Modern Psychotherapies E-Book

Stanton L. Jones

• Herausgeber: IVP Academic
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Christian Association for Psychological Studies Books
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 914

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The wide variety of psychotherapies that psychologists and students of psychology face can make for a confusing picture. The level of complexity is multiplied for Christians since they must ask how a particular psychotherapy fits (or doesn?t fit) with a Christian understanding of persons and their suffering. In this expanded and thoroughly update edition, Stanton Jones and Richard Butman continue to offer a careful analysis and penetrating critiques of the myriad of psychotherapies now current in the field of psychology including: - Classical Psychoanalysis - Contemporary Psychodynamic Psychotherapies - Behavior Therapy - Cognitive Therapy - Person-Centered Therapy - Experiential Therapies - Family Systems Theory and TherapyTwo valuable new chapters have been added: "Community Psychology and Preventative Intervention Strategies" and "Christian Psychotherapy and the Person of the Christian Psychotherapist." Opening and closing chapters discuss foundational concerns on the integration of psychology and theology and present the authors' call for a "responsible eclecticism." Modern Psychotherapies remains an indispensable resource. Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS) Books explore how Christianity relates to mental health and behavioral sciences including psychology, counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy in order to equip Christian clinicians to support the well-being of their clients.

Leseprobe

Modern Psychotherapies

A Comprehensive Christian Appraisal

SECOND EDITION

Stanton L. Jones & Richard E. Butman

WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY Sally Schwer Canning, Kelly Flanagan, Tracey Lee, Michael W. Mangis, Mark R. McMinn, Laura Miguélez, David Van Dyke, Michael J. Vogel, Robert Watson and Terri Watson

www.IVPress.com/academic

InterVarsity Press P.O.Box 1400 Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com E-mail: [email protected]

© 2011 by Stanton L. Jones and Richard E. Butman © 1991 by Stanton L. Jones and Richard E. Butman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at www.intervarsity.org.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Design: Cindy Kiple Images: Cargo/Getty Images

ISBN 978-0-8308-6475-1 (digital) ISBN 978-0-8308-2842-4 (print)

Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be:

They are but broken lights of Thee,

And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.

Alfred Tennyson, “In Memoriam”

Twenty years ago, we dedicated the original version of this text 

to our children. We retain that dedication, noting that God has 

allowed each to grow into adulthood and has answered our prayers 

for their lives beyond what we could have ever dreamed. 

To

Jenny, the gentle spirit; 

Brandon, full of sensitive brightness; 

and Lindsay, an effervescent sprite—

in hopes that you will each grow up to know 

the fullness of God’s love. 

And to

Ashley Elizabeth, aglow with wonder—

in hopes that you will continue to manifest God’s grace 

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1: The Integration of Psychology and Christianity

2: A Christian View of Persons

The Psychodynamic Psychologies

3: Classical Psychoanalysis

4: Contemporary Psychodynamic Psychotherapies

The Cognitive and Behavioral Psychologies

5: Behavior Therapy

6: Cognitive Therapy

The Humanistic and Experiential Psychologies

7: Person-Centered Therapy

8: Experiential Therapies

The Systemic Psychologies

9: Family Systems Theory and Therapy

10: Community Psychology and Preventative Intervention Strategies

Toward Christian Psychologies

11: Responsible Eclecticism and the Challenges of Contemporary Practice

12: Christian Psychotherapy and the Person of the Christian Psychotherapist

Notes

Author Index

Subject Index

About the Authors

About CAPS

Other Books in This Series

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

Acknowledgments

Reformed Christian thinkers often assert that in pursuing truth, we attempt to “think God’s thoughts after him.” We cannot be so confident to claim that we are presenting “God’s thoughts” in this book, but it has been exciting to pursue that goal in this project. As we wrote, we were acutely aware of those who have been friends, conversation partners and mentors to us in some form or another along the paths of our development. In some sense, much of what might be good in all that follows is due to their influence—we have been thinking “their thoughts” as well as God’s thoughts. What is inadequate in what follows is due to our own weaknesses.

Our acknowledgments in the original version of this book need to be retained, because the basic contours of our thinking as influenced by our friends and collaborators endures in this new, revised edition. Twenty years ago we thanked, and continue to thank, the following individuals: scholars C. Stephen Evans and Alan Tjeltveit, who read the first draft of the first manuscript in its entirety; colleague Michael Mangis, who did the initial draft of the “Contemporary Psychodynamic Psychotherapies” chapter for us; colleagues Dennis Okholm, Frances J. White, Siang Yang Tan, Robert Roberts, H. Newton Malony, Kirk Farnsworth, Don Bosch, Drew Loizeaux, Brian Van Dragt and Jon Peterson, who offered critiques of individual chapters at various stages of development; our first editors at InterVarsity Press, Michael Maudlin and Rodney Clapp; our secretaries at Wheaton College, Carol Blauwkamp and Geraldine Carlson; and several generations of research assistants including Joel Arp, Karen Crow Blankenship, Rose Buier, David Dodd, Michael Gillis, Kathy Hobson, Todd Keylock, Kathleen Lattea, Stephen Moroney, Grace Ann Robertson, Lauren Strickler, Trudy Walk, Elizabeth Watson, David Wilcox, Don Workman and Chris Zang. Our thanks go out yet again for the gracious hosting twenty years ago of our respective first sabbaticals: for Stan, to the recently deceased Don Browning and the faculty of the University of Chicago Divinity School, and for Rich to H. Newton Malony and the faculty, students and staff of the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary.

