[This is an excerpt from the upcoming second edition of my 1035-page book, “The Serpent and the Cross: Religious Corruption in an Age of Evil”. In involves three little sections in a massive chapter about what I call “The Mind Sciences”, In citing the ‘mind-sciences’ as a seed of corruption, I am not referring only to the clinical study of the mind and human behaviour. Rather, I am referring to the entire development of techniques and systems designed to alter human consciousness, of which psychotherapy is one. In these three sections below, I will show how the whole unregenerate world is already in a trancelike state (from which one should awaken when one genuinely comes to Christ), that secular psychotherapy is a vain attempt to transform a fallen, unregenerate mind, and that so-called “Christian” Therapy is a hoax. I hope you find the words below helpful and enlightening].

The Pre-Hypnotic Condition of the World

Truly, the unregenerate mind  is ‘deceitful above all things and incurably sick’ (a literal translation of the Hebrew in Jeremiah 17:9). It will scream and wail ecstatically at the sight and sound of media-manufactured personalities. It will sit riveted for hours on end by a soap opera or similar base entertainment. It is a mind as easily addicted to nicotine, television and alcohol as it is to heroin, ‘crack’ and cocaine. It will slavishly follow the fashions and fads of the day. It will gleefully gawp at the bejewelled icons of royalty (or pseudo-royalty). It will mindlessly follow a football team to the four corners of the earth, singing its praises and stabbing, beating up, or ridiculing those who differ. It will bow down before the grim Mullahs of Islamic cultdom and chant collectively at the pre-set signal. It will believe the collective lies of generations of political skullduggery. It will condemn pornography with its mouth, yet its mind and eyes will spend the rest of their time engrossed in visual and printed media which exclusively peddle degrading material. It will incinerate whole nations of peoples if instructed to do so by men in white coats with clipboards and ‘Joe 90’ spectacles. I am not referring here particularly to the situation in Nazi Germany during World War II. Because most people would say, “we would never do that”, it would be more revealing to cite the ‘Milgram Experiment’. In the 1970s, an experiment was carried out at City University, New York, by Professor of Psychology Stanley Milgram.

In a research programme designed to discover whether seemingly decent people can commit atrocities, he set up an artificial situation in a laboratory where volunteers from ‘respectable’ backgrounds and occupations were given to believe (wrongly) that they were administering electric shocks to other experimental subjects in a neighbouring room. Amazingly, the majority of these people were prepared to give fatal shocks to the subject (who could often be heard screaming for mercy) in the cause of science, when requested to do so by a ‘respectable’ academic scientist in a white coat. In the U.S.A. 62% went all the way; while figures in Rome, South Africa, and Australia were much higher. In Germany, the figure was a staggering 85%! [Details of this controversial but highly revealing experiment were published in Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (1974), and in an article entitled ‘Behavioural Study of Obedience’, in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol.67, 1963, pp.371-378].

This tragic, powerfully pre-hypnotic condition of humanity and its ability to be manipulated has even been officially recognised within the field of psychotherapy — although not as a tragedy but as a field ripe for further exploitation. One senior psychotherapist has tellingly stated, in a training session on hypnosis with other therapists:

“One of the most fascinating things you will discover once you are fully competent in using the ritualistic notions of traditional hypnosis, is that you’ll never have to do it again. A training program in hypnosis is not for your clients. It’s for you, because you will discover that somnambulistic trance is the rule rather than the exception in people’s everyday ‘waking activity’. [Richard Bandler and John Grinder, Frogs into Princes: Neuro-Linguistic Programming (Real People Press, 1979), p.100. It should be noted here that ‘Neuro-Linguistic Programming’, a subtle kind of hypnotherapy, has enjoyed a major cult following in the British social work and psychology scene — having been vogue in the so-called ‘caring’ professions in the USA for many years beforehand.]

