so it could be that. And if that works, then great. You know, some people just need a lifesaver, they just need to stay afloat because they've been drowning for so long. They want to have some level of survival right. And when we talk about PTSD, even with depression, I mean some people feel so deflated, they don't want to work, they start picking up addictions, they're not functional, not able to relate to anyone, so they just want anything to keep them afloat. So if that's medication, then that's what they're going to find as their solution. So there is something to what he says about us being an over-medicated culture and the way that I also view that. It's a business.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day people who are struggling with mental health issues. They're a market right and if those who are creating the medications for this can make a profit from that, they're going to use it. I mean, think about the commercials and we actually made a joke about this in one of our sessions, not our sessions, in our meetings is the commercial is hey, we'll help you deal with your depression. Potential side effects could be, you know, and if they put like this, happy music behind someone frolicking in the field.
Speaker 2:Yeah, playing with their dog all that is marketing, right.
Speaker 1:So there is. There is that market for it and there is money to be made from it. So we always to at least my own personal approach is always okay emotional, spiritual, mental, relational. And then if we address all of those things and they're still the same ongoing problem, then we can look at the physical aspect, which is the medication. Okay, if we deal with all these, can we use a medication? There are other people who come in already medicated and you just kind of keep that going and you're just trying to provide and supplement the other areas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I think there's.
Speaker 2:Now, obviously I'm not a counselor or a psychiatrist, but I think in the Christian community, where MacArthur's views can actually produce some difficulties, let's say, for people who are trying to get mental health treatment, is if they're in a situation where medication actually could help them, even temporarily. A friend of mine who worked for a very well-known church he's involved in lots of ministries, he was a pastor for a time. He was dealing with a lot of anxiety and he temporarily, like christian counselor and psychiatrist um, had him on a regiment of this medication that that helped him. Okay, it helped it really. It helped his brain rewire itself. You know, uh and that's how he explained it to me was that this, it was a, it was something that it almost gave the brain space to relax and rewire, and that was a temporary thing. To my knowledge he's not on it anymore. It was a very short couple months, you know, and then he was off of it and he's good, you know. So it seems that some people might be so resistant to medication when it actually might help them.
Speaker 1:Right, right so.
Speaker 2:I think the wisdom, or what we're trying to get at, the wisdom here is medication is just one thing, cbt is just one thing. Other treatments are. There's a whole regimen of things that you could try to treat mental illness. But to just throw the baby out with the bathwater and say, well, the whole culture is over-medicated, well, this thing isn't real, like trauma isn't, ptsd isn't real, adhd isn't real. It's just patently false. I'll give you another example, and now you know more about this than I do. But there are physical treatments of the brain that don't require medication but nevertheless can help mental illness. Emdr is one of them. Those of you who don't know what EMDR is it's an eye movement desensitization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, reprocessing, yeah, and it's a strange kind of treatment, but it's. The physiology behind it is sound, the research is pretty sound at least from what I've read.
Speaker 2:It requires no medication but your brain. You're physically, as you're talking through issues in your past, you're physically doing something with your mind and your brain and it actually allows the brain to relax. And the way that it would explain to me is that CBT and again, correct me if I'm wrong, but CBT is targeting the front part of your brain. That's my caveman logic the front part of your brain is where CBT is targeting. The front part of your brain. That's my caveman logic.
Speaker 2:The front part of your brain is where CBT therapy helps. The thought process is the logic that goes on the front of the brain, but EMDR targets something in the back of the brain, the emotional part of the brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so those are two different areas of the brain that both affect mental health, brain that both affect mental health. So there, like, we have this clear empirical research that's showing a strong relationship between the physical brain and the mind. Now that doesn't mean that we can reduce all mental states to brain activity. That's the materialist paradigm and we don't hold to that and there's lots of evidence that that's not true anyways. So I'm not saying that. But there is a symbiotic relationship between the two yeah, so I love that.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done my research done my research.
Speaker 2:Yeah, salomon talks about emdr. Yeah, that's great. So, uh, yeah, I don't have anything further to say on that. Maybe, well, maybe, one point in closing. Do you have anything else to say? I had a question for you yeah, sure, go ahead.
Speaker 1:So my question for you is regarding this aspect of why do? Why do christians? Why do you think christians don't want to accept the fact that there is this fallen part of the physical in like the mind?
Speaker 2:and the body.
Speaker 1:Right, the body itself is dying every day. It dies a little bit, a little bit, a little bit more. But for some reason, christians throughout the years have just said no, I want to deal with this in a spiritual way. Right, I want to use scripture, I want to. This should heal.
Speaker 1:So, really, the question is, people often use the argument that because this person experienced something miraculous and it healed them, whether it be a medical concern or a mental health issue, why doesn't it happen to more people? Why don't more people get healed in the same way that others experience these miraculous healings in a sense, right? I don't feel like I worded that correctly. I guess my question is people who have experienced healing from mental health so say I don't suffer with depression anymore, I don't suffer with anxiety, which I have heard. And they'll say you know, ever since I came to the Lord, like I didn't, I didn't suffer with anxiety anymore. And then you have another group that says well, I've been trying to trust God with this, I've been implementing scripture, I've been memorizing this verse, I've been having community. What's going on there? Because you see a shaming on one side to the other side.
Speaker 2:You're not applying enough faith yeah, uh, let's use an analogy with physical healing. Okay, um, some people get healed physically miraculously.
