MENTAL HEATH AND GROWING SECULARISM

On college campuses, Mental health issues are proliferating according to Dr. Gene Beresin:

·       Dr. Gene Beresin, a psychiatrist and Executive Director of The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital, says 50% to 60% of college students have a psychiatric disorder.

·       “What I’m including in that is the use of substances, anxiety, depression, problems with relationships, break-ups, academic problems, learning disabilities, attentional problems,” says Dr. Beresin. “If you add them all up 50% doesn’t seem that high.”

·       Dr. Beresin says the suicide rate in college in astronomical. “A college student kills himself every day,” he says. read:students-suicide/

Can we blame stress for this proliferation? Probably not! College campuses have always been a source of stress and competition – nothing new about that.

However, without consulting other studies, there seems to be new or burgeoning factors:

1.    MORAL RELATIVISM: When there is no objective right or wrong, then our feelings necessary fill the gap. Consequently, they assume a greater role.

2.    SEXUAL FREEDOM: The coed no longer has an adequate reason to resist sexual advances. She doesn’t want to be a prude. However, uncommitted sex, rather than liberating, tends towards enslaving to awakened emotional needs.

3.    CHRISTIANITY: As bad as we might feel about ourselves, when we rely upon Jesus, we can endure. However, Christianity has been systematically demeaned at secular college campuses. In place of God, secular counseling tends to turn the counselee inward, suggesting that the answer lies within ourselves. This simply places another burden upon the sufferer. Instead, we need something – Jesus Christ - to counterbalance both self and feelings.

WHAT SHOULD CHRISTIAN COUNSELING LOOK LIKE?

Christian counseling (CC) must be Word-centered:

• According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:10-11; ESV)

When we guide another, it must be according to the Word of God:

• And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)

CC is for naught when we fail to consult the light – God’s Word. It also dishonors God when we reject His counsel in favor of worldly counsel:

• As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God… in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 4:10-11)

CC should recognize that all positive growth comes from God through His Word:

• I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. (1 Corinthians 3:6-7)

• Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. (1 Peter 2:2)

As Paul confessed, whatever good comes out of our lives, comes from the Lord:

• But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10; James 1:17)

However, we tend to wrongly put mental illness in its own specialized category where only the “professional” can help. However, according to Scripture, we are all “mentally ill,” living in darkness and self-deceit, as Jesus claimed:

• “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

In short, we all are such a mess that we require the Lord’s radical surgery to remove our blindness (Matthew 7:1-5), the log in our eye. Of what does the log consist? Self-righteousness, entitlement, and arrogance! We therefore have to be humbled in order to be lifted up and made well. Otherwise, we are always right in our own eyes:

• All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. (Proverbs 16:2)

The Apostles thought that all they needed was more faith:

• The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17:5-10) 

The amount of faith wasn’t the problem. They are already had enough faith to cast a mulberry tree into the sea. Instead, it was their entitlement mentality that was getting in the way. They had been trusting in their own merit instead of the Lord’s. Instead, they had to regard themselves as “unworthy servants,” even after they had done everything that they were supposed to do!

When we regard ourselves as worthy, to some degree we discount our Lord’s gift of worthiness. Instead of placing our trust completely in Him (Psalm 62), we are placing part of our trust in our own worthiness or merit – an offense to the gift-Giver!

In this and in many other ways, secular humanist psychotherapy (SHP) is diametrically opposed to Biblical Counseling. Here is a brief outline of the differences:

1. While SHP understands us as a pathological product of nature and nurture (genetics and environment), Scripture sees a broader, more creative process at work, which includes our own choices, like mainlining heroin. Fundamentally, many of our struggles are self-caused. We reject the light in favor of the darkness (John 3:19-20), bringing upon ourselves all manner of ills (Romans 1:21-32; Proverbs 1:29-32). By rejecting God’s gift of righteousness, we condemn ourselves to pursuing a non-existent alternative righteousness, significance, and self-esteem resulting in self-justification and denial.

2. While SHP is client-centered, the Biblical is God-centered, acknowledging that God is the source of everything good and the ultimate answer to whatever our problem might be (Romans 8:31-32). Meanwhile, SHP claims that the answer is in us, placing an extra burden on us. Meanwhile, CC starts where the sufferer is (1 Corinthians 9:19-22) and later lead them to higher ground away from self.

3. Consequently, while SHP tries to build a self-trust based upon raising self-esteem and behavioral mastery over fears and other conflicts, CC rejects self-trust in favor of trusting in God alone (Psalm 62). Self-trust opposes the Gospel. Jesus instructed His followers that they could do nothing without Him (John 15:4-5; also Jeremiah 17:5-7; 2 Cor. 3:5). Furthermore, those who trust in themselves have fallen from grace (Gal. 5:2-4).

4. While SHP seeks to exalt the client, Scripture counsels humbling ourselves to the truth of our brokenness and need, trusting that God will exalt us (Luke 14:11; 18:14; James 4:10).

5. While SHP is focused on symptomology and, in the short run, feeling better about oneself, Scripture is primarily focused on truth and thinking correctly about ourselves and God (John 8:31-32).

