What is the relationship between therapy and the Christian life?
Anybody who talks to me will know that I am an advocate of good therapy. I grew up around Bible-believing Christians that studied the Scriptures earnestly but often had blindspots about the ways their culture and upbringing shaped their relationship with God and others. The effects of these blindspots weren’t merely theoretical. Relationships suffered because of them, and those who had them often remained oblivious to the ways they hurt others (or refused to see it!).
I believe that our finitude and sin mean that we can be well-intentioned and even have great zeal for God, but need the wise counsel and the corrective perspective of those skilled in drawing out the ways we mis-relate to ourselves, others, and even our faith. I don’t think every Christian needs a therapist to unpack these things. But one prevalent fact of modern-day life is that many Christians do seek out therapists to get a better handle on their pain, their inner life, and their past. I want to provide a perspective on the way that Christians can understand the relationship between therapy and their faith.
Now, modifying therapy with the word good can seem unfair, because obviously nobody would endorse any therapy that misses the mark. But it’s still a helpful framing, if at least to open up the conversation to therapy skeptics (what makes therapy good rather than harmful?) and those naive to the dangers of bad therapy (do you have the discernment to tell the difference?).
I define good therapy as the conversational help someone receives to help them become more properly ordered to reality, from the head all the way down to the heart, and in some sense, deep within their bones. Therapy helps surface the ways we’ve been formed by things like our families of origin, the lies we believe about ourselves or God, and the distorted ways we relate to friends, family, and neighbors.
Good therapy helps integrate our character so that we experience less of a dissonance between what we believe, what we feel and desire, and how we move through the world. Good therapy can be assessed by its fruit: are we becoming persons of love that relate wisely and virtuously with respect to others, ourselves, and our communities? Or are we becoming increasingly self-absorbed, alienated from the truth of who we are, and unable to give ourselves to others and receive them with grace?
Of course, framing therapy as an ordering towards reality raises the question of: what is reality? And can secular therapists orient us toward it? We trust well trained physicians and car mechanics, regardless of their worldview, because the science of the body and a car are hard sciences, whose practice is not easily distorted by ideology. But when it comes to human nature—who are we, what are we, and what are we for—claims about ultimate reality (the kind that can’t be measured or calculated by empirical observation) begin to press in.
It’s beyond the scope of this post to fully address the nuances of why or whether secular therapy is valid. Here’s my modest claim: good therapists, even those who aren’t Christian, are like craftspeople who have acquired a skill for perceiving common patterns and structures of human relating—with ourselves, with others, with our families, and with our beliefs—that either help or hinder our flourishing. Whether they bring in notions like shame, attachment theory, or the nervous system with diagnostic accuracy will depend more on their skill in being attentive to the person right in front of them—their client—than their worldview alone.
With that established, my goal in this post is less to trace the nuances of how therapy can go wrong but to paint a picture of how it fits in the Christian life. Assuming you find a therapist who has the kind of skill I described above and isn’t invoking ideas that are in constant tension with your Christian faith: how do you integrate what you learn in the counseling room with what you hear on Sunday?
This is where the concept of telos becomes so helpful. Telos is the Greek word for end, goal, or purpose. Telos tells us what humans are for, and this is something that only the God who made us can tell us. In other words, while therapy can help us discern the structure of human relationships and the ways these become misshapen, only God can tell us the ultimate form and direction they should take. Therapy can work with the facts of human existence at the level of empirical observation and skillful attunement. But therapy can’t discern the ultimate purpose we were made for. It doesn’t speak to the deepest part of the human heart in its continual responsiveness to life with either trust toward God and his promises or unbelief and autonomous self-rule.
If you have a therapist that is helping you unpack childhood wounds, relational trauma, and your experiences of mental health, they can help discern the ways you’ve accumulated unhelpful ways of relating to yourself, your faith, or others. But eventually, you will need to supply the theological interpretation of these things. This is something your therapist cannot ultimately do for you. Where was God when these things happened to you? Was He good in allowing or purposing these things to come into your life? Are you able to bring all of this before God in prayer? Why or why not? These are the kind of things that should be worked out in a church community, under the care of a pastor, shaped by a study of God’s word and in the attentive heeding of biblical preaching.
