A Review Article: How Christian Is Christian Counseling? -- By: Charles H. McGowen

Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 13:2 (Spring 2004)
Article: A Review Article: How Christian Is Christian Counseling?
Author: Charles H. McGowen


A Review Article:
How Christian Is Christian Counseling?

Charles H. McGowen, M.D.

How Christian Is Christian Counseling? Gary L. Almy, M.D. Wheaton, Illinois (2000)
353 pages, paper, $24.00

Gary L. Almy, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist and a highly committed Christian whose purpose for writing is book was to dissuade people, especially other Christians from seeking the counsel of psychologists or psychiatrists, both non-Christian as well as Christian who use the techniques of Freudian insight-oriented psychotherapy.

Let me say upfront, that I could not agree more with that opinion, and furthermore it is difficult to be critical of someone that I’ve never met but with whom I appear to have so very much in common (faith, profession, theological persuasion, passion for God’s Word, a creationist position on origins, and an interest in both philosophy and history). I find that Dr. Almy writes very well and explains difficult concepts in such a way as to correctly inform the less well informed. He uses appropriate scriptural references in their proper context and adds an excellent historical perspective to his analytical treatise on the subject of psychoanalysis.

We both agree on the concept of Descartes’ dualism and deplore the “art” (it is not science), of psychoanalysis. We

would each concur that it is the futile search by materialistic and naturalistic scientists for a uniformity of natural causes in a closed system that has impaled true science in general on the duel horns of a dilemma: Namely the obvious, yet inexplicable presence of both an immaterial mind (soul/spirit) and a natural body. In other words, how does one explain the invisible, yet obviously active mind, in a visible body apart from a supernatural origin?

Having said all of that, I will proceed with my task of performing a critical review of Dr. Almy’s book section-by-section (there are four) and then conclude with some general observations.

Introduction

In the introduction Dr. Almy sets the tone of his dissertation on, and arguments against, insight-oriented psychotherapy, having been changed in his original opinion by “the Holy Spirit that made me increasingly uncomfortable with psychotherapy.” It was here that the doctor gave a short, but appreciated, note of personal testimony. Through his conversion he had apparently discovered that there was a “gross incompatibility of insight-oriented psychotherapy with the care of souls as shown in Scripture.” Having seen that modern psychologists and psychiatrists, regardless of their faith or lack of it, had bought into Freudian philosophies and techniqu...

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