The things which form us.

Paidiske said:

parents left South Africa

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And I was guessing you might be of Polish descent.

Well it's too bad other folks haven't chimed in. In my earlier years, I was a would be Clinical Psychologist, so I like to think on this sort of topic a lot and will I will likely wax poetic a bit later after I've had a chance to get some sleep and run some errands.

Paidiske said:

I will look forward to your post with interest!

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Well my first story is about the Hippocratic oath. I started out as would be psychotherapist. I was enrolled in a Marriage Family and Child Therapy Counseling program known as MFCC out in the western part of the US. But Graduate level Statistic Methods and Analysis was my undoing and I was not able to complete my program.

The Hippocratic Oath might seem like what we called a "No Duh" concept out in California (Something that is embarrassingly self evident to be considered actually a given without question), but I found that wasn't exactly the case. Because at the time, I had left the Lutheranism of my birth, after experimenting with Taoism in college (I had some childhood issues with Lutheran parochial schools and other issues), I decided to get back with Christianity (I tended to have a lot of academic problems that made me depressed). But this time rather than returning to Lutheranism, I followed my best friend from adolescence Stan, into the unregulated, "Wild Wild West" end of Christianity known as the non-denominational Charismatic movement. And not just any end of it, but my best friend was a big fan of, The Word of Faith movement, aka "Faith and Prosperity Movement".

Anyway back to the MFCC it seems the first big lesson of my Introduction to my graduate school Introduction to Psychotherapy class really covered the Hippocratic oath in depth. While "Do No Harm", might seem obvious from a Christian stand point, there are many subtleties that would elude some. Since the time of Freud, therapists were encouraged even mandated most of the time, to get a hold of their own baggage by being in treatment themselves. Besides this they also were warned against "dual relationships" of not having their clients as romantic interests or business partners because at some point, their own personal needs or wishes in the other relationship would bias their work in the Clinical one. And finally, mental health professionals had a sacramental view of client confidentiality that would be on par with the Roman Catholic Church attitude for a priest breaching a parishioners confession of sins. (Which I believe is excommunication, and in most professions it likewise means loosing your licence to practice in your profession).

Anyway in the Charismatic movement at different times I saw problems that stemmed from the culture, especially from the "personal baggage" end of things. Many ministers day dream about being a "great man of God", but that gets problematic at different times. Many of these people for instance have an axe to grind against traditional Christianity, aka "the Frozen Chosen". Many of them see proselytizing Christians from other traditions as legitimate. I've even seen prayer meetings where the minister is actually wishing that the various non charismatic Protestant churches go out of business! (Under the guise that they are dead religion).

Besides that, it seems many people from this end of Christianity struggle with their own souls. One issue I have had all my life has been a struggle with career, etc. where I haven't financially benefited from my education. It's sort of a long term issue that, I'm dealing with. But I realize I'm not alone (I see many ministers from the past and present who working another job who have similar life long issues). From a stand point of a Word of Faith, prosperity preacher this can be a killer issue! It seems like many people have day dreams of success and all the sort of things they are going to do for God. But mixed up with that are a lot of ideas about how God wants you to prosper and be blessed (sort of cherry picking the Bible, taking some versus at face value but ignoring and rationalizing the other ones). That sort of thing, has led to some ugly behaviors. I have literally see pastors berate their congregations for such things as not tithing and not inviting people to church! I mean actually scolding them like school children. On top of that I have seen manipulative use of fund raising. There was a great book I read in high school called "Influence" that a Social Psychologist wrote that covered the techniques of salespeople, conmen etc. it was very disturbing when I started to realize that some of the things covered in the book were happening in church! Besides that, I've even seen where "prophetic words" were misused for fund raising. Besides the many scriptures that speak against this sort of thing, I learned of an ancient writing known as the Didache, that very directly speaks against some of the things I saw.

Besides all that, it seemed to me that some ministers had some problems with confidentiality, but after all the other stuff I've seen that one was the least of my complaints. But sadly to say, many ministers from this area of Christianity were suspicious of Psychology etc. but I think they could have benefited from it if they had a more open mind about it.

Thank you for those thoughts.