The Bible’s own therapeutic categories, if we want to use that language, deal with human life in the realms of faith, lament, waiting, believing, hoping, suffering, sinning, obeying, and following Jesus. The Bible makes claims about what kind of responses cultivate resilience, love, and loyalty to God and what kind of responses lead to ruin, disobedience, and a hardened heart that refuses to trust God.
The Bible’s own view of the heart, mind, soul, and body provides Christians with its own biblical psychology, which takes precedence over every other system of interpreting human experience. And while the Bible speaks to every area of human life (its authority is comprehensive), it is not an encyclopedic handbook or manual for every area of human life (its contents are not exhaustive). And yet, this doesn’t mean the Bible’s relevance to all of life is limited in any way.
The Bible’s authority speaks not only what it says is true, but what it says is important. The Bible gives us the right weight to assign to each facet of our lived experiences and how everything must be viewed in reference to the person of Jesus Christ, in whom “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). In this way, God has given to us, in the Bible, everything we need for salvation and to live a life pleasing to him: “for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), for “life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).
To give a concrete example of how biblical anthropology informs and controls the therapeutic, consider the example of a Christian with chronic anxiety. On the one hand, a simplistic response would be to quote Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything”, exhort them to trust in God, and consider your care for your anxious brother or sister in Christ complete. On the other hand, a therapist might accurately trace the ways overwhelming experiences in life have conditioned their nervous system to have trouble regulating their emotions (“the hysterical is historical”).
Because the Bible teaches that we are embodied souls, a holistic response can account for both of these angles. Because we are embodied, with our mind and brain being inseparably connected, our past “baggage” (painful memories, shame, and lingering lies) qualify our capacity to respond in the ways we wish we could in difficult circumstances. But because we are souls, we are not irreversibly determined by our past or our biology. We have the ability to truly, though not easily, relate to God in faith even when our history and biology are “stacked” against us. The heroes of the faith are not just those who do great things for God, but those who trust greatly in God despite and within their emotional and mental pain.
I believe that our finitude and sin mean that we can be well-intentioned and even have great zeal for God, but need the wise counsel and the corrective perspective of those skilled in drawing out the ways we mis-relate to ourselves, others, and even our faith. I don’t think every Christian needs a therapist to unpack these things. But one prevalent fact of modern-day life is that many Christians do seek out therapists to get a better handle on their pain, their inner life, and their past. I want to provide a perspective on the way that Christians can understand the relationship between therapy and their faith.
Now, modifying therapy with the word good can seem unfair, because obviously nobody would endorse any therapy that misses the mark. But it’s still a helpful framing, if at least to open up the conversation to therapy skeptics (what makes therapy good rather than harmful?) and those naive to the dangers of bad therapy (do you have the discernment to tell the difference?).
I define good therapy as the conversational help someone receives to help them become more properly ordered to reality, from the head all the way down to the heart, and in some sense, deep within their bones. Therapy helps surface the ways we’ve been formed by things like our families of origin, the lies we believe about ourselves or God, and the distorted ways we relate to friends, family, and neighbors.
Good therapy helps integrate our character so that we experience less of a dissonance between what we believe, what we feel and desire, and how we move through the world. Good therapy can be assessed by its fruit: are we becoming persons of love that relate wisely and virtuously with respect to others, ourselves, and our communities? Or are we becoming increasingly self-absorbed, alienated from the truth of who we are, and unable to give ourselves to others and receive them with grace?
Of course, framing therapy as an ordering towards reality raises the question of: what is reality? And can secular therapists orient us toward it? We trust well trained physicians and car mechanics, regardless of their worldview, because the science of the body and a car are hard sciences, whose practice is not easily distorted by ideology. But when it comes to human nature—who are we, what are we, and what are we for—claims about ultimate reality (the kind that can’t be measured or calculated by empirical observation) begin to press in.
