PsychoBabble is a nice Biblical discussion, but is ultimately a failure.
PsychoBabble is a nice Biblical discussion, but is ultimately a failure
As a Christian and a physician, I was interested in what this book had to teach me about the failure of psychology in the healing of the mentally ill. The book starts off with a recounting of the author’s conversion to Christianity, and his firing from a hospital as a psychotherapist, for sharing his Christian values.
He embarks on a criticism of Freud, Yung, Skinner, Rogers, and Erhard, for their methodology, and distinctly anti-religious focus. All of this made some sense to me as a Bible-believing Christian. Christians ought to get counseling that applies to their worldview and reference.
He then goes on to become a Pastor rather than a full-time counselor. That is where the book begins to veer off course. He discusses many issues related to pastoral care, and Biblical-based living. A good discussion, but far removed from his provocative title, “PsychoBabble”.
The book more than once mentions psychology, psychotherapy, and psychiatry in the same paragraph, as if they are one in the same. I assure you; they are not.
His heavy bias against psychiatry is established early in the book when he states on page 24, “I hope my book awakens pastors and helps them to keep their flock from the clutches of the psychiatric establishment.”
In truth he never tackles modern psychiatry at all, apart from bashing it verbally and condemning the use of ECT. He never mentions the vast number of newer medications which benefit many types of serious psychiatric illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar illness, and severe debilitating depression. He does not mention that many of these serious illnesses have been found to be genetic in nature, which sets them apart from milder forms of mental illness, like neurosis.
In fact, he seems to boil most mental illness down to various expressions of sin in the person’s life. If one has ever seen a person in a total catatonic stupor where they cannot even feed themselves, or a person in frank psychosis, it is obvious that this view is simplistic and naïve.
For this reason, I would call this book potentially dangerous. It could lead pastors to make the mistake of minimizing the severity of mental illness and causing inadvertent harm to their people.
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