The passing of twenty years and the completion of a new revision of this volume offers a whole new array of persons and things for which to give thanks. At the broadest level, this book bears the imprint of the marvelous institution at which we work. As we write, the journal First Things, a forum for discussion of the impact of religion in the public sphere, in its November 2010 issue has just declared that “Wheaton College in Illinois is the single best place to go to college in America” (p. 3). While there is certainly room to challenge their methodology, their rankings of the various colleges in America are based on the confluence of three major variables: academic seriousness, social healthiness, and spiritual and theological integrity and thoughtfulness. Their ideal college would be a place where students are mentored by quality faculty at the forefront of their disciplines, where the campus atmosphere encourages growth into responsibility and maturity rather than degeneration into debauchery, and where resources are offered to facilitate growth in Christlikeness. Such a college environment that is healthy for students is equally healthy for the professionals blessed to serve there. Such is Wheaton College.

Since the first version of this book was completed in 1990, dramatic changes have occurred in the study of psychology at Wheaton College. The department has doubled in size, moving from a department of six undergraduate faculty and three graduate faculty serving undergraduate majors and students pursuing a master’s degree in clinical psychology to a department of seventeen individuals serving undergraduate and master’s students but also a cadre of students pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology. The addition of so many capable faculty colleagues has multiplied the riches for conversation and reflection on what it means to be a Christian psychologist.

There have also been personal changes for the two of us. Rich moved long ago from the undergraduate faculty to the graduate faculty, focusing increasingly on the teaching of psychopathology and psychological assessment. Stan, after a too brief, one-year stint as the Rech Chair of Psychology and Christian Faith, moved in 1996 to his current role as provost of Wheaton College. While these transitions have continued to foster our reflections on matters of the relationship of psychology and Christian faith, neither one of our positions have allowed us to continue to teach the survey courses in Christian approaches to psychotherapy that formed the basis of our first version of this book.

Thus, this new revision has become a community project. As we began to consider revision of this book, it became abundantly clear that we needed to reach out for help to the extraordinary community of scholars around us who are teaching these different psychotherapy approaches to tap their rich integrated understandings of the various approaches. As is noted in the list of authorship on the table of contents, each colleague took one of our original chapters and revised and updated it. This eventually led to a substantial reorganization of the material of the book. We also added a new chapter on community psychology to broaden our understandings beyond the typical dyadic counselor-client relationship to see broader possibilities for constructive change using the tools of psychology. Our heartfelt thanks go out to our coauthors for their friendship, their expertise and their patience during the long revision process.

Portions of chapter one in the current volume are based on S. L. Jones (2010), “An Integration View,” in E. Johnson (Ed.), Psychology and Christianity: Five views (2nd ed., pp. 101-128), Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press; used by permission. Portions of chapters five and six were originally based on S. Jones (1988), “A Religious Critique of Behavior Therapy,” in W. Miller and J. Martin (Eds.), Behavior therapy and religion (pp. 139-170), Newbury Park, CA: Sage; used by permission.

Handling the issue of gender in writing is an ever-troublesome matter. We have chosen to use inclusive terms wherever it did not torture the language to do so. In places where it was not stylistically pleasing to use neutered terms, we have attempted to alternate references to females and males. We were not compulsive in the process, so some unintentional inequities may remain, but we hope not.

Stan will be eternally grateful to Brenna, with profound gratitude for her support, love, patience and encouragement; without her this revised book would never have been completed. Thank you for being excellent in all that you do.

Rich would like to express his deep gratitude to both his immediate and extended families that have stood with him in the good times—and in the difficult and challenging times. Recently, this has included his graduate teaching assistants, Tamara Koch and Stalin George, and his clinical colleagues, Tim Brown, Alex Tsang, Sandy Johnston Kruse, Victor Argo, Terri Watson, William Struthers, Gary Burge, Don Kerns and Rob Ribbe. Finally, he wants to acknowledge the support of his mountaineering friends, who have faced together seemingly innumerable changes, losses and transitions over a span of nearly four decades.

