The religious and spiritual make up of the therapist

Dr. Steven C. Hayes is a professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada and is renown for his implementation of Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) in psychological maladjustment. There is more information about him and the type of therapy he does in the link below. It also is important to recognize that he is not a believer of any sort, in other words he is an atheist.

http://www.apa.org/pubs/videos/4310860.aspx

In one of the therapy sessions that he conducted he works with an African American woman who experiences a great sense of guilt from the expectations she perceives as coming from her mother. In that therapy session, which we watched in Counseling 506, Dr. Hayes uses an ACT approach and also displays sensitivity to the client's religious beliefs. For me that raises the question of how can God use an atheist therapist in helping a woman of faith? In class we briefly touched on how the Holy Spirit is present to minister healing to the client in the therapy session. More precisely that in many ways the therapist, in some situations facilitates or can even lead an individual to experience God.

As a Christian who is preparing to enter in the field of counseling and therapy, and desiring to do an honest and effective integration of spirituality, theology and psychology, I wrestle with many questions. I understand that the presence of the therapist and particularly his or her relationship with God has a strong influence on the therapy process. However, in Dr. Hayes' case, he is an atheist and still very capable of helping a religious woman. What this does to me, it opens my mind more to God's ability to use anyone to help His children. Also it allows me to see that psychological intervention without implicit or explicit Christian values can be somewhat helpful.

Contemporary Quiet Time and Spiritual Formation

Many devout Christians understand the importance of spiritual disciplines in spiritual formation. More precisely, Quiet Time seems to be one of the most encouraged or discussed of the spiritual disciplines. This term is used often in Christian Circles in order to describe a time of devotion with God which will most likely include reading a passage from the Bible and praying. The following link (click here for access) describes what is commonly accepted the structure of a quiet time, or at least most practiced by many sincere believers.

In class we have discussed how the Bible is one of the main avenues in which God gives us more specific insight into who He is and how He operates. Also, it is generally accepted that reading God's Word regularly is paramount to knowing God and growing spiritually. Moreover, in many circumstances many of us might be inclined to determine the consistency of a person's spirituality or, in counseling settings, the spiritual depth of a Christian therapeutic intervention based on how many Scripture verses are employed.

I cannot help but wonder if an individual can grow spiritually even if he did not do his quiet time, at least not in the understanding that we have nowadays of that the quiet time is?! In the same way I'm wondering if a Christian Counselor can still be very effective in integrating Scripture without opening the Bible a single time in a counseling session, or referencing any particular verse. I must also wonder, how did the early Christians grow spiritually although they might not have had a daily quiet time as we strive to have nowadays. Some of them must have had some copies of the Torah or some of the writings of the Apostles, but I wonder if they approached them as we approach it today in our Quiet Times. Also, i must wonder how had Christians across centuries been able to grow spiritually since they did not have a personal copy of God's Word for daily reading. How did they do their quiet time? Particularly when in many communities the only person to have a Bible was the Priest and even that copy was in a language that was unknown to the common man. I have a sensing that we often believe that Spiritual Growth and Spiritual Formation was the same throughout history as it is now. Claiming that would certainly be absurd, but we do it so often anyways.