Christian Counselors (The Blind Shepherds)
By: Quinton Heisler
Tags: Christianity, Religion, Therapy, Mental Health

Aesop’s Fables: The Wolf and The Shepherd

The healing journey brings with it many moments of contemplation, where you ponder what went wrong or why certain relationships didn’t last. My disenchantment with the Christian counseling I sought out along the way has led to some of the most profound soul searching of my life. That isn’t because I had a massive shift in my belief system. My disappointment was due to the asinine approach taken, the judgmental tone, and the refusal to change course when the original method proved unsuccessful. It also wasn’t because they were all fundamentalists who took every word of the Bible literally. They were all fairly liberal evangelicals, who prided themselves on their open-mindedness.

Many people go to therapy, hoping to change, but not change too much. They don’t want someone to upset their sense of normalcy entirely, which is what I was doing when I pursued a Christian counselor. The last thing I wanted was to have some smug secular humanist that tried to pick at my religious traditions. I envisioned a Christopher Hitchens type, sitting in the armchair, shooting me a bemused look if my faith was to come up. I’ve matured enough to know that’s not how therapy goes, but in my young 20s, I was vulnerable.

Modern Christianity, liberal evangelism, and Catholic social justice dogma, in particular, all have an unhealthy tendency to enable and encourage co-dependency inadvertently. I recall the many times I tried to put up boundaries with people in my life, and I was made to feel as if I was bull-headed, and they attempted to talk me out of it. The scriptures that were often cited when I was trying to cut cords of dependency were “Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) or “Forgive as you have been forgiven” (Colossians 3:13).

Dr. DeLauro, the most consequential of the several Christian-minded therapists I worked with, came from a background of pastoral counseling. I could tell he was a product of Catholic school right away, for I often felt as if I was in the principal’s office. There was always an air of self-righteous judgment when I admitted to a rather ugly feeling. Perhaps his reaction was rooted in the theological view that good deeds get you into heaven, or their understanding of the human body, which Catholics have unfortunately been told is something sinful and shameful. It was as if he was instructing me that, even if you resent these notions, still follow them anyway, regardless if the paradox between your mind and body is tearing you up on the inside.

I felt as if I had been exposed to the chronic virus of Catholic guilt, which I now realize defined much of his worldview. As the Bible says, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of your mind.” We can’t only focus on our thoughts as they do in CBT and interpersonal psychotherapy. I do not doubt that Dr. DeLauro had been through his share of heartbreak and tribulations in life, but it seems to me that he never really accepted himself as a child of God. He accepted his circumstances, his flaws, his tribulations, but he never accepted himself in spite of those things. All he was focused on was how to redirect negative thought patterns when those issues presented themselves. The sentiment of feeling like “I’m worthless, it’s all my fault, I’m unlovable,” is not just an issue of thinking patterns; they are an absence of self-love. The Catholic mentality turns the act of suffering into a virtue, but when does this become an exercise in masochism? It’s as if they don’t think the layperson is worthy of the answers required to end their suffering.

I was always struck by how strangely Dr. DeLauro reacted whenever I brought up issues regarding abuse of power. Whether it was in my own life or just a casual observation of the culture, there was a dogmatic insistence on forgiveness, acceptance, and just simply moving on. While I am not suggesting that those concepts are wrong in any way, for a psychologist to push those so incessantly runs the danger of equating any attempt to seek accountability, as akin to being unforgiving or bitter. By that logic, the efforts to uncover the Catholic Church abuse scandal or the #MeToo movement were negative, because those seeking accountability hadn’t truly forgiven their perpetrators.

Tales of Accountability: The story of the Boston Globe’s investigation of child abuse by Catholic priests.

My guess is that his passive attitude towards such movements seeking accountability is because the older generations thought consequences were out of the question. All you could do was accept what happened and move on, the perpetrators were never going to be made to answer for their crimes. There was no Human Resources department, no investigative team of journalists wanting to interview you, no internet hashtag to show solidarity with survivors, they were alone. While many victims are having their voices heard for the first time, I imagine many are agitated at being reminded of old wounds, they’ve learned to cope. That doesn’t mean they’ve healed, but healing is a scary endeavor that takes immense courage, and some would rather let sleeping dogs lie. There is no judgment, but those who do want to find peace and resolve shouldn’t be shamed for their choices either.