Collaborators

Sally Schwer Canning is associate professor of psychology at Wheaton College and a clinical psychologist at Lawndale Christian Health Center.

Kelly S. Flanagan is a child clinical psychologist, and assistant professor of psychology and Psy.D. program director at Wheaton College.

Tracy Lee is a clinical psychologist working in private practice in Columbus, Ohio, specializing in the area of psychological assessment.

Michael W. Mangis is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Wheaton College.

Mark R. McMinn is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at George Fox University.

Laura C. Miguélez is an ordained deacon and works as an adjunct assistant professor of theology at Wheaton College.

David J. Van Dyke is a marriage and family therapist and an associate professor at Illinois School of Professional Psychology.

Michael J. Vogel is pursuing a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from George Fox University.

Robert A. Watson is a clinical psychologist who maintains a clinical and consulting practice in the Chicago area.

Terri S. Watson is a board certified clinical psychologist and an associate professor of psychology at Wheaton College.

Introduction

This book attempts to appraise each of the current major psychotherapy approaches or theories in the mental health field from the perspective of evangelical Christianity. It is a dialogue between the supposedly nonreligious therapeutic psychologies and the Christian religious and theological tradition. But it is a dialogue where one side of the conversation, that of the Christian faith, is presumed to have the ultimate standing as truth. Nevertheless, we presume that the various psychologies have much to teach us and may in fact lead us to see certain truths of the Christian tradition in a different light.

In 1977, I (Stan) was in the first year of graduate school and while struggling with issues of faith in the context of a highly secular program came across a book written in the 1950s relating Christian faith to the field of psychology. It was authored by one who was at that time one of the most eminent scholars in the field of clinical psychology, someone whose enduring legacy continues to this day. I wrote an enthusiastic letter to this scholar, asking if he had written more in this area. He graciously replied, saying that he was no longer a Christian; he was not sure where he stood religiously, but it was probably closest to Zen Buddhism. But he also added that while he no longer had a personal commitment to the presuppositions from which he wrote in the 1950s, he nevertheless felt that the earlier book was logically sound; that is, the form and content of his analysis stood even though he no longer believed the foundations for what he wrote at that time. Unlike this scholar, we remain passionately committed to the truth of the Christian faith, but consistent with his answer, we seek to provide here a thoughtful analysis of the psychotherapy enterprise that will assist fellow believers in approaching psychotherapy from a distinctively Christian perspective, and which may also yield helpful reflections for non­believers on the philosophical and assumptive foundations of their approaches to helping persons change.

Because of our presumption of the truth of the orthodox Christian tradition, this book may be perceived as parochial by some, as it represents only one religious tradition. Our intended audience is students, pastors, mental health professionals, and interested and informed laypersons in the evangelical Christian tradition. But in line with the story of the previously mentioned scholar, we would argue that the form of our analysis stands even if one is not an evangelical Christian. Christians of other stripes, and perhaps even those of non-Christian faith traditions, will, we hope, find this book helpful in outlining the religious implications of the various psychotherapy traditions and in suggesting how religious faith might interact with and revise the way we think about personality and psychotherapy.

When we were writing the first edition of this book in the late 1980s, the “integration of psychology and Christianity” movement was just gaining momentum. In the decade of the 1980s, very few Christian institutions of higher learning had graduate programs in applied psychology, and only two had doctoral programs in clinical psychology (Fuller Theological Seminary and Rosemead School of Psychology at Biola University). At the same time, signs of openness were only beginning in the field of psychology to consideration of religious and spiritual factors affecting the field, and indications of continuing hostility toward religious faith among many in the mental health fields were remarkable.

How things have changed! The integration movement has continued to grow in its volume, complexity and breadth (this is more thoroughly developed in chap. 1). Notably, movements critical of the idea of integration such as the biblical counseling movement have continued to hold sway in certain parts of the conservative Christian church. At the same time, a vibrant movement to endorse a distinct “Christian psychology” approach is prospering, and the integration movement continues as well (all discussed ably in Johnson, 2010). Helpful anthologies tracing the development of these conversations have been published (Stevenson, Eck & Hill, 2007). Training programs in the mental health field have proliferated amazingly; by the mid-1990s, our own Wheaton College had initiated our doctoral program in clinical psychology, and now quite a number of Christian institutions of higher learning are host to doctoral training programs that embody Christian distinctiveness in various ways.

In the meantime, the conversation has changed in the mainstream, secular discipline. We are pleased to have played some role in this process. In 1994, Stan published a key article (Jones, 1994) in what is regarded as the “flagship journal of the American Psychological Association (APA)” (Stevenson et al., 2007, pp. 94-95) arguing for a major shift in professional attitudes toward religion, specifically for a move to consider religion as a partner in constructive dialogue in both the scientific and professional practice dimensions of the discipline of psychology. Whether this article was crucial in what followed or not