It’s beyond the scope of this post to fully address the nuances of why or whether secular therapy is valid. Here’s my modest claim: good therapists, even those who aren’t Christian, are like craftspeople who have acquired a skill for perceiving common patterns and structures of human relating—with ourselves, with others, with our families, and with our beliefs—that either help or hinder our flourishing. Whether they bring in notions like shame, attachment theory, or the nervous system with diagnostic accuracy will depend more on their skill in being attentive to the person right in front of them—their client—than their worldview alone.
With that established, my goal in this post is less to trace the nuances of how therapy can go wrong but to paint a picture of how it fits in the Christian life. Assuming you find a therapist who has the kind of skill I described above and isn’t invoking ideas that are in constant tension with your Christian faith: how do you integrate what you learn in the counseling room with what you hear on Sunday?
This is where the concept of telos becomes so helpful. Telos is the Greek word for end, goal, or purpose. Telos tells us what humans are for, and this is something that only the God who made us can tell us. In other words, while therapy can help us discern the structure of human relationships and the ways these become misshapen, only God can tell us the ultimate form and direction they should take. Therapy can work with the facts of human existence at the level of empirical observation and skillful attunement. But therapy can’t discern the ultimate purpose we were made for. It doesn’t speak to the deepest part of the human heart in its continual responsiveness to life with either trust toward God and his promises or unbelief and autonomous self-rule.
If you have a therapist that is helping you unpack childhood wounds, relational trauma, and your experiences of mental health, they can help discern the ways you’ve accumulated unhelpful ways of relating to yourself, your faith, or others. But eventually, you will need to supply the theological interpretation of these things. This is something your therapist cannot ultimately do for you. Where was God when these things happened to you? Was He good in allowing or purposing these things to come into your life? Are you able to bring all of this before God in prayer? Why or why not? These are the kind of things that should be worked out in a church community, under the care of a pastor, shaped by a study of God’s word and in the attentive heeding of biblical preaching.
The Bible’s own therapeutic categories, if we want to use that language, deal with human life in the realms of faith, lament, waiting, believing, hoping, suffering, sinning, obeying, and following Jesus. The Bible makes claims about what kind of responses cultivate resilience, love, and loyalty to God and what kind of responses lead to ruin, disobedience, and a hardened heart that refuses to trust God.
The Bible’s own view of the heart, mind, soul, and body provides Christians with its own biblical psychology, which takes precedence over every other system of interpreting human experience. And while the Bible speaks to every area of human life (its authority is comprehensive), it is not an encyclopedic handbook or manual for every area of human life (its contents are not exhaustive). And yet, this doesn’t mean the Bible’s relevance to all of life is limited in any way.
The Bible’s authority speaks not only what it says is true, but what it says is important. The Bible gives us the right weight to assign to each facet of our lived experiences and how everything must be viewed in reference to the person of Jesus Christ, in whom “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). In this way, God has given to us, in the Bible, everything we need for salvation and to live a life pleasing to him: “for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), for “life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).
To give a concrete example of how biblical anthropology informs and controls the therapeutic, consider the example of a Christian with chronic anxiety. On the one hand, a simplistic response would be to quote Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything”, exhort them to trust in God, and consider your care for your anxious brother or sister in Christ complete. On the other hand, a therapist might accurately trace the ways overwhelming experiences in life have conditioned their nervous system to have trouble regulating their emotions (“the hysterical is historical”).
Because the Bible teaches that we are embodied souls, a holistic response can account for both of these angles. Because we are embodied, with our mind and brain being inseparably connected, our past “baggage” (painful memories, shame, and lingering lies) qualify our capacity to respond in the ways we wish we could in difficult circumstances. But because we are souls, we are not irreversibly determined by our past or our biology. We have the ability to truly, though not easily, relate to God in faith even when our history and biology are “stacked” against us. The heroes of the faith are not just those who do great things for God, but those who trust greatly in God despite and within their emotional and mental pain.
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