Devout Christians Want Therapy, Too
It’s been many years since I practiced Evangelicalism. My past wasn’t erased after I let go of the faith. The knowledge I developed didn’t disappear with the beliefs becoming unbelief.
I decided to minor in Christian Counseling at Liberty University as I contemplated leaving Evangelicalism. I was curious to learn why there were ideologies formed by theology that were hard to break through. I grew up in Baptist churches where Christian Counseling was encouraged, but mental health therapy? An abomination.
In the Baptist churches, everything about mental health was spiritualized:
You see things others can’t? Those were demons or angels.
You hear a voice that others can’t? God is speaking to you.
You feel anxious? You’re not trusting God enough with your worries.
You’re depressed? You’re experiencing demonic affliction to draw you closer to God.
You have a compulsion to clean or organize? God is calling you to Christian ministry.
As a Christian Counseling student, I was taught these spiritualized beliefs alongside the biopsychosocial model of mental illness. Biological predispositions, pervasive self-criticism, and social isolation are all predicting factors for mental illness. According to my Christian Counseling professors, if biological, psychological, or social factors couldn’t be found for a mental illness, then it had to be caused by spiritual factors.
Outside of spiritual factors, I was instructed how to apply Christian Counseling interventions for biological, psychological, and social concerns for mental illness. For instance, how to develop a network of psychiatrists and other therapists who shared the same theology in addressing the biological and psychological concerns, or steps to creating a church resource list for places of worship that shared the same theology and also destigmatized mental illness.
Liberty University and other Christian universities with Christian Counseling programs, reduced skepticism and fear that Evangelicals had of counseling even though Christian Counseling courses and practices are heavily biased, which came at a cost. What I was taught in my Christian Counseling training was to fully immerse clients within Christian Culture, but following this protocol would only isolate people in familiarity. And we know from studies in mental health that new, unfamiliar experiences help our mental health over time.
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Last week, Psychology Today shared an article about Why Religious Patients Often Quit Therapy. The stigma of therapy lingers in Evangelical Christian congregations, but I want to discuss how non-Christian therapists may be inadvertently pushing away Christian clients from their practices. My clients know that I’m a former Christian, and yet I have pastors, biblical scholars, and Sunday School teachers want to work with me in therapy. Differences of belief may not push away Christian clients who are ready to explore the biological, psychological, and social aspects of their mental health concerns. Christian leaders have shared with me that they don’t want to work with a Christian therapist because other Christians see their leadership positions and perceive them to be celebrity-like or immortal. And they want a space to just be human!
I want to share with you what I’ve learned not just from my training but my practice as a therapist of what works well with Christian clients in therapy.
If a therapist is going to work with devout Christians, they need to:
Study the key texts that inform their clients’ emotional and behavioral self-understanding.
Recognize that Christianity is more than a belief-system. It is an entire way of life for devout Christians.
Understand the cultures of Christian groups are not a monolith.
Learn how their denomination’s teachings about mental health has varied throughout their life in the Church.
Reference their client’s Christian culture if they are to make therapy metaphors.
Explore how spiritual bypassing undermines the other biological, psychological, and social aspects of mental health.
Significant parts of Christians’ lives are neither seen or heard when these things are left out of Christians’ experiences in therapy. The number one reason I have heard from new clients who left other therapists in the past was this— Their therapist had profoundly misunderstood them through either a major experience or an accumulation of experiences.
Christians aren’t typically leaving therapy because of a sudden disinterest with improving their mental health. It’s more often because therapists aren’t recognizing that their Christian faith is an entire culture that needs to be understood within a mental health context. To provide the best therapy, therapists have to see our clients in their fullness.
Devout Christians are likely going to leave therapy prematurely when a therapist doesn’t learn to sit with their discomfort. Therapists that don’t practice this skill will try to shut down their discomfort in sessions with clients, displacing the responsibility onto their client for comfort. And this disrupts trust in the therapy space. Therapists, who are not Christians and work with devout Christians, absolutely need supervision, Christian cultural competency training, and daily mindfulness to help meet the growing need for devout Christians who are interested in therapy.