6. Consequently, SHP is about affirming the self, while Scripture is about affirming God and His truth, and secondarily, who we are in Him! SHP focuses on improving the client’s performance and feelings about oneself, while Scripture’s focus is upon honoring God, knowing that He will, in the long run, take care of our needs better than we can (Matthew 6:33).

7. SHP emphasizes self-expression, while Scripture emphasizes self-control and virtue.

8. SHP tends to be non-judgmental and tolerant of just about all forms of expression. Scripture maintains that truth has to guide all of our thinking and behaving. Underlying this distinction, SHP resorts to the disease model. In the same way that we are not responsible for contracting cancer, we are also not responsible for our problematic behaviors. Scripture has a higher view of humankind, and therefore we must take responsibility for our lives.

    In One Nation Under Therapy, psychiatrist Sally Satel and ethicist Christina Sommers warn:

·       "At the heart of therapism [the no-fault, disease-pathology philosophy of psychotherapy] is the revolutionary idea that psychology can and should take the place of ethics and religion. Recall Abraham Maslow’s elated claim that the new psychologies of self-actualization were offering a “religion surrogate,” that could change the world. He had “come to think of this humanist trend in psychology as a revolution in the truest, oldest sense of the word…new conceptions of ethics and values.” Carl Rogers then looked upon group therapy as a kind of earthly paradise—a “state where all is know and all accepted.” The sixties and seventies were heady times for Maslow and Rogers. They were promoting a visionary realignment of values, away from the Judeo-Christian ethic, in the direction of what they regarded as a science of self-actualization." (217)

9. Because SHP is all about mitigating symptomology, it has little tolerance or understanding for the positive role of suffering. Consequently, it fails to embrace the totality of our experience. Scripture, however, recognizes the need for suffering (2 Cor. 4:7-11), helping us to accept it and to even rejoice in the midst of it (James 1:2-4).

Tragically, the more that the Church has embraced SHP, the more it has denigrated the Gospel. Professor of religion, Philip Jenkins, writes:

·       "During the 1970’s and 1980’s, psychological values and assumptions permeated the religious world no less than the secular culture…But an intellectual chasm separates the assumptions of traditional churches from those of mainstream therapy and psychology. The medicalization of wrongdoing sharply circumscribes the areas in which clergy can appropriately exercise their professional jurisdiction, and this loss of acknowledged expertise to therapists and medical authorities at once symbolizes and accelerates a substantial decline in the professional status of priests and ministers." (“Opinion: The Uses of Clerical Scandal,” First Things, 1996, 60.)

Instead, we have everything that we need in Christ:

·       For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. (Colossians 2:9-10)

We, therefore, need to understand how complete and equipped we are in Christ. When we go forth with an understanding of Scripture, we are more-than-ready to minister to the broken (2 Timothy 3:16-17):

·       [God] comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. (2 Corinthians 1:4-5)

Humanity: Knowing who we are is Knowing how to Live

It should be obvious that if we are to live the good and maximally beneficial life, we have to know who we are and what we need. Without this knowledge, we do not know how to take care of ourselves. 

However, others deny such a thing as “human nature.” Eric Fromm wrote this about Karl Marx:

•  Marx did not believe, as do many contemporary sociologists and psychologists, that there is no such thing as the nature of man; that man at birth is like a blank sheet of paper, on which the culture writes its text. https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch04.htm 

According to Marx and his followers, humanity is nothing more than a byproduct of the economic system. Historian Robert Royal wrote:

• The materialist view of the person – combined with the notion that humans, as material beings, can be reshaped into the New Man of the Communist dream merely by a change of their social conditions, a view still widespread today – is a falsehood that inevitably leads to awful consequences… By most credible estimates, Communist countries killed about a hundred million people in the twentieth century. (The God that did not Fail, 247)

In contrast with the materialistic view of humanity, the better we understand humanity, the better we can serve them. It’s like taking care of anything. If we don’t understand our car, we will destroy it. We have to know that the gas goes in the gas tank, and the water goes into the radiator and not into the gas tank. We also need to know where to find the gas pedal and where to find the brakes.

If we don’t understand our car, we will destroy it. We have to know that the gas goes in the gas tank, and the water goes into the radiator and not into the gas tank. We also need to know where to find the gas pedal and where to find the brakes.

Knowledge is necessary for the care of anything, even our clothing and the kitchen stove. This is uncontroversial! However, when it comes to understanding humanity and human nature, this understanding is often overlooked, as if there is no human nature at all.

Strangely, we do not forget that our cat, parakeet, and goldfish have their own nature and therefore require care in accordance with their nature. We do not throw our parakeet in the fish's bow; nor do we place our fish in a bird cage. Each creature has its own optimal environment.

However, we show even less attention to our human nature, assuming that our individual differences represent the totality of who we are.

We encounter one example of this disregard for human nature in the last place that we should expect it – in the study of clinical psychology. This study has been dominated by a preoccupation with the pathological, the human differences, not the commonalities.

