Vashon Island started out perfectly fine, with members getting permission to go there for therapy. A great deal of therapy is selfish. That is, the therapist helps the client to become comfortable with whatever weaknesses and character defects they have. Your self-actualization has to be the main thing. This sounds close enough to spiritual growth that a lot of people might buy it.
Therapy is almost exclusively atheistic.
From Sigmund Freud, on down to the present, psychotherapists have almost universally denied the existence of God and been hostile to religion. Hard Work as panacea. People who grew up in economically devastated South Korea mustered incredible will-power and determination to pull their lives together after the Korean War. Note carefully that this is not from boss to subordinate, but just plain folks to one another. The thought of some member sitting around in a comfortable chair talking about their feelings could easily be seen as a supreme act of self-indulgence, at best a way of shirking work.