Here, it is being frankly admitted by a professional trainer of psychotherapists that ‘trance’ is the normal state of the unregenerate human mind, which indeed it is! Unregenerated people live in a trancelike-state. This is why John could say (literal translation): “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the evil one” (1 John 5:19). The Greek word translated here as “lies” is κεῖμαι, keimai, which actually means “to lie outstretched, literally or figuratively” (Strong’s Concordance), as if in a passive condition. The picture is of a world which supinely submits to the power of Satan. That is surely a state of trance. In other words, such a mind is a walking bundle of susceptibility to hypnotic suggestion; and it is from this trancelike state that one awakens when one genuinely comes to Christ. There has been a glut of psychological research which backs up this phenomenon. In one such study, a psychologist discovered that he was unable to find a single thing within the bounds of professional ethics that normal, awake subjects would not do under the power of suggestion (M.T. Orne, “On the Social Psychology of the Psychological Experiment”, in American Psychologist, No.17, 1962, pp.776-783.). It is this all-pervasive condition which has enabled the ‘mind-sciences’ in their many forms to proliferate to such an extent — even in the ecclesiastical scene, as we shall see in Chapter 11 when examining Charismatic and related phenomena. In an extraordinary admission concerning the real nature of psychotherapy, the above trainer of therapists goes on to give the following truly apocalyptic advice to his students: “You will discover that most of the techniques in different types of psychotherapy are nothing more than hypnotic phenomena” (Richard Bandler and John Grinder, op. cit.,  p.100). Here is a senior psychologist revealing the truth of his craft, exposing the manipulation that lies at the back of the ‘mind-sciences’ — deception and suggestion working in harmony with one another. “Nothing more than hypnotic phenomena”.

It is the suggestible, trance-like, hopelessly-dependent state of the fallen human mind which provides the receptive ground on which the hypnotic techniques of psychotherapy can do their work. And these are techniques which many Christians have been duped into believing are in line with Scripture, when we can now see that they conform much more closely to the subterfuges of shamanism and ancient sorcery.

What we are really dealing with here are mind-games on a vast scale. For the collective unregenerate imagination is a vast, open canvas on which demonic forces, in conjunction with the corruption of the world, can paint whatever suggestion the observer, through his own inherent sinfulness, is open to receive — whether it is a vision in keeping with his religious tradition, the illusion of an acquired ‘divinity’, the belief that one’s leg has been lengthened by a faith-healing session in a Charismatic church, the urge to murder or steal, a recurrent sexual obsession, the re-experiencing of an early life trauma, or (as any advertising magnate will aver) the desire to buy a particular brand of baked beans! Whatever a person’s proclivity, so it will be exploited to the full, providing the bed-rock for besetting sins, as well as a multitude of excuses for them. It is for this reason that the apostle Paul advises the Ephesian believers not to “provide an opportunity for the devil’ by allowing sinful anger to persist and thereby become enstructured within the personality (Ephesians 4:26-27). The Greek word translated as ‘opportunity’ here is topos, which means a place, a setting, a context which can be exploited by the demonic realm. Another eminently suitable translation would be ‘foothold’. What Paul is saying is that if you don’t resolve your sinful anger, you give the devil an immediate foothold or place of opportunity in your life (which does not mean possession). He knew well that the demonic realm feeds on the ready-made foibles of the sinful human mind.

It is not without significance for our study at this point that even the scientists are beginning to recognise these things as they become involved in parapsychology and transpersonal research — although their conclusions differ radically from those of the biblical Christian. For example, Dr. Elmer Green of the Menninger Foundation was a leading neuro-psychiatrist in the USA, who has also worked for fifteen years as a physicist on rocket and guided missile research. He was one of the pioneers in terms of bridging the gulf between Western science and Eastern mysticism, following his research in 1970 into the psycho-physiological states of Yoga, using the Indian guru Swami Rama (who was, in fact, a sexual abuser, like most of these gurus) as his laboratory subject. In one paper dealing with the exploration of transpersonal states, he writes:

“According to various warnings, the persistent explorer in these… realms…brings himself to the attention of indigenous beings who, under normal circumstances pay little attention to humans… If he is not relatively free from personality dross, it is said, they can obsess him with various compulsions for their own amusement and in extreme cases can even disrupt the normally automatic functioning of the nervous system, by controlling the brain through the Chakras [bodily energy centres in Tantric anatomy]”. (Dr. Elmer Green, On the Meaning of Transpersonal, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, Vol.XIII, No.1, 1971.)