Speaker 2:There's accounts of that you know, craig keener is a biblical scholar, theologian, uh, out at asbury seminary, wrote a two-volume set on miracle accounts, both in the bible and then modern day stuff. Physical healings happen miraculously. Does everyone get healed physically? No, does anyone know why? No, I mean, this is one of Keener's points is that we don't know, like you can't say well, it's the faith of the person or lack of faith, or it's the faith of the healer or not faith, or it's the faith of the healer you know, or not.
Speaker 2:Even he says things I don't know. You know there seems to be some. There's a purpose behind it that God knows that we don't. So with physical healing sometimes we have accounts of that where someone gets healed and another person doesn't. With mental health, it could be lots of different things. Like you know, there's different forms of cancer, there's different forms of diseases that hit the body, or there's different physical things that could happen, like accidents and whatnot. You know, in the mind there could be all kinds of different reasons why someone is experiencing anxiety, depression, ptsd, other things like that. It may be to step into your world a little bit with God attachment. It may be that when, like that compensation theory, like when yes, I pay attention.
Speaker 2:My mind is a sponge when, yeah see, I pay attention. My mind is a sponge. So when someone if someone is experiencing anxiety or depression or something like that and they come to, they weren't raised in church and they come to the Lord, they see God as father figure, as compensating for the things that they lacked.
Speaker 2:But if someone is raised in church and their anxiety, depression, ptsd or some other thing that they're dealing with is related, to maybe abuse that they experienced by their anxiety, depression, PTSD or some other thing that they're dealing with is related to, maybe, abuse that they experienced by their parent or religious figure or something like that that's strongly connected to their theological and religious beliefs Then they're going to struggle. That's going to be a harder struggle for them. There's a different road or path that maybe they need to take to find healing that they're not going to find an immediate healing to that you know. I've seen videos, people online where one guy in particular.
Speaker 2:You know, he, he, um, he said, yeah, I've I've prayed for years and years and years for God to heal me of depression, um, and, but then he, he had just come out of his first EMDR treatment and he was like, and I'm praying that maybe this is the way that the Lord is going to bring healing into my life. So sometimes God heals people physically in a miraculous way. Sometimes he uses doctors to do that. He gives us medicine and physicians.
Speaker 2:I like what Dr Heiser said on a video not in one of his books, but in a talk he was giving where he said we really kind of downplay the way God works in the world. We say, oh God, we want to see you move, but God moves through his people and he moves through image bearers on the earth and so he gives us doctors to do medicine right To heal people and things like that. So we can pray that the doctors have wisdom and skill and prudence to kind of see like in counselors as well, mental health professionals. They can discern what the root causes are and know how to treat it.
Speaker 2:And that's a perfectly legitimate way to see God, god healing, so, you know, just to god healing, so, uh, you know, just to cap it off, you know there was. There were things in my life early on when I was a young man, I would, I would just pray lord, fix this, please fix this, please heal this, please fix this. You know I but, um, I had to go through a process where the lord like, uh, I think he opened doors, and I had to go through a process where the Lord like, I think he opened doors and I had to, I had to step through doors and show courage and hard work and other things to resolve those issues in my life. I won't disclose what those are on the show, but you know, you know it's like he brought me through those things, but it was a process. It wasn't like I just woke up one day and I'm like hey, I'm fixed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's what I would say to people is like if you're going through counseling, that doesn't mean that God's not healing you, that he might want you to go through that because there's something that you need to learn or discover or know that if he just miraculously healed you, you wouldn't understand.
Speaker 1:No, that's a good point. And you know, to just kind of wrap that up as well as that, for those of you who maybe have experienced something like that or maybe are thinking about going to counseling, cam, because you're fighting off that, oh you know, as a Christian I shouldn't go to counseling. I should be fully dependent on God. And again to Tim's point, god can use a counselor, he can use a medical doctor, he can use a person in your life that can help with that process, with that journey, but it doesn't mean that he's going to. You know that he's necessarily going to withhold a miracle from you. If he does, he does it great, but that's not everyone's experience. I think we want to kind of remove the shame from those of you who haven't experienced healing after praying for something for such a long time and thinking that, oh well, you know why did this person get blessed? Or this person was healed from that, not me, and so on. And even when you go to counseling, this aspect of well I've been going to counseling for X amount of time, I should be healed by now Like there's that frustration too.
Speaker 1:You know, I had a student come in one time and we're doing severe trauma background and she wanted to get everything done in one semester. I'm like, yeah, that's probably not going to happen, you know, it's like this is an ongoing process. It's going to take us a while, you know, but I need to be ready by this date. I can't guarantee that. Like that's just not an option here, you know, and so, thankfully, we did some work and we're able to make some good priors, but still, there's always ongoing work. So the Lord is working. The Lord can use people in your life to help you with these things. These things are real, to counter MacArthur's point. They are real, but they're reminders of the fallenness of man. It's how others have hurt you and how you also, in turn, have responded to that hurt.
Speaker 2:All of that takes into it so in closing I would say you know, I hope this episode is an example for people to see how you can disagree with someone you highly respect in an informed and clear way. I hope people take that from this episode that we greatly respect John MacArthur, but we greatly disagree with him on this topic and we have good reasons for doing so all right, all right, I'll see you next time, guys.