So, here’s the question: ‘What is the relationship between Christianity and therapy?’
And the answer, of course, will depend on who you ask. Some will declare no relationship at all. There is only the gospel of Jesus Christ with nothing else necessary or needed for the believer. Others will say faith and therapy can walk hand in hand, as complimentary friends on the human journey. Others still might say therapy is the gentle dismantlement of all the neuroses which make people need religion in the first place – which makes for an awkward relationship between the two.
Yet whatever the answer, the two founding principles of Christianity and therapy are remarkably (or eerily) similar. Put simply, while Christianity proclaims grace, the free and unmerited gift of divine favour, therapy offers its human equivalent, unconditional positive regard. And while Christianity then invites the believer towards responsibility, to ‘work out their salvation with fear and trembling’, true therapy begins when the client moves on from blaming others and takes responsibility for their journey. Neither of these giants is content with mere affirmation; both then press for personal responsibility.
Grace, in the Christian story, has remarkable impact. ‘My chains fell off, my heart was free,’ writes Charles Wesley. Here is the affirmation of value, a moment in which we are in some manner seen, known, heard…and not judged. If it is the first time we have known this, it reaches deep inside the soul. A compliment, they say, is a kiss through a veil – but here the veil is quite removed.
And there can be a similar effect with positive regard in therapy. ‘I feel like I’m walking on air!’ said John, a young and highly ambitious recruitment consultant after our first meeting. I hadn’t done much but listen and affirm and provide safe space, but on this occasion, that was enough. Grace and positive regard open a portal in the soul.
And then comes the challenge. This is not a free lunch. ‘Now your chains are off, and your heart free, what are you going to do about it?’ In Christianity it is called sanctification or divinisation, which is ‘becoming as God’. Irenaeus points to this transfiguration: ‘Jesus Christ, in his infinite love, has become what we are, in order that he may make us entirely what he is.’ So, we are to be as him, as God. But this will take both courage and risk, for each human story is suffused with damage; we will need to let go of self-limiting and self-protecting fear.
To this end, Jesus tells the parable of the gold coins. A king goes away leaving a gold coin with each of his servants. It’s a gift which they are to use it to make money. And they all do – except one who is afraid of the king and too cautious. He does nothing with the coin, risks nothing. On his return, the king is not pleased and we discover this is not a story about grace. He doesn’t say, ‘Well, never mind, you played safe, it’s all fine by me!’ Because he hid from authentic action, the servant is put in prison.
And the psychotherapist Irvine Yalom has a similar understanding. He believes therapy only begins when the client is able to take responsibility for their story. For healing to occur, the client will have to get beyond a list of complaints and hard luck stories, which merely blame others. Positive regard can’t collude with denial; the client must take their place in the disturbance for anything good to occur. ‘What is your role in the disturbance you experience? How, in this situation, can you be free and offer freedom to others?’
The arrival of Buddhism in the west has no doubt impacted this debate. Traditionally, Christianity has asked its followers to look beyond themselves to God. Only God is worthy of our attention. Jesus may have said the Kingdom of God is within but this has been largely ignored by the church. Instead, ‘Trust in God’ has morphed into ‘Look to God!’ or ‘Just leave it to God!’ which effectively calls time on self-knowledge.
Buddha, however, picks up this dropped baton, by starting with the inner story of the follower. ‘How do I create suffering for myself?’ was his starting point. It is also an important question in therapy.
And here we must note one further connection between Christianity and therapy: the capacity in both to inhabit disturbance, which is close to the heart of all human health. I remember the woman who only came to church on Good Friday: ‘It is the only day of the year the church allows me to be sad,’ she said.
An inability to sit with disturbance, whether in myself or others, commonly leads to the emotional wasteland of disassociation, in which I bring down the shutters on the shadows I don’t wish to see. ‘Life breaks us all,’ writes Hemingway, ‘but some of us are strong in the broken places.’ And it’s true – but first we best inhabit the disturbance.
The church is in desperate need of therapy. I remember the question asked by a social worker in professional relationship with the church: ‘Why is the church full of the emotionally immature? And the leadership – I mean, is this it?’ Maybe one place to look for an answer is in the fear-driven absence of self-knowledge in some believers; in their lack of personal responsibility for their mental and emotional health. Like the servant who did nothing with the gift of the coin, self-awareness is swept under the carpet, while they dutifully (and unsuccessfully) struggle to improve their prayer life, because that’s what matters, isn’t it?
In his penetrating book, ‘Lost Christianity’, Jacob Needleman ponders the spiritual energy lost by a church obsessed with the do’s and don’ts of moral and doctrinal purity at the expense of inner exploration; and the impoverished soul this preached onslaught creates. The church needs therapy.
But it is also clear therapy owes a great deal to Christianity. The liberating doctrine of grace was at work long before any counsellor said, ‘It’s OK not to be OK.’ And the parable of the gold coins invited personal responsibility many years before any therapist asked, ‘And what is your part in this narrative?’ While no story reminds us quite as well as the Christian story that disturbance – the last place we wish for – is not the end; and quite possibly a beginning.
Like two siblings separated at birth, Christianity and therapy share profound connections. They live different lives now, inhabit different space, but the same fragile magic resonates in both.
They could be friends.
