The Failure of Modern Psychology — And the Biblical Alternative

A friend introduced me to this book one afternoon last Spring when we were discussing an ethics paper I’d recently written. I’m in no way a psychologist or Christian counselor, but my research paper covered the topic of one Christian university’s sad history of irresponsibility in the counseling of its students. Claiming to use a nouthetic approach, the untrained counselors ended up re-victimizing victims of rape and abuse by forcing them to confront and forgive their attackers and even to carry some of the blame for “inviting” the rape, etc. It was a horrible ordeal that left many scars, and it was a difficult paper to write. Our discussion of that school from our distant kitchen-table perches, however, made her think of and recommend this book to me, and I’m glad for it.

The gist of the book is that Richard Ganz was a psychologist at a state hospital working with patients suffering from all kids of mental disorders. He was also a newly-saved Christian just beginning his own study of the Bible and exploration of the teachings of Jesus. When he recognized the underlying spiritual needs of his patients, he introduced them to the concepts of sin and guilt and the remedy that Christ offers, and through that process was actually able to see some of his own patients saved, their lives changed, and their mental disorders all but erased.

This use of Biblical counseling in the secular world didn’t please any of his superiors at the state hospital, of course, and he soon found himself out of work. In time, he grew to understand better this field of biblical counseling and eventually became not only a heavy proponent of it but also an antagonist to his former profession.

What promises can secular psychology make to patients, he muses, when they deny the existence of sin, God, or even morality and absolutes? He also wonders how the whole profession has been able for so long to get away with the lies of “neutrality.” He writes, for example, in Chapter 3, “The Power of the Couch”:

[Secular] counseling…pretends to be neutral. But it is actually the practical working out of a comprehensive world-and-life view… Beliefs about humankind, God, and values always enter into counseling. Many so-called neutral practitioners swear they leave all value (and value systems) out of their practice. But that does not mean that they are objective…

Counseling cannot operate apart from both parties’ view of God, humanity, and the universe… All counselors state their views about these critical realities, consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, calculatedly or in ignorance… (44)

In short, counseling/psychotherapy (psychology) no longer stands as the science of behavior, but as the guardian of the soul, the maker of value, the determiner of morality, the definer of freedom [in other words: “Religion”]. That which began as a true science of behavior has degenerated into a neo-religious cult. In the place of God is man. In the place of the priest (minister) is a psychologist. In the place of the Word is psychotherapy. In the place of confession/forgiveness is interpretation (or one of its many equivalents). Counseling/psychotherapy (psychology) emerges as the practical twentieth-century religion. Here the deception of neutrality is revealed. (47)

In Chapter 7, “Caring to Confront,” he delves further into the nature of nouthetic counseling, in a way that was a stark reminder of the dangers of the Christian university I mentioned above. I’ll supply this quotation before making a few comments:

Opponents of a nouthetic counseling have many objections: It’s “far too threatening to use early in the helping relationship”; it can “make the final healing even more difficult to achieve”; “it is the fertilizer of fear”; it is “deficient of love.” They argue that the nouthetic idea of confrontation is unbiblical. But nouthetic counseling is only unbiblical if sin does not exist. According to Jay Adams, author of Competent to Counsel, nouthetic confrontation suggests there is something wrong with a person who is to be confronted nouthetically. The idea of something wrong, some sin, some obstruction, some problem, some difficulty, some need that has to be acknowledged and dealt with, is central…nouthetic confrontation arises out of a condition in the council Lee that God wants changed. The fundamental purpose of nouthetic confrontation, then, is to effect personality and behavior change. (77)

What’s missing in his description—and what was at the root of those untrained university counselors’ problems when they sat down with students—is the awareness that not all “patients” (or counselees) are struggling because of some unconfessed sin in their lives. Sometimes people hurt through no fault of their own, and they need healing and comfort, not confrontation.

When a college freshman who’s been carrying the burden of having been raped by a deacon three years prior brings her pain to a counselor, she doesn’t need to be confronted about her sin or asked what she might have been wearing or what words she might have said that encouraged the letch to do what he did—and she doesn’t need to be told that she’s responsible to face her attacker and tell him that she forgives him! The girl needs help calling the cops to get that bastard publicly shamed and thrown in prison! She needs healing to know that the millstone Jesus promised is fit to be tied around the dude’s proverbial neck, and that no church title or power structure is going to protect him from his lust and lies and crimes. The girl needs the Comforter to help her understand that although she’d been defiled, she’s not defiled; also, although she’s carried guilt, she need carry it no longer.

I write all this because I’m a huge fan of biblical counseling, but we’ve got to know that it has its flaws. When it’s treated as a blanket approach for all ills, it can actually harm people. Proper biblical counseling isn’t for everyone to use simply because they think they knows the Bible. It requires training, discernment, and empathy, because without these things, it’s too easily mishandled and it harms the people who need help the most. Richard Ganz certainly isn’t proposing that we use biblical counseling in this flawed way, but I don’t think he offers any fair warnings of the dangers either.

Ok. I think I got all of that out of my system. There were many other memorable topics discussed in this book that I really appreciated. Here I’ll just name a few.

The issue of church community having a healing impact for hurting people really reminded me of the COVID-era church, when so many “Christians” loved having an excuse to quit the in-person meetings in favor of “watching online” (yeah right; Youtube stats don’t lie). He writes this in Chapter 10, “Building up the Body”:

The structure of the church provides an often-ignored opportunity. This opportunity comes because a church meets as a group. We are called to place ourselves in physical proximity with one another. (This is just one of the reasons that “the church of the air” (TV) is a deficient notion; the “members” never know each other or connect in any way at all!) The primary purpose of “coming together” is to worship God. But this group structure serves many other purposes as well—providing encouragement, support, accountability, and a physical confirmation of belonging to God’s kingdom. (104)

The issue of how words can affect a person, and especially a child, was a great reminder for me in Chapter 11, “When Christianity Doesn’t Work.” In fact, I thought immediately of John A. Yount’s 2004 book, Everyday Talk. Ganz writes:

What people tell us about ourselves influences (although it does not determine) what we believe about ourselves and what we can do. Parents especially should be aware that their comments to their children will mold much of these young lives. (122)

I also appreciated Ganz’s Gospel focus throughout the book, that this type of nouthetic counseling only works for the believer, for the person whose sin has been forgiven. If sin is the root problem and it’s left unchecked, there there’s no hope for a cure for the disease, only possibly a temporary salve for the symptoms. He writes in Chapter 11:

Sin not only is entered into habitually; sin is habitual. No sins, left through themselves, just go away. Sin is either atoned for by the blood of Christ and then put off day by day in the Christian, or else it is left to spread like cancer. (124)

Finally, I loved this point he makes in Chapter 14, “Moving Toward a Free Will”, about “the deferment of gratification.” He writes:

Deferment of gratification is inherent in Christianity. We have a Kingdom waiting to be revealed. Ours is a heavenly citizenship; the Lord Himself promised, “I go to prepare a place for you [His Father’s house]. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2,3). In view of the “eternal glory that far outweighs” all his “light and momentary troubles” (beatings, imprisonment, chains, desertion by friends, sleep deprivation, hunger, thirst, nakedness, etc.), Paul states that “we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2Cor 4:18). (146)

I really enjoyed this book and already have a friend in mind to whom I’m going to give it. Like I said above, I’m not a biblical counselor myself, but the more I learn about its purpose and focus, the more I see the need for it, and the more I see the need for seasoned Christians to get trained in it. Praise God for churches offering online trainings in biblical counseling, and I pray more people gifted with discernment will see this as a calling. It’s sorely needed in our churches and world!

©2023 E.T.