37 thoughts on “Bashing Mental Health Professionals”

  2. Love the papyrus font on the church site. Somebody call “papyruswatch.org”.

    Classic.

  3. “I haven’t been to one…”

    Okay, first don’t talk about something you have no experience with. Second, my psychiatrist is more than willing to point out my wrong doing and I am learning about a lot of my flaws.

    Love the flag AND the Southern drawl.

  5. Wow! I never in my life thought I’d see someone place the American Flag on the Pulpit! What on earth are they teaching the “preacher boys” at PCC that has them thinking this is OK? I remember hearing Schettler disparage phychology along these lines as just trying to “alleviate guilt”, and thinking WTF is he talking about? I still don’t know where they get this BS.

  6. whenever i see national flags (outside of representing countries visited on missions) in worship services and sanctuaries, i always think about the lutheran church during ww2 and their patriotism towards the national socialist german workers’ party.

  7. As I only listened to the first few minutes of this video (oddly enough giving up TV for Lent has left me unable to stomach fundy “preaching” anymore), could someone tell me what the heck mental health professionals have to do with the 70 weeks of Daniel?

  9. Gosh, what an idiot. So he says the psychologist finds somebody else to blame it on. Well, I think he’s wrong, but let’s grant that. But the fundy preacher will always blame you, even if you were an innocent victim. You know, “No doubt the problem is with you.” So what’s the benefit? Even if he’s right about psychologists (and as a person who consults a psychologist when tracking church abuse cases gets too difficult, I know he’s wrong), by his argument the psychologist still has a better chance of finding the cause of grief or depression. If a psychologist says, “You’re depressed because your father is abusive. Stay away from him.” And a preacher says, “You need to submit to your abusive father, forgive him, and stay ubnder his authority, because your grief is your fault,” the psychologist has still done a better job for you.

    Then, how in the world did this child get into the pastorate, let alone the pulpit? What strange motives do fundies have for putting kids in the pulpit? The weird “preacher boy” fetish is troubling, certainly.

    And, as has been pointed out in this thread, what does any of this have to do with the 70 weeks of Daniel? Fundamentalist preachers think nothing of shamelessly lording it over the Bible and forcing the text of Scripture to serve them and their opinions. (Coincidentally, today’s blog post is exactly on this topic, Being in Subjection to the Word of God)

  10. Good psychotherapy doesn’t allow you to be stuck in a “blame” mode. It’s about moving on. These people have no clue what they’re talking about. Plus, Jungian psychology fits along very well with Christianity. Again, no clue.

  11. The very fact that someone would say “psychology says” demonstrates their ignorance. Which psychology? Neo-Freudian? Jungian? Behaviorist? Cognitive? Gestalt? People from the various camps disagree wildly on the correct mode of treatment for some issues (just like medical doctors, fwiw).

    Trying to make a blanket statement about ‘psychologists’ is like making a blanket statement about ‘pastors’ regardless of denomination or creed.

  12. As I said, I consult a psychologist from time to time when the tracking of church abuse cases overwhelms me. Once the psychologist realized that my conscience is clearly bound to carrying out this task, the psychologist developed strategies to teach me to cope with the stress of doing it. No drugs, no blame at all on anybody, just a series of protocols to follow when I’m in danger of crashing. It’s been a tremendous help. My psychologist worked from a standpoint of learning and respecting my conscience, assessing the nature of the damage caused by stress, and applying strategic, learnable remedies to keep me going. I’m sure I am at an entry level of stress damage compared to some people, and I don’t think psychology is a cure-all (or that all psychologists are good psychologists, but at least they are all subject to review). But I doubt a person trained for the ministry would be able to have come up with the effetive solutions that have helped me. An idiot like this guy would have taken a solvable problem and made it far worse with his empty pontificating.

  13. @ Dan Keller: agreed. My Christian college actually had a course in which we were instructed to find our Myers-Briggs personality type, and then write a paper on how the strengths associated with that type could best be used to serve the Lord (as well as the vulnerabilities each type would have to watch out for). Said college also had a strong psychology department, and while dealing with some issues with depression I found that talking to a Christian therapist (despite, fwiw, still being in school) did a world more good than either the secular therapist I’d seen prior to college or anyone in the clergy (don’t get me wrong; I loved the clergy in my church, but they just weren’t properly equipped to deal with this, and they would readily admit it).
    I also saw a Christian psychiatrist (which, ftr, is different from a therapist) via the college’s student health center, and was prescribed medication. Was that saying God made my brain wrong? Is undergoing chemotherapy saying God made one’s body wrong? Depression is the result of sin–not necessarily the patient’s sin, but rather the fact that we live in a sinful, fallen world. God doesn’t want it to be so; it’s an affliction Satan cast on the human race to bring us down.

