I had been a highly disturbed youth. Consequently, starting
at the age of 15, I began to see a series of highly recommended psychologists
until I was 23. Each had left me in greater despair than I had been before
seeing them. Since then, many studies have confirmed the value of caring
relationships, but not of any one form of psychotherapy. Consequently, I read
Riddle’s blog about theologian and writer Thomas Oden with interest.
In Thomas C. Oden's A Change of Heart memoir he notes
how his "conversion" from Protestant liberalism to traditional
Christianity. (From the blog of Jeff Riddle, a Baptist Pastor: http://www.jeffriddle.net/2022/05/oden-on-pastoral-care-and-modern.html?fbclid=IwAR3Osiwkfg0Qe2oQ75ELm4K14ytKgvF92R2Wf_9S24YO9HyDv3GDb4u22LU)
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“After reviewing over 300 empirical outcome
studies, he found "that the average psychotherapy cure rate was not better
than the spontaneous remission rate."
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"The average outcomes of all types of
therapy approaches turned out to be the same rate of recovery as that which
occurred merely through the passage of time, approximately 63 percent."
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"That finding was coupled with the alarming
specter of 'client deterioration,' which showed that 10 percent of the patients
found their conditions worsening under the care of professional
psychotherapists."
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"Those empirical facts took me aback. I had
spent two decades trusting the assumed effectiveness of psychotherapies, but now
I had actual rigorous empirical evidence of their average
ineffectiveness."
What Oden had derived from the empirical studies, I had
learned primarily through experience and the Scriptures, which give us
everything we need psychologically and spiritually:
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All Scripture is breathed out by God and
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in
righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good
work. (2 Timothy 3:16–17)
It had been hard for me to believe that the Scriptures would
give me everything I would need without professional help. Nevertheless, I had
become convinced that they weren’t able to help me because I was a looser,
damaged beyond repair. However, in my needy condition, Scripture finally began to
prevail. Not only was Scripture adequate, I began to understand that if God is
omnipotent and omniscience, He was all I needed:
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…If God is for us, who can be against us? He who
did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with
him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31–32)
“All things!” This made me complete in Him (Colossians
2:8-10) However, I had to first learn humility:
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Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the
elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves,
therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt
you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter
5:5–7)
However, humility directly contradicted the self-help books
I had been reading and psychotherapy, which taught us:
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To trust in ourselves,
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To love and forgive ourselves,
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To regard ourselves as good and worthy.
While the Bible was about humility based upon seeing
ourselves as we really are—sinners who need the Savior—pop psychotherapy was
all about self-focus and self-exaltation. I had been trying to prop myself up
with all forms of positive affirmations and visualizations. While they worked
temporarily, they were no better than a drug, which required increasingly
higher fixes.
This illustrates the principle of “focus.” To focus honestly upon ourselves—our insecurities, vulnerabilities, failures, and inadequacies—is depressing. However, to look towards our Savior is uplifting. Even if we become wildly successful, we tend to become self-righteous, conceited, arrogant, and look down on others.
This illustrates the principle of “focus.” To focus honestly upon ourselves—our insecurities, vulnerabilities, failures, and inadequacies—is depressing. However, to look towards our Savior is uplifting. Even if we become wildly successful, we tend to become self-righteous, conceited, arrogant, and look down on others.
I knew that I couldn’t trust in myself, but could I trust in
God? I had nowhere else to turn! I had lost hope in secular psychotherapy. It
had replaced my boyhood dreams of virtue, heroism, and sacrificing myself for
the well-being of others with the flat-earth philosophy of moral relativism
where there was no intrinsic meaning or purpose, no dreams, just sameness.
However, God’s world glowed with purpose and vibrancy, the
very things that my aching heart craved. The only hope that secularism could offer
me was either hope in myself or in the psychotherapist. However, Scripture
convinced me that my hope had to be in the Lord alone:
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Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who
trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall
dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like
a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not
fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the
year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5–8)
Subsequently, I found that trying to love, forgive, and
believe in myself was a burden I didn’t need, not as long as a had a Savior who
loves, forgives, and takes care of me, working everything for my good (Romans
8:28). Trying to tweak my brain to believe in what I couldn’t was like
masturbation. Instead, we are created for something far greater—an eternal
relationship with a God who had loved us so much, even when we hated Him, that
He died for us (Romans 5:8-10).
Love transforms. Therefore, Jesus had prayed that we’d experience
the love of God in greater ways:
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“I made [You] known to them …and I will continue
to make [You] known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them,
and I in them.” (John 17:26)
There is no substitute for the love of God! (Please ask about the free course via zoom I plan to offer in September)
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