This edition of Christian Counseling Today reaches deep into the “Body, Mind and Spirit” connection and helps us to understand the intricate connection between these three dimensions of our lives. Making sense of how these three are connected has never been more challenging on the one hand, and more exciting on the other. As counselors, we neglect, to our detriment, some of the new discoveries about the brain and how our emotions and behaviors depend on the integrity of brain mechanisms. In the “special section” the focus is on how we can help people ‘live well in a fallen world.’ Our intention is to stimulate you to expand your appreciation of how important it is to ‘integrate’ body and mind issues. As technology expands our ability to “look” inside the brain and observe its functioning in real time, tremendous new discoveries are helping us to illuminate our understanding not only of physical, but also of psychological mechanisms. But more importantly, we want to also emphasize the contribution that the third part of our being makes to our ‘living well’—namely the spirit. We explore the spiritual dimensions of some of the most difficult physical and mental disorders that we face in our ministries and practices. In this issue we tackle bi-polar disorders, acute psychotic episodes, bitterness and unforgiveness, as well as heart disease, cancer, migraines, and PMDD. We also challenge you with the successful practices of highly functioning individuals, to increase your knowledge about dietary supplements, and consider the high cost of our sexualized youth culture. However, there is a decided caution I want to raise in this editorial: We need to be careful that we define ‘spirituality’ in biblical terms, not physical or psychological.
The psychological and medical world is pretty well preoccupied these days with the concept of ‘spirituality.’ You hear or read about it all the time. Anything ‘spiritual’ was considered to be irrelevant—or worse, dangerous —until just a few years ago. “Religious” New Harbinger publications NEW institutions that trained psychotherapists were considered suspect. Freud’s belief that everything religious was “neurotic” was the criteria by which we were judged. Then came the “positive psychology” movement and the research on the constructive relationship of spirituality/ religion and health by psychiatrists like Harold Koenig and the late David Larsen—these changed everything. It showed that religion could play a very significant role in building health, both physical and mental, and the false assumptions of the founding icons of our field were quickly put to the test. Training programs that teach spirituality and integrate it into psychotherapy and the practice of medicine are now the darlings of the profession. In many ways this shift can be welcomed. It is now permissible, even required in some settings, that a therapist take a “spiritual inventory” to uncover resources that can be mobilized in the healing process. Religious patients and clients, especially those who express a desire to incorporate their beliefs into the change process, are now paired with like-minded believers to improve treatment outcome. Physicians now encourage patients to pray for their healing.
BUT I MUST CONFESS THAT I feel a little uncomfortable with all this attention on ‘spirituality.’ Allow me to tell you why. First, the concept of spirituality is often confused and intertwined with both religious and non-religious ideas. In fact, you don’t have to be religious at all to be ‘spiritual.’ Almost every system, religious or not, claims to have a spiritual component. Every religion claims to have its spirituality, but so do New Age practices, naturalist spirituality, animism, witchcraft, feminist spirituality, and Twelve-Step programs. Second, the current newfound emphasis on being ‘spiritual’ without regard to the saving and sanctifying work of God through Christ is also misleading. One does not have to repent from sin or be challenged to live a holy life, only to engage in ‘spiritual rituals.’ Prayer beads are fashionable. What’s wrong with this? It is tantamount to a ‘watering down’ of the work God does through Christ. Where am I going with all of this? Because ‘spirituality’ now means many things to many people, I believe that we need to be more careful how we use the term—with our clients and ourselves. Popular spirituality derives its meaning from the fact that it usually is based in the theories of ordinary people—we need to be more careful to foster a theological and biblical understanding of what we mean by the term.
Popular spirituality is based in feelings and sentiments usually borrowed from a few self-appointed charismatic gurus or from some doctrines and practices borrowed from mainstream religions. Encouraging troubled people to be ‘more spiritual’ without pointing them to the only ‘true’ spirituality will not help them to ‘live well in a fallen world.’ Let us remind them and ourselves, as this issue does, that Christian spirituality is the lived experience of Christian belief. It is the only spirituality that carries any significance for our fallen world. In some ways, I wish we could switch to using another term for the special walk we have in Christ. It would add a new depth to what we really mean when we talk about “spiritual direction,” “the spirituality of prayer,” and so forth. Clearly, we have a lot of work to do here, but I hope you will agree that we make a good start with the topics, stories, and information contained in this issue.
Archibald D.Hart,Ph.D.,FPPR, is a clinical psychologist, Emeritus Professor of Psychology and former Dean of the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. He also serves as Executive Editor and Director of International Relations for AACC.
