Welcome to the reading of Dr. Richard Ganz's book, Psychobabble, the Failure of Modern Psychology and the Biblical Alternative. Copyright 1993 by Richard Ganz. This book is read and distributed with the author's permission. This MP3 audio file is a production of Stillwaters Revival Books, which offers a large selection of free and discounted classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed resources on the web at SWRB.com. We continue our reading on page 41. Chapter 3 The Power of the Couch One day a young man named Ralph came to me for help after his family suggested that he commit himself to the local psychiatric hospital. During our first counseling session, Ralph informed me of his faith in Christ, but he also made some strange statements. He said that God was telling him that a certain person had to die, that God wanted him to stop eating until a certain person was dead, and that God might want him to end that person's life himself. Ralph attributed many other impulses and desires to God. Clearly, God had not told Ralph to do these evil things. How would non-Christian counselors have dealt with Ralph? Secular psychotherapists would probably have seen Ralph's faith as the problem. Most have been taught that Christianity is detrimental to personality development. They may not blame God pointedly for Ralph's problems, but when Ralph finished his therapy with these individuals, he would have seen man's work in his life, not God's. His interest in God may very well have ended. Many Christian counselors make the same mistake. A Christian psychiatrist I know told me how he goes about making referrals for his patients who are hospitalized. He said, I refer my patients to psychiatrists who won't attack their Christianity unless Christianity is not working for the patient. is a psychiatric patient in a psychiatric hospital, perhaps at the point in his life where the only reality he clings to is Jesus Christ. In walks Dr. Jones, who apparently accepts completely the patient's Christian faith. That, of course, may be part of his own philosophical bias. He might accept everything. Dr. Jones looks at his new patient, clinging to his faith even in the midst of terrible problems, and says, I'm not concerned about your Christianity as long as it is working for you. What does this statement, either explicit or implicit, mean? Does he mean that Christianity is one of many reasonable alternatives? That contradicts the Bible. Does he mean that each person should judge the truth of something based upon his own private and personal experience? Does he mean that Christianity sometimes works and sometimes doesn't? However far we take this attitude, obviously this approach to Christianity is neither benign nor benevolent. Further, it is not neutral. It is saying Christianity is allowable as long as the person using it conforms to worldly standards of successful living. Few Christians would accept this thesis. and even fewer Christians would or should find themselves approving such counseling. So then, what does it mean when a psychotherapist tells the counselee that Christianity is fine for him, if he is fine? What does it mean when this professional tells him that his Christianity is fine as long as he understands that it is just one of many equally fine roads. The counselee pays the therapist, therefore the counselee's perceptions are faulty, and the therapists are correct. Faith has been dismissed. The counselee is left shaken, but does not know why. He placed his life in the hands of this wise person who couldn't care less about Jesus and the claims of the Bible. Counseling of this sort pretends to be neutral, but it is actually the practical working out of a comprehensive world and life view. Could it be any other way? 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 they are objective. A strong presentation to counselees of a world and life view is still there. These therapists are merely telling the counselee therapy that it is possible to keep all values out of a therapy intended to change a person's life. They are suggesting that valueless living is as worthwhile as a life lived according to openly stated values. This is a powerful presentation of a worldview. Inevitably, in a counseling situation, what is truly believed essential or valuable in life will be taught. Counseling cannot operate apart from both parties' view of God, humanity, and the universe. to state, I don't speak of God in my therapy, is not neutral, but rather it is a powerful statement about God. He isn't important enough to be mentioned in counseling. All counselors state their views about these critical realities, consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, calculatedly or in ignorance. So-called neutral counseling is actually relativistic. It asserts that the only absolute is that all values are continually in flux. Historically, such thinking has led to the ultimate denial of all meaning, purpose, knowledge, morals, etc. Underneath pluralistic neutrality, we find that we are dealing with moral, philosophical, and intellectual nihilism, a worldview that says there is absolutely no true knowledge, meaning value, ethics, or morals. Thus the counselor who claims to practice value-free counseling declares himself a nihilist and his counseling nihilistic. He is, in fact, declaring his counseling presuppositions even while claiming to have none. Unfortunately, too many people don't understand that counseling derives from a worldview. Instead, they think of counseling as the tool that one person, the expert, applies to another person who has psychological problems. They see the practitioner apply his expertise to particular problems with the goal of bringing some relief or help. The psychotherapist or counselor is seen as a kind of super-mechanic who locates psychological shorts and disconnections using his technical expertise to correct the malfunctionings. He is the one who, by progressive feats of wizardry, demonstrates a technical mastery of the mind. Those who oppose this core of cerebral supermen