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For therapists trying to help clients through difficult emotional struggles, the therapist inevitably has to talk with clients about seeing some potential in the difficult circumstances they find themselves in.

Together, client and therapist attempt to find meaning in the client’s life. These conversations are about the big picture items: what gives my life meaning and purpose? How do I focus my energy on those things that matter most? For many of us asking these questions stirs up longings for deeper connections with others than what we are currently experiencing and can leave us feeling more dissatisfied.

We avoid these deeper reflections because we do not want to feel those longings and disappointments. But in avoiding these questions we increase our risk of depression and anxiety. Our distractions may keep us skimming along the surface of our lives for a long time, but sooner or later the need to consider them emerges. Trying not to feel is what leads us into unhealthy habits far more than facing difficult emotions.

For Christian practitioners and Christian clients, there’s a treasure-trove of encouragement to discover hidden potential in our struggles. 21st century Christians often forget the call to follow Jesus is a call to follow the Suffering Servant of God. The potential for growth through suffering is declared all through the New Testament (see Romans 5 for one example). The basic pattern of life for Christians is rooted in Christ’s dying and rising to new life. Suffering leading to joy.

In the midst of any low point, whether it comes to us from outside through injustice or broken relationships or from within us through feelings of loneliness, inadequacy, fear, and loss, this potential of finding growth in the midst of the struggle remains. Hard times do not make our lives meaningless. To the contrary many people tell us of the deep realizations and added meaning they discovered because of their suffering. Often simply looking for meaning is just enough hope to turn a struggling pilgrim to the light.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
Ken Untener

For many of us today, these words of Father Ken Untener gather a frustration we feel and turn it inside out. It’s refreshing. We often need to be reminded that what we do not finish is not failure and that many times our tasks are beyond our own powers to complete. This is particularly true for the psychotherapist who seeks to help devout Christians grow beyond childhood trauma, patterns of neglect, or addictive behaviors. It’s true for parents of struggling children, too or teachers with challenging students.

We simply do not see the whole picture, so when we experience a setback, we would do well to take the step back recommended to us here. The pause may give our brains the needed time to release heightened levels of adrenaline, cortisol, and norepinephrine, the three major stress hormones that can flood our brains when crises approach. When we allow ourselves to ruminate on a problem, our bodies continue to produce cortisol and that can cause significant health risks. So let’s all take the long view this week. Make space for a rested brain.

In the field of psychology and in lots of media outlets, the term self-care is on center stage. The consensus is that for many people, taking care of themselves is somehow forbidden or forgotten. Additionally we see plenty of people racing to put themselves first and many philosophies tailored to promote that behavior (i.e. Ayn Rand). So which is it? How can we find a healthy way to live and to love?

For many people who come to my psychotherapy office struggling to make sense of their faith in Christ and their depression or dis-ease with the world, a debate lurks in the back of their minds in almost every decision they make. This debate is about taking care of others OR themselves. It’s become a binary choice for them. If I take care of myself, I neglect others and vice versa. The words of Jesus were clear: deny yourself and take up your cross (Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34-35, Luke 9:23-24, John 12:25). But the way they understand these words puts them at odds with much of the love, rescue, hope, and abundance that Jesus also promises. Particularly for women who have been taught that their place is to submit to others and serve or help others in every way possible, this misunderstanding of Jesus’ call to self-denial is damaging. It is not so much a denial of self that they practice, but an abnegation of self in which they ignore any needs of their own and certainly all desires that may stir within them. They develop an unconscious reaction to decisions that involves basing their choices not on the promptings of the Spirit within them or on their own needs, but on their impressions of what others want or demand of them.

Jesus’ call to take up your cross and follow is a call to engagement in the full life of the Spirit which includes a radical change to our way of doing everything, even our most basic and unconscious decision-making processes. Rather than making unconscious deals with the demands of others as they swim around in our minds based mostly on past often painful experiences, the freedom of following Christ lies in giving up this unconscious way and finding instead the abundance of following step by step in an intentional and conscious practice of listening for guidance from within us where Jesus abides. This requires continually self-reflection. Christian theology is deeply psychological. The fundamental notion of Christ’s teaching that He comes to reside with us and in us by the Spirit means we no longer choose based on our desires OR others desires.