Myopically, to determine what is pathological, clinical psych has adopted a medical model. According to this model, the pathological is what causes pain or symptomology like sores or swelling. However, when we apply this model to psychology, whatever causes long-term pain, discomfort, or interferes with personal fulfillment is considered pathological. Consequently, the optimal human state is to be pain-free, without unpleasant symptoms, and to be maximally fulfilled or happy. For most psychotherapists, the goal is to reduce unwanted symptomology. (Just look at how they advertise their services!)

However, there is much the matter with this analysis. Pain is also a good thing. It tells us when we have to remove our hand from a hot stove. Likewise, guilt tells us that we might be doing something wrong. To be without pain-receptors is to be a leper. To be without a conscience and guilt feelings is to be a sociopath. Pain is often necessary!

This raises the questions, “What is our common human nature? What is normalcy (if there is such a thing)? And how do we live in accordance with our human nature?” Failing to answer these questions makes it impossible to talk about pathology. Is it pathological to have a sensitive conscience? To not feel bad in the context of injustice? To be concerned about what others think of us? To live our lives for our family at the expense of our own fulfillment?

In comparison, medical issues are relatively simple. Sickness is something that interferes with our maximal physical functioning. But what does it mean to be mentally sick? In order to answer this question, we need to understand what it means to be mentally healthy – something psychology knows little about.

At a secular discussion group, one participant stated that our purpose is to “glorify humanity.” Central to this glorification is our freedom of thought to question everything without any limitations, moral or otherwise.

While I agree with many aspects of this assertion, I think that we need to further explore what it means to be “free.” Is freedom the absence of limitations or rules, as many are prone to believe today? Just try to play chess with complete freedom to move our pieces any way so want and at any time. Complete freedom represents chaos and a meaningless, unsatisfying game of chess.

Complete freedom can also represent supreme bondage. Take the goldfish in his very limiting fishbowl. He eyeballs the great world outside of his bowl and concludes, “I need to be free of the limitations of this bowl.” With a great effort, he jumps out of his bowl, flapping helplessly on the floor below. 

The goldfish had maximized his freedom within the limitations of water. Perhaps we too need to learn about our human limitations and to live in accordance with them. Perhaps, as with any other creature, we were created for a specific environment or set of lifestyles that maximize our freedom and well-being.

Let me suggest two sets of limitations within which we should live – what we believe/think and how we act.

WHAT WE BELIEVE/THINK

Thinking accurately is essential. Our thinking must be limited by the truth or wisdom. Our thought processes largely determine if we are going to navigate successfully through life. If we are not accessing and responding to accurate data, we will cash our car. As we drive, we need to know precisely where the other cars are. Anything less will produce catastrophe.

Does this insight also pertain to the gushier aspects of our lives? Definitely! If I think that my mailman is canvassing my house in order to find the right occasion to kill me, this will adversely affect my feelings towards him and my behavior.

More to the point, I used to think that others didn’t like me and was convinced that, in order for them to like me, I had to become a different person. Such a belief was not only inaccurate, it was also costly, alienating me from myself and from others.

Everyone has their areas of blindness. One dear friend believed that most women were terribly attracted to him, even those who told him “no!” His blindness in this area proved costly, including several arrests.

Blindness is always associated with crashes, costs, and even arrests. This means that maturity and growth must entail growth in understanding the truth – seeing reality as it is. This realization suggests that we are constrained by the truth of reality. While we are free to create our own reality, to can only be done at the price of a costly collision with reality.

This same principle applies to human nature. We might decide that we are free to recreate ourselves – and to a certain extent, we can do so – but there are human constraints to which we must adhere.

HOW WE BEHAVE MORALLY

In another way, we are constrained by our human nature. It seems apparent that our human nature is also a moral nature. If we live contrary to our moral nature, we will  crash. Of course, we can choose to live in conflict with our moral nature, but only at great cost to ourselves.

A friend had recently confided that, as a young man, he had become the “mascot” of some mafia-type guys. My friend now calls them “monsters.” They had everything – power, money, respect, women – but they were miserable. There was no joy in their lives. Why not? They were living in opposition to their moral nature. They knew better, but they rejected this knowledge.

Meanwhile, many studies have shown that the most satisfied people are those who live according to what they know within themselves. They know that being other-centered is right, and they live that way.

When I live selfishly, I feel most uncomfortable. However, when I center myself on the needs of others, I experience the greatest joy and peace.

What then does it mean to be free, and how do we maximize our freedom? When we live in accordance with the truth, whether external or internal! This means living in accordance with the limitations of our human nature.

CAN A PILL BE INVENTED THAT WILL ALLOW US TO LIVE FREE FROM OUR CONSTRAINING NATURE?

A pill will not enable us to circumvent reality, no more than an anti-anxiety drug will enable us to drive blindfolded.

Even more to the point, why would anyone want to circumvent reality? Only a superficial view of reality would cause us to ask such a question. Some believe that reality is nothing but change. In this case, human nature and moral reality is nothing to be reckoned with. Better to be a trend-setter!

However, if human nature is such by the design of a superior Intelligence who has created us with a moral nature to understand Him and to enter into a loving and eternal relationship with Him, our nature is to be cherished and not changed.

Yes, we are glorious, but how so? As we walk in sync with Reality – our Creator - first in belief and then in action!