are met by a hostility that is hard to defend against. Once a counselee has been diagnosed, classified, and categorized, what can one really say in his behalf? If the defiant one stands up and alone defies his diagnosis, it is indicative of paranoia. After all, a sign of paranoia is to believe that one is correct and everyone else is wrong. Unfortunately, if a person disagrees with a diagnosis, he is classified mentally ill, with whatever variety one happens to be labeled, and is therefore incompetent. Thus, either way, he is a non-person so far as thought or will are concerned. Further, those defying the psychotherapist rarely wield power. I say rarely because there are extremely infrequent times when the science of the diagnosis and classification of supposed mental illness is shown to be what it really is, speculation at best, criminal at worst. In 1973, Rosenhan, a professor of psychology and law at Stanford University, and a dozen friends, mostly professionals, presented themselves at local mental hospitals for admission. All repeated exactly the same opening words, I feel empty, or I feel hollow. Following this admission, they acted normally. They related to others as they would ordinarily. All were admitted. The length of stay in the hospitals was between seven and 52 days. Requests for release on the basis that they were normal were viewed as confirmatory signs of illness. Those who spent a portion of their hospital stay writing about their time were labeled as obsessive and compulsive because of all the writing. When released, all retained the diagnosis schizophrenic, with the added note, in remission. In other words, their schizophrenias were under some kind of temporary control, but they were all still to be viewed as schizophrenic. Had this been anything other than a research study, these individuals would have carried around for the rest of their lives the horrible appellation, schizophrenic. Unfortunately, countless others have not escaped that fate. so much for the supposed objectivity and neutrality of psychiatry in diagnosing mental illness. Of his study, Rosenhan concluded, We continue to label patients schizophrenics, manic-depressives, and insane, as if those words had captured the essence of understanding. We have known for a long time that our diagnoses are not reliable or useful, but we nevertheless continue to use them. Thomas Jatt reflects on the absurdity of this dilemma and the inevitability of psychiatric tyranny. We are told that if a psychiatric patient is early for his appointment, he is anxious. If late, he is hostile, and if on time, compulsive. We laugh because it is supposed to be a joke, but here we are told the same thing in all seriousness. As an interesting addendum, admissions to Southern California mental hospitals for a while dropped by 33% because hospital staff feared they were part of a follow-up study. To be able to say with society's approval that a person who doesn't conform to a completely subjective and relativistic norm is ill and possesses a diseased psyche is an extraordinary power. 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 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 or minister is the 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 20th century religion. Here the deception of neutrality is revealed. A war is raging. On one side, biblical Christianity. On the other, philosophical nihilism. Truth, meaning, and hope are placed against the moral and philosophical anarchy. they can never truly meet a need or offer hope. When anarchy faces a person in despair, it can only parrot back thoughts or feelings or ask a new question. Under the pedantry and rhetoric of the psychologist's assurance, you've got all the answers, lies another more truthful declaration, you've got your problems, I've got mine. Remember Ralph? the troubled young man who came to me because he felt that God was telling him to kill someone? In the hands of a secular psychotherapist, Ralph would have been weaned from his fragile faith. But since I practiced biblical counseling, something else happened. I believed, despite his bizarre statements, that Ralph was genuinely converted. But Ralph had never received any discipling. After his conversion, he had been virtually ignored by his church. Ralph remained plagued by many of the problems he had endured since long before his conversion. He was angry and bitter because an old girlfriend was seeing another man. This rejection, in fact, had caused Ralph to turn to God. But Ralph had never dealt with his pain, and the anger he felt toward this girl and her boyfriend. He had to learn about anger and how to handle it biblically. He also had to learn about God and the requirements God has for us. He had to get involved in a sound biblical church and be discipled in the Christian faith. The anger and the hurt were not completely eradicated from Ralph when I stopped seeing him. but the congregation of which he is now a member is helping him in all of the remaining areas. The vain philosophies of Freud, Rogers, Skinner, Jung, Erhard agree that God is irrelevant. Their techniques could not help Ralph. They could only damage the one true thing in his life, his faith in Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, Some Christian counselors have let their training and their desire for acceptance in this world cloud their vision. Often, well-intentioned Christian psychologists have welcomed into their counseling rooms methodologies and perspectives that have at their root a denial of God. They begin sessions with prayer, but then weave godless therapies and Freud-inspired techniques into the minds and souls of their counselees. Pastors, ill-equipped and fearful of societal reprisal, hasten their parishioners off to the experts at the first signs of trouble. Parishioners, ignorant and desperate, go. The counsel they will receive, or don't receive, depending on which school of thought they end up with, is based on carnal man's view of man. What does the living God of heaven and earth think about all this?