  14. Another manifestation of “The Bible has the answers to everything”. Someone tried to tell me this weekend that our economic mess would be solved if everyone repented and turned to God. Not only are psychologists slammed, economists are slammed also.

  15. Reading this post this morning made me take a double hit of Paxil and Neurontin.

  16. @JimE I’m still dying to hear an IFB tell me sometime that the Bible can solve a “Blue Screen of Death”. I’m sure there are ones that would say it. The hunt is still on. 🙂

  19. Bassence is correct. I often heard my former fundy pastor say, “The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart.”

    That meant that if I was offended, it was my heart that was wrong.

    Always our fault, never theirs.

  20. @Rob, that’s very funny. 🙂 I know a fundy that used to believe that PCs had spiritual demons in them. Maybe an exorcism would work. 😉

  21. @JimE thanks. That’s an excellent point too. I think i may pack up an old laptop & drive it by some street preachers we have out twice a week. See if they can exorcise that beast! Would sure beat re-installing windows! 🙂

  23. It strikes me how much crap I heard at PCC and didn’t recognize it as crap until later on. I was even rebelling against the institution, Darrell can testify (in fact, I helped him hide some stuff from them), and I still took as fact many fallacies.

  24. Another thought: In the multitude of counselors there is wisdom. This principle works well if the counselors disagree with each other. The wise man achieves a balance from the tension. If they all say the same thing, they cancel each other out and only one of them is worth keeping.

    On another subject, it seems like Obama’s counselors all say mostly the same thing. Why else would he have went the direction he did with complete abandon, as if oblivious to the consequences. He does not keep anybody near him who can spell out the end consequences.

  25. The number one sign of a cult is if only “they” are right, and they discourage outside help. I went to see the counselor at school after something tragic happened in my family. I realized that it’s ok to accept help from people of a different faith. I have a friend who is a Christian, who is bipolar, and who is going to start working toward her Master’s degree in psychology at a small Christian university. I disagree with people who say psychology is “wrong,” that’s like refusing medical attention. I don’t believe all psychologists are always right, of course, but that’s true about everything.

    I believe the Bible is right, but it’s not detailed about every aspect of everything. It would be a much bigger book. A person doesn’t go to the Bible to seek medical attention. Same goes for mental health.

  27. So sad! I hope his family never needs true counseling, because they won’t get it!

  28. “It’s easy. You’re always supposed to do right and you’re never supposed to sin.” Ok. I wonder how that’s working for him.

  30. “The Bible has the answers to everything”

    I would be happy if they actually knew their Bibles (and not just the prooftexts), and used them instead of spouting off their “fundiology”.

  31. There is much damage done by such anti-psychology beliefs. My former fundy pastor used to teach that depressed people just need to do more for God (a change of focus). Nope, no need for medical attention or anti-depressants. His fake doctorate obviously rendered him an expert on such things.

    And God help the poor fundy church member who struggles with bi-polar, schizophrenia, OCD, autism, and/or ADHD. Reading their Bible more, spending many hours in their “prayer closet”, serving in a ministry, and door knocking faithfully is not going to bring the relief God has provided for them through medicine.

    Fundy churches can be very damaging to people who need the services of a psychiatrist.

  32. I’m in therapy because I grew up hearing drivel like this. These kinds of messages are the reason I almost gave up on Jesus three years ago.

    Thanks for posting this video. You’ve successfully made me upset.

  34. Interesting opinion. He admits early in the first minute that he “counsels” people, but is anti-those who counsel. One must wonder who taught him what and or how to counsel his church. I’m willing to bet when his teeth hurt, he doesn’t read about Daniel or hold an alter call, but that he prefers, instead, to go to a trained, licensed and board certified Dentist. IMHO, those who teach this drivel do so to keep the flock under their control.

  35. It was interesting to me to watch my fundy friends’ reactions when they discovered I was meeting with a therapist. Funny thing is, half the reason I have to meet with the therapist is to recover from being a Fundy who didn’t believe in therapy. Go figure.

    1. It’s particularly horrifying to them if you are seeing a therapist who does not advertise as a Christian therapist. :mrgreen:

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