In spite of the misleading elements in this statement (e.g., that these ‘indigenous beings’ pay little attention to humans) it is an acknowledgement, from a leading Western psychiatrist, that malign discarnate entities, which he calls “indigenous beings”, can have access to the human psyche. As already noted in an earlier chapter, to aid good communication between the demonic realm and humanity, the inner life or imaginal capacity (consciousness) of a person should be ‘expanded’ to its maximum with techniques, thus creating an openness to manipulation. This fact accounted for the huge growth in recent decades of the use of ‘mind-expanding’ drugs, and all the other techniques which are being used to expand consciousness and create the illusion of ‘realised divinity’. As one psychologist rightly claimed nearly fifty years ago:

“In my experience and thinking, the single major event forcing this development [of transpersonal psychology] has been the widespread use and abuse of psychedelic or mind-manifesting substances such as marijuana, LSD and mescaline [an hallucinogenic Mexican cactus]… The psychedelic drugs gave incontrovertible proof that altered states of consciousness had reality and that paths toward transcendent experience existed… We were hunting for ways to stay high forever and bring home the New Jerusalem, the Whole Earth”. [John Heider, ‘Catharsis in Human Potential Encounter’, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, No.14, 1974. Quoted in John Rowan, Ordinary Ecstasy: Humanistic Psychology in Action (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976), p.103].

The ‘psychedelic sixties’ were, as has already been shown, paving the way for the gathering wave of global demonic manipulation. At the same time, Eastern mysticism made a major assault on the West by cashing in on this new transcendentalism. Within a matter of years, Western science also began to tell us (at least symbolically) to “leave our minds at the door with our shoes” when we entered its territory. Such practices have contributed to the creation of a New Consciousness which is finely tuned to the promptings of the demonic realm. It is because of these developments that there is the great need for a rational, discerning mind and the Christian concept of objective reality which have become the objects of such disparagement in the ethos of this New Gnosticism.

In the light of the pedigree of Western psychotherapy which we have traced through in this study, I believe that Christians should be eschewing all involvement in its techniques. Apart from the pressing fact that there is no record of any kind of psychotherapy for the Christian in the Bible, we must apply ourselves to discovering what should be the response of the Christian to human problems which are generally identified as ‘emotional’ or ‘mental health’ issues. Before we do so, let us now examine some important concerns affecting the mind of humanity.

It’s All in the Mind

In the same way that pathology in medicine (generally unwittingly) involves the study of the effects of the Fall on the physical constituents of the human body, so psychology is essentially (and also generally unwittingly) concerned with the study of the effects of the Fall on the imagination and behaviour of the human mind. All the research that has ever been gathered in the field of psychology is simply a cataloguing of the characteristics and propensities of a corrupted and fallen nature. The vast pantheon of psychotherapies which have been developed in the wake of such study and research merely signifies the desperate humanistic attempts which have been made in a vain attempt to rectify the tragedy of the human condition, which is actually intrinsic alienation from God.

In order to understand how this has come about, one must first understand that all secular psychology is concerned with researching and gathering data on the behaviour of what the apostle Paul called the “old self” (Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9-10). This is the fallen sinful nature, in its unregenerated state, which is actually “enmity against God” (Romans 5:12; 8:7). Thus, the human being suffers and brings about suffering. His condition of alienation from God prevents him from partaking in the benefits of His saving grace. When the Fall of our first parents took place, the Lord Himself decreed that human existence would be filled with hardship (Genesis 3:16-19). Thus, the scene was set for problems of every kind: mental, emotional, physical, personal, environmental — with spiritual and physical death as the centre-piece of the tragic scenario.

Essentially, the province of psychotherapy is the reformation of ‘mind’ problems and the toll they take on the emotional well-being of the individual. There is, however, a world of difference between this kind of godless, humanistic reformation and the true spontaneous regeneration initiated by the Holy Spirit in those who have been called according to His purpose. In the same way that mysticism involves the utilisation of certain practices in order to induce in a person the experience of a pseudo-regeneration (often called “enlightenment”), so psychotherapy has devised a variety of techniques to lead to a simulated form of sanctification. In contrast to this, true spirituality is “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

Both mystical practices and psychotherapeutic techniques are designed to bring about a counterfeit experience of the profound spiritual changes which take place in the Christian who is quickened by the Holy Spirit. Although it is true that psychotherapy can indeed bring about changes in the personality and behaviour of an individual — and we will later see in what it is that those changes consist — true regeneration transforms those parts of the person which psychotherapy can never reach. Furthermore, the work which God does in those He saves is not in the least dependent on any prior therapy or treatment. In fact, the process of Spirit-inspired regeneration can take place in the heart of the most seemingly hell-bent psychopath. Whatever your condition — whether riddled with neuroses, nervous tics, phobias, obsessions or any other personal problem — if the Lord wants you, He will have you!

