Individualism, Psychotherapy and Church Community
The following is an extended quote from Joseph Hellerman’s book, When Church was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision for Authentic Christian Community. I read it this week and found one of the sections of the book on “Individualism and a Therapeutic Culture” to be quite insightful. So here it is:
“It might surprise you to learn that our therapeutic culture is a relatively recent phenomenon in world history. As Bellah and others [sociologists] have observed, the origin and popularity of clinical psychology can be directly traced to the increasingly individualistic slant of Western relational values. In other words, the great majority of people on this planet never needed therapy until society began to dump the responsibility for making life’s major decisions squarely upon the lonely shoulders of the individual. Our freedoms—as intoxicating and exhilarating as they often are—have pushed us over the edge emotionally. We are reaping the consequences of decisions that were never meant to be made—and lives that were never meant to be lived—in isolation.
Psychotherapy’s very methodology reflects our fragmented, isolationist worldview. One of the most fascinating aspects of the field is that the therapeutic relationships itself mirrors the perspective of the society that has birthed and nurtured it. As early as 1876, the authors of an important work entitled Mental Health in America astutely observed that “Psychoanalysis (and psychiatry) is the only form of psychic healing that attempts to cure people by detaching them from society and relationships. All other forms—shamanism, faith healing, prayer—bring the community into the healing process, indeed use the interdependence of patients and others as the central mechanism in the healing process.”
In contrast to traditional forms of healing, modern psychiatry isolates the troubled person from his or her network of real-life relationships and tries to deal with emotional dysfunction in the artificial setting of a professional patient-client relationship. Think about it. We detach hurting people from community in order to help them better function in community. Perhaps such an approach to healing strikes you, as it does me, as decidedly counterproductive.
I am not saying psychotherapy, counseling, one-on-one mentoring and one-on-one pastoral meetings are to be thrown out the window. Each of them has a significant role to play. I myself, as I shared before, have benefited so much from counseling and one-on-one discipleship. And I trust that my pastoral care is providing some help for those of you who seek help from me and other pastors. They are all God-given resources that we are to receive and give. What Hellerman is addressing above is that we need to be aware of the idolatry of individualism. And we need to be careful not to turn our one-on-one mentoring and psychotherapy into an escape from reality, or further isolation away from other people, especially from the church family.
It is my hope and prayer that our church will be a place where individuals find hope and healing in Christ and through the people of Christ. One of the greatest privileges of being a pastor is that I get to enter into people's lives in ways that others would not be able to. I genuinely appreciate and enjoy my time with people who invite me into the challenges and even messiness of their lives. And I get to witness God’s work of grace in the midst of our brokenness. I also get to lament and pray for God’s healing and protection.
It is my prayer that as we start a new season of Life Group, one-on-one mentoring, and other small group gatherings we will genuinely care for one another and love one another. And that God will be present in our fellowship to bring about healing and restoration, strength and wisdom to run this race together.
