Religiously Sensitive Counselors

Albert Ellis, famous psychologist and atheist, once had this to say about the Bible: “I think that I can safely say that the Judeo-Christian Bible is a self-help book that has probably enabled more people to make more extensive and intensive personality and behavioral changes than all professional therapists combined.”

Coming from such a die-hard atheist as Ellis was, this is quite an astonishing statement. However, Ellis was also the originator of a school of therapy known as Rational-Emotive Therapy, which held logical reasoning as the ultimate guide to truth, so perhaps this statement was simply something he had to face, like it or not.

While the Bible is not primarily a self-help book, Ellis’ point is still a good one to keep in mind when trying to solve the various problems we face. I think many people feel the same way. This is why year after year polling indicates that clients prefer a therapist who is “religiously sensitive” or “open to talk about spirituality.” Sadly, one poll indicated that people were more likely to seek out a medium (e.g. Tarot card reader) than a professional counselor when struggling with some problem in life. Why? Because the medium was thought to be at least open to spirituality, whereas counselors and psychologists were perceived as “strictly scientific.”

Part of the problem is that since the Enlightenment, faith and science have been unnecessarily divorced from one another. If a counselor has been trained to adhere to good science, the assumption is that this must preclude faith or spirituality. This just doesn’t need to be the case. C.S. Lewis gives a helpful analogy on this in an essay called, “Meditation in a Toolshed.” In it, he describes a beam of sunlight coming through the window of a toolshed. He notes that there are two ways of looking at this beam. One, the “scientific,” is to look at the beam itself — say, describing the various light and dust particles. The other way, let us call it the “faith” way, is to look along the beam — that is, to stand in it’s path and look through it at the source from where the light comes.

Something I strive to do in my own professional development is to learn the science while at the same time learn how to help people make sense of their own spiritual life. I am very open and willing to help clients think through what this might mean. As a Christian, I practice various spiritual disciplines regularly and am always happy to talk about spiritual matters with clients in a straight-forward and honest way.