Because of this provision, the unregenerated nature — what the New Testament calls the “old self” — of the one who is regenerated will be spontaneously and irreversibly transformed into the “new self” (Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9-10). He or she will become “a new creation” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). In such a manner as this, the Lord has indeed provided the most remarkable cure for the sick personality of the fallen human being. This is the kernel of the Gospel message. Those who have faith to call upon His Name will be spiritually transformed and brought back into communion with their Creator (2 Corinthians 5:18-21; 2 Peter 1:4), while their alienated, fallen natures will be crucified with their Saviour (Romans 6:6).

Such a transformation makes psychotherapy, by comparison, seem like a shoddy game in which the participants merely manage to make each other feel better — ‘feelings’ always being the central concern in this field. Confession without absolution is the name of the game. With psychotherapy, one papers over the cracks and polishes the paintwork of a person, but he just becomes like the house which is “empty, swept and put in order…and the last state of that man is worse that the first” (Matthew 12:43-45). In other words, the perennial effect of a psychotherapeutic ‘cleansing’ on the unregenerate person will be to leave him in a state of openness to a subtle but even more powerful form of bondage than that in which he had been, prior to the therapy. Only the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit has the ability to set in motion a complete reversal of the Fall in its ontological effects on the personality of the human being.

However, this does not mean that all the believer’s problems, fears, diseases and other afflictions immediately disappear. Far from it! The Bible does not speak of one mighty experience which erases, in an instant, all the problems connected with having a corruptible body and living in a fallen world. The kingdom of God has so far only come in grace but not yet in all the fullness of glory. But it does mean that when a man or woman is made a new creature in Christ, there is the beginning of a wholly new way of dealing with any problems which present themselves in the life of the believer — involving the twin processes of Sanctification and Mortification, about which I shall have much more to say shortly. Although on one level it is true that the Christian has been ‘definitively sanctified’ — that is, cleansed and set apart from the world — through his or her regeneration (cf. Ephesians 2:5-6), there is a subsequent lifelong process of exponentially progressive transformation in the personality and being of the believer, during which he or she must walk every (often painful) step of the way under the leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit (cf. Romans 8:12-17; Galatians 5:16-18; Philippians 2:12-13).

Although from a spiritual standpoint the Christian has already “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24), he or she still continues to exist, from an anthropological standpoint, in the flesh — demonstrated by the fact that Paul exhorts the Galatian believers not to use their Christian liberty “as an opportunity for the flesh” (Galatians 5:13; cf. 1 Peter 2:16). Because of this ongoing condition — arising from the above-mentioned ‘not-yetness’ of the kingdom, which has so far come only in grace but not yet in all the fullness of glory — the Christian can find himself or herself in some considerable turmoil if he or she does not exercise biblical self-control (Proverbs 25:28; Galatians 5:23; 1 Corinthians 9:27; Romans 6:11-14; James 4:7).

From a spiritual standpoint, therefore, the chief concern of the Christian is not how to find ways of being free from the traumas of life but to discover how to respond to them with spiritual wisdom and acceptance, walking by faith rather than by sight (Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:17; 5:7). In the time of the early Church the majority of children would have had what we would now regard as a traumatic early-life experience, unshielded from the gritty hardships of life and death. Yet the main focus of the apostles was on the fostering of spiritual growth, regardless of the psychological problems of life and in spite of any past traumas. Indeed, there is no biblical record of a believer seeking or receiving any kind of psychological therapy for his or her hang-ups. The “denial of self” prescribed by Christ stands in complete opposition to the obsession with Self which characterises all psychotherapy. So many problems occur in the lives of disciples of Christ when they fail to ‘deny themselves’ and cling onto any stubborn remnant elements of the ‘old self’.

When Paul asked the Lord to remove a nagging problem (that famous “thorn in the flesh” ), he wasn’t sent by Him to see the nearest shaman or healer. Instead, he received the reply: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). That should give the Lord’s people pause for thought whenever the urge to go rushing off to secular psychotherapists when the least problem presents itself. The only truly healthy mind is that which possesses “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Such a mind can say with assurance: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). The focus for the believer must be on the Lord Jesus Christ as his ‘role model’, rather than on himself or through the so-called ‘transference’ onto his therapist (Hebrews 12:1-3). [The ‘transference’, in the field of psychotherapy, is where a person redirects feelings and desires, especially those originating from past relationships, onto the therapist].

The uncomfortable truth is that no matter how super-straightened-out we may imagine we have become through the techniques of the ‘mind-sciences’ — even if we manage to transform ourselves into the model ‘New Age Renaissance Enlightened Human Being’ — in the eyes of the Sovereign Lord of the universe we are spiritually unclean until we have come to the foot of the cross and begged for that mercy and forgiveness which can only be found in the saving blood of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 3:3-6).

The Great Christian Therapy Hoax

In spite of these biblical truths, there are many in the professing church who advocate the use of various psychotherapies — especially the abreactive types — in preference to the Christian way of sanctification and mortification. Indeed, drinking from the fountains of Egypt has become a major pastime in many areas of life in Evangelical circles. That this should be the case with psychotherapy is extraordinary, in view of the fact that the psychotherapeutic approach to behavioural and perceptual problems is rooted in the conceptual framework of ancient shamanism and more recent occult phenomenology. In some circles, the saving power of psychotherapy has been given a higher status than that of the preaching of the true Gospel of repentance, which would be considered to be outmoded. Indeed, the ‘Psychological-Gospel’ has become as powerful an ecclesiastical pursuit as its political stable-mate, the ‘Social Gospel’, with Jesus being presented as ‘the Great Psychotherapist’ as well as ‘the First Socialist’! One ‘Christian’ psychotherapist puts it like this:

“We, as therapists, like Christ, are human channels. We try to develop the gifts of knowledge, understanding, intuition and caring that we have been given to the best of our ability. The Holy Spirit cannot work through us as therapists unless we use our brains, continually enlarging and deepening our insight into human nature and our knowledge as to how personality develops as well as our understanding of the kind of things that can go wrong. We must not assume that God will do the whole job himself. At times he needs a human channel, but we must realise we are a channel or a catalyst to help a person to grow and become healed of past emotional hurts” (Barbara Gage, Channels: Journal of the North of England Christian Healing Trust, September 1985, p.8).

It is this kind of statement which is deceiving so many Christians today. For the unwary, it all sounds so caring and plausible. But the Lord Jesus Christ is not merely, like the therapist, a ‘human channel’; He is the eternal Son of God, by whom all things were created (John 8:58; Colossians 1:16-17). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is dependent on nothing in man for His operations within people, otherwise there would be no human salvation! It is true that the Lord often uses human instruments to bring His works to fruition, but there is not even a hint in Scripture that psychotherapy or its practitioners are among them; though biblical counselling, without the use of secular or neo-Gnostic techniques, from elders, pastors and teachers is another matter altogether, as I will show in a later section dealing with this.

In that same article quoted above, examples are given of people in the Gospel writings with alleged ‘emotional problems’ whom Jesus helped therapeutically: people such as the Prodigal Son, his brother and father, the rich young ruler, the woman with the alabaster box, Zacchaeus, the woman at the well of Samaria, etc. (Barbara Gage, op. cit., p.7). Such an interpretation of these parables and narratives bears no relation to the true intent of those who were divinely inspired to write them down for us. The idea that the Gospel stories provide us with a model for Christian psychotherapy would be laughable, were it not so destructive of the real sense of the Scriptures. This psychotherapist, in conjunction with many others today, claims to be following Christ by making people ‘whole’ through:

“forming a relationship with the sufferer which is so deep it reaches the level of early emotional hurts, so reliable and loving that they can safely be recalled, sometimes relived and then healed by love” (Ibid., p.8).

The kind of abreactive therapy shown here is a well-used secular technique in which the patient, through hypnosis or powerful suggestion by a therapist, is taken back to early life experiences — even to birth and the intra-uterine state — in order to ‘undo’ the harmful hold they allegedly exert over our behaviour. The ‘deep’ relationship with the sufferer referred to by this therapist is, as noted earlier, what therapists call ‘the Transference’, a significant stage of the therapeutic process in which the person undergoing therapy transfers onto the therapist the affections and authority which would normally characterise his relationship with his parents or any significant others. This puts the counselee/client in a very vulnerable position, through which he becomes easily manipulated and open to all manner of suggestions from the therapist — including the idea that he needs to relive past hurts in order to be ‘cured’. This mind-manipulation, involving the power of suggestion, was clearly exposed in a cover-article in ‘Time’ magazine as early as 1993, which claimed that “repressed-memory therapy is harming patients, devastating families and intensifying a backlash against mental health practitioners” (Time Magazine, November 29th, 1993).

The theory behind all abreactive therapy is that traumatic experiences in one’s formative years (e.g., parental ill-feelings towards the foetus in the womb, an obstetric rather than a natural birth, cruelty towards the child, anything which does not fully meet the child’s needs) build up defensive postures like bricks in a wall, until he or she is hedged in and cut off from real living. Neuroses are cracks in that wall; more serious disorders (known as schizophrenia or psychosis) occur when the wall starts to topple down. Abreactive psychotherapy involves the systematic dismantling of these walls in people through various techniques. [The film, ‘The Wall’, by the Pink Floyd rock band, was a thematic representation of this theory, as the group’s then-leader, Roger Waters, had become infatuated with psychotherapy because of his background. They performed a special show of the music from the film in Berlin in 1990 after the Wall there came down. Esotericists and neo-Gnostic psychotherapists today believe that their work is bringing about a gradual breaking-down of the psychological barriers within people, through which they hope to undo the physical, national, geographic and religious barriers between people — all leading to the one-world, globalist, interfaith outlook which they so desire].

This kind of therapy travels under a variety of titles such as Primal Therapy, Regression Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Rebirthing, Bioenergetics, Structural Integration, etc. However, within Christian circles the same conceptual framework has simply been rehashed, mingled with elements of Christianity, and peddled under the umbrella headings of ‘Inner Healing’ (prime mover, Agnes Sanford), ‘Healing of the Memories’ (devised by Methodist minister David Seamonds), and ‘Clinical Theology’ (invented by Dr. Frank Lake). [The teachings of these Christian healers, along with other ecclesiastical diversions, will come under intense scrutiny in Chapter 11].

However, it must be understood that psychotherapy takes insufficient account of the dynamic profundity of the transformation which occurs in the life of the one who is delivered out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of Christ. Formerly illiterate and uneducated people become children of wisdom with an insatiable appetite for Christian literature and the ability to read it. Previously violent thugs are stilled like the storm on the sea of Galilee and the man with the legion of demons. The chronically shy are changed into communicative creatures, filled with zeal. Homosexuals are healed of the sinful proclivity caused by whatever led to their defection from God’s ordained way of human sexuality. Hardened addicts of all kinds are released from bondage into a love-filled liberty of life. Such is the transforming power of God, which is just as capable of vaporising mental and emotional turmoil in a person — provided it is His will to do so and the biblical guidelines for treatment are being followed.

As far as the non-Christian is concerned, the beginning of a cure for mental and emotional difficulties is to come to Christ in repentance for one’s sin. All other forms of cleansing will leave the last state of that person worse than the first — even if psychotherapy gives him the illusion of some kind of health. After his repentance, he must submit to the Word of God and seek help from his new-found brethren and the newly indwelling Holy Spirit. However, conversion does not mean an instantaneous remission of all behavioural disorders. But the new convert will start to have a biblical framework in which to view his or her distresses, and a godly strategy with which to begin to cope with them.

Although the unbeliever will generally seek his own immediate well-being in these circumstances, the Christian must seek primarily to know God’s will in every instance of his or her life. Thus, for the Christian who is suffering from psychological difficulties, disturbances of the mind or behavioural problems, the beginning of a ‘cure’ consists in the acknowledgement that his life is now governed by the fact that he is a new creation in Christ rather than an autonomous individual.

Because he recognises this undergirding fact, the psychologically-suffering Christian — so long as the source of his problems is not organic disease or a hormonal imbalance which needs medical intervention — will seek help, if necessary, from wise people in the body of Christ, rather than from an unbelieving psychotherapist who has a vastly different worldview (about which I will have much more to say in the concluding section of this chapter). And those from whom he will seek help will not have to be trained in the arts of secular psychotherapy; neither will they be purveyors of a synthesis of this and some fuzzy biblical thinking. It is my heartfelt, Bible-based conviction that Western psychotherapy is unfit to diagnose the real underlying problems of the unbeliever, let alone those of the Spirit-indwelt believer. Indeed, it has been ably demonstrated that psychiatric diagnosis is a wholly unreliable process, stigmatising people for life with worthless labels. [For evidence of this, see Martin & Deidre Bobgan’s excellent work, The Psychological Way: The Spiritual Way, Harvest House, 1979, pp.53-63]. Thus, when the believer subjects himself to a so-called ‘Christian’ psychotherapist, who has simply rehashed the theories of his secular counterparts, he has sold his birthright for a veritable bowl of watery potage.

We will look further together into the process of biblical counselling later in our study. First, I am simply laying bare the true causes of behavioural problems in life. Unless we have a full understanding of the universal underlying reasons for human disorders, we will continue to dream up solutions based on false or inadequate premises. In the next main section, we will examine in detail the anthropological and theological foundations of all that I am teaching in this chapter.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2025
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

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