Breaking free from despair often involves identifying how tied up we have become unconsciously and how we then contribute to our own despair. Jesus’ call to giving up the self is rooted in the basic need to give up these defensive patterns that mascaraed as service, but do not reflect a true call from God. Discerning when we are called to self sacrifice is essential practice for devoted Christians. Certainly there are times when we will choose activities based primarily on the good of others, but these must be conscious choices made from a core sense of ourselves as valued and beloved children of a loving God.

Since the 1980s a form of psychotherapy know as CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) has been used and promoted broadly, especially in and around Philadelphia where Aaron and Judith Beck have stimulated the growth of this therapy model. Central to the theory of CBT is that even healthy humans have negative “core beliefs” at work within their minds all the time. These beliefs usually go unnoticed, but they influence our feelings, thoughts and behaviors in significant ways. A CBT therapist would consider it their job to identify and dispel these negative core beliefs in psychotherapy.

For Christians who value their belief in Christ, the process of considering negative core beliefs about the self and others can be a daunting task. They have been told repeated by important people in their lives that God is love. But they may unwittingly struggle with negative core beliefs (i.e.‘I’m not good enough’).They may unconsciously and rigidly interpret other elements of the Gospel message to affirm this unconscious negative core belief. They have heard sermons about the depravity of humankind and our need for rescue from the anger of God which affirms a negative core belief like ‘I’m not good enough.’

While it is true that humans are rescued by Christ’s death and resurrection, it is not the intent of God that a core belief like this stay rooted in the unconscious of any believer. In the unconscious such thoughts remain powerful and unexamined, so intentional faith may not impact them. The challenge is in the paradox of faith itself. While we are loved and carry the Imago Dei, we are also broken and sinful. We do not see clearly (I Corinthians 13). In psychotherapy the work of the Holy Spirit is often to uproot our negative core beliefs that contradict the love of God.

But as soon as the freedom and abundant life Jesus promises breaks through and we see how we have been held in the grip of a misguided notion like ‘I’m not good enough’ we are also tempted to assess ourselves. ‘I am good enough’ we might be coached to repeat by a CBT therapist and we might do just that. But soon we may fall into despair again as our inability to relate to others as we wish we could surfaces and again we hear the whisper of this unconscious belief in our minds. The promises of love seem lost. We may get stuck in cycles of self and other-blame. We select scriptures to prove our unworthiness. “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect…” (Matthew 5:48) is often repeated to me by struggling clients in my therapy office.

Good therapy works to help clients identify their cycles of accommodation with the negative belief and we can contradict these consciously, but believers find new joy when the Holy Spirit sweeps into the depths of their minds and hearts and these tenacious beliefs are altered.

If you hold my teachings you are my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This is the bold claim of Jesus in John 8. So why is that so many Christian seem to be restricted in their living? Is it possible that they do not have the truth in some way?

My answer to that question is a loud yes! Many parts of the Bible confirm that as well. In Romans 7 for example, Paul writes about doing things he doesn’t want to do and not doing things he does want to do. He feels lost in the conflict within himself about what he wants. He describes a dynamic that in psychological language could be translated as a classic conflict between the conscious (that which we can identify as our own thoughts, feelings, behaviors and self perception – what we might call our “self”) and the unconscious (parts of our persons that are in some way still our “self” but remain outside our awareness).

This split we all experience in ourselves between what is conscious and what is unconscious means that we don’t yet know the full truth about ourselves. I would argue that this is another result of sin. In very simple terms, orthodox Christian theology goes something like this: Sin entered the world and humans participated with sin and so became separated from God.

The result of this separation is profound brokenness in our relating to one another. I’m saying that sin also cut into the heart of us to separate us from ourselves, to fragment our experience of ourselves so we are now beings who know parts of ourselves in conscious experience and who do not know parts of ourselves, the unconscious. This creates a situation in which we are not free to act and think as we wish, but are at times surprised at what we do. In order to move toward freedom we need to know the truth about ourselves, that is we need to know what is going on unconsciously within us to motivate our choices. This is what I believe good therapy is all about.

Therapy is about making what is unconscious in us conscious. If we are to be free, we must know the truth about ourselves and this in turn will help us to see more clearly the great good that is offered to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Bible is filled with material like this that demonstrates profound psychological insights although the language of psychology may not be employed on its pages.

Psychotherapy that is attuned to Christian spirituality can bring biblical truth into our experience and help followers of Jesus to know more of the freedom Jesus came to offer us.