psychological cure?

What does a psychological cure look like? Here’s a classic example: Betty has been raised by critical, perfectionistic parents. She learned that she had to be near-perfect in order to think of herself as a “good” or a deserving person. When she failed to make the grade, she’d punish herself to “atone” for the guilt she felt. Therefore, psychotherapy strove to show her how arbitrary her standards were by helping her to see that they were merely a product of the way she was raised. Meanwhile, the therapy assured her that she was a good and worthy person even if she failed to meet these standards.

There are many problems with this model. For one thing, reconstruction of one’s past can be a very uncertain expedition. For another, even if it can be accurately reconstructed, there are many questions about this “knowledge” improving the quality of our lives. If a shark bites off my leg, even if I learn with certainty why he did this, it will not restore my leg nor help me live with my loss. In her introduction to Against Therapy by Jeffrey Masson, Dorothy Rowe writes,

“David Small, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Nottingham University, head of Clinical Psychological services at Nottingham University, and once a practicing psychotherapist, has proposed an alternative to therapy in his book Taking Care. He wrote, ‘Psychological distress occurs for reasons which make it incurable by therapy but which are certainly not beyond the powers of human beings to influence. We suffer pain because we do damage to each other, and we shall continue to suffer pain as long as we continue to do damage. The way to alleviate and mitigate distresses is for us to take care of the world and the other people in it, not to treat them.’”

Is psychotherapy trying to rearrange wiring that has already been fixed in place? Perhaps! Instead of trying to undo the past, we spend our time more fruitfully by learning to live with its consequences. Larry Crabb suggests that our preoccupation with our past may even interfere with any beneficial adjustment:

“The demand to know what’s causing our difficulties may actually be preventing us from finding a pathway through them toward joy” (Hope When Your Hurting, p.23).

Looking for relief from the past by turning to the past might prove to be a vain witch-hunt, resulting in morbid self-obsessions. Besides, this might take our attention away from fruitful interventions. When lost in a maze, we need a compass and a trustworthy map, not ruminations about what got us lost.

Another problem with the psychotherapy model is its use of the “disease model.” According to this model, suffering is an unwanted disease that must be cured ASAP. In contrast, sociologist David Karp writes,

“In one of those striking reversals of conventional [Western] wisdom…the Buddhist idea [is] that illness is an opportunity for enlightenment; that seen the right way, we do not cure illnesses—instead they have the potential to cure us” (emphasis mine! Speaking of Sadness, p. 191).

Affliction-as-cure is also a Christian idea. God places us under sin and suffering in order to bless us (Rom. 11:32)! For our own good, we must first be humbled before God will lift us up and enlighten us with His Gospel (Luke 18:14). Indeed, God wants us to be happy, but it has to be His way and in His timing. Only new wineskins can hold the new wine. Peace can give birth to arrogance as long as self-righteousness rules the heart.

I hope this doesn’t sound as if I’m demeaning the psychological traumas many of us carry. Instead, I’m trying to give prominence to a Biblical truth that puts the reverse spin on our traumas:

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

With God present, weakness trumps strength and hardships are preferable to basking in the sun! And there are many studies to support his contention. One recent one revealed that those who were rated highest on the “happiness scale” fail to grow or accomplish much. I’m sure we’ve met many who have learned compassion through the things they’ve suffered. These findings suggest that the understanding of secular therapy is at best very limited.

Often, the cure is the disease! Even when psychotherapy “helps,” in the long run, it might actually be hurting. Jesus suggested that when a house is emptied of its garbage but is not filled with the right spiritual stuff, the final state will be worse than the initial affliction:

"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation" (Matthew 12:43-45).

This calls into question the ultimate goal of psychotherapy—happiness rather than faithfulness, the quick fix rather than spiritual transformation! A cistern must be treated from within if it is going to hold water. When happiness or peace is achieved in the wrong way or in the wrong order, it might be destructive. Betty’s self-confidence might get a boost, but it might only lead to the “pride goes before destruction!” She may well experience some relief in “knowing” the reasons for her pain, but this might simply be a temporary palliative. Even worse, Betty might even conclude that her moral perfectionism is entirely pathological and injure her conscience by ignoring its voice.

Focus on Betty’s symptoms is blindness to the real problem—self-righteousness, the rejection of God and His righteousness in favor of our own! Although Betty might have learned self-punishment from her family, self-righteousness is as old as a garment of fig leaves and equally as problematic.

Daniel Mann