Psychology is ineffective, impotent, and embarrassingly deceptive. The great humbug is that “the psychological industry has successfully concealed its ineffectiveness from the general public. Pastors, churches, and the laity have been brainwashed into believing that only psychologically trained professional counselors are competent to deal with serious problems.”
Empirical research indicates that this is not so. In his study conducted in 1979 and entitled "Comparative Effectiveness of Paraprofessional and Professional Helpers", J.A. Durlack writes, “The research reviewed forty-two studies that compared professional counselors with untrained helpers. The findings were ‘consistent and provocative.’ Paraprofessionals achieve clinical outcomes equal to or significantly better than those obtained by professionals (...) The study, on the whole, lent no support to the major hypothesis that (...) the technical skills of professional psychotherapists produce measurably better therapeutic change.”
At the conclusion of this study, psychologist Gary Collins reluctantly admitted, “Clearly there is evidence that for most people, laypeople can counsel as well as or better than professionals.”
Again, the bottom line is that Christians are not to turn to psychologist for guidance. Primarily because the Word of God instructs us not to and God has given us the ability to counsel one another through His Word.
Extract from To Whom Shall We Go? by Todd A. Sinelli
NB: Any emphasis is my own.
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