There are over 200 psycho-modalities and variations therefrom available today, making it very challenging to select which method would be the better treatment for a particular person’s mental health issue. However, there are potentially only around twenty modalities that are conducive to a Christian counselor’s application, if they are to follow biblical principles. I would like to introduce you to yet one more modality that I believe allows for good biblical applications, but is critical regarding two parts not generally utilized or even welcomed in traditional mental health counseling or therapy.
According to Dr. Jay Adams (author of Competent to Counsel), and more importantly, according to God’s Word, there are only three sources or causes available when one is seeking answers for personal issues or problems:
1. Organic (physiological, biological) illnesses, where pharmacological remedies, surgical, and other biological treatment methods are utilized.
2. Personal sin issues resulting from our choosing to ‘do it our way’ instead of Gods, or from following our human fleshly wisdom and desires. Desires which are always in conflict with the Christians divine nature or Holy Spirit within them.
3. Demonic activity. What is often referred to as demonic oppressions, which are more accurately called demonization matters.
Where traditional mental health therapies focus on bio-psycho-social-relational issues, leaving out behavioral matters with sin or demonization-issues as the causative agents, PSCC looks at the total person: body, soul and spirit. Here are a few examples:
1. Let’s look at organic issues first. A revealing book by Susannah Cahalan entitled Brian on Fire describes vividly how psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians diagnosed and treated one young woman. Practitioners gave her a co-morbid diagnosis of bipolar, and later schizoaffective, disorder. Finally, one physician – due to the family’s non-acceptance of the diagnosis and treatment – diagnosed it correctly as anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Had she continued in her recommended treatment (via the traditional mental health model), she most likely would have died.
Other organic disorders misdiagnosed with mental illness symptoms which should be treated as physiological/biological issues would be chemical or hormonal abnormalities, exposure to toxic heavy metals like mercury, lead, and cadmium, neurological impairments like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, metabolic disorders like thyroid disease and vitamin deficiencies, concussions or TBA’s, lyme disease, mold exposures, and of course alcohol and drug-abuse, to name a few.
2. The second avenue often overlooked due to social and political pressures today is that of sin. Dr. Karl Menninger, an MD and psychiatrist, wrote a book entitled Whatever Became of Sin? In it he penned the following statement: “Much of what is being declared and treated as mental illnesses are, in fact, consequences of wrong thinking and believing resultant from sinful behaviors and, therefore, should be dealt with not from a medical (disease model) process, but from a pastoral care one.”
Larry Crabb, a Christian psychologist and author, has this to say: “behind most emotional problems, behind most mental health disorders, is in fact spiritual dysfunction.” He further adds: “beneath what our culture calls psychological disorders are souls crying out for what the community (the church) can only provide.” Why is the church the only remedy for so many so-called mental illnesses according to Dr. Crabb? Simply stated, because of sin!
3. The third cause that can and does create emotional and behavioral issues for all of humanity (including Christians) is the spirit world, or more precisely, the demonic spirit world. I would like to begin this third section with the following question:
Why are so many Christians today not enjoying the freedoms found in living a Christ-filled Life? The reason for much of this failure is that the world (and much of the church) believe that a great amount of this pain and suffering is mainly due to the poor mental health many are experiencing. To say this differently, the unsaved and some Christians attribute this suffering to not having enough mental health practitioners, while many who are saved believe this suffering can largely be attributed to a void of the Holy Spirit or to the work of demonic spirits. However, while endeavoring to get the majority of the Church to fully understand and embrace this issue, the Church has unknowingly elevated in practice the mental health system and its humanistic, relativistic beliefs into a religion equal to that of God and His Word. But the best the mental health system, along with psychology, can ever do is to beef up one’s flesh, which is the Devil’s playground. And even though we Christians have all we need in the person of Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit reigning and empowering from within, too many, like the unsaved, can only enjoy the best of mankind’s wisdom, but without God’s teachings. So, as the Church continues to take this misstep, erroneously believing mental illness can be overcome and defeated by simply embracing and trusting our current mental health system and psychology, faithful biblical and Soul Care counseling will continue to be out of reach. Meanwhile, the mental health system, having embraced the disease model, has unknowingly bought into the lies and deceptions of Satan and prohibited God and the spirit world from being part of the solution. When God, Satan, and the spirit world can no longer be considered actual participants in this drama, (which is the position taken by mental health practitioners), we relive the classic tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes. This story accurately represents the current state of psychology and mental health in today’s secular world.
Karl Marx once declared that “religion is the opium of the people,” concerning Christianity and Judaism, claiming these monotheistic religions were merely anesthetics for uncritical minds. Unfortunately, many of our sciences and educational institutions have bought into this thinking, hook, line, and sinker. But the truth is that law, education, and politics, the very foundations of our culture, would function in a vacuum without Judeo-Christian principles influencing their actions, and that is precisely what we see happening today. So, even though the Church might not be the executor of the state, it must be the conscience of the state; to be so requires the Church to remain true to God’s Word, and the truth that there is a spirit world replete with demons.
Therefore, PSCC proposes several new paradigms to include in the diagnostics and treatments of all mental health issues. First, and more specifically, I recommend adding the spiritual world, the third part of humankind (body, soul, and spirit). In addition to the spiritual dimensions, we need to include alternative medical considerations where we look at somatopsychic issues as well as the psychosomatic aspects. Every chapter of Putting God Back Into Counseling features case histories that illustrate this model, which I now employ. Even though physical issues might appear as mental illnesses based upon symptoms found in the DSM, many are true spiritual issues with ancillary mental health traits.
Practical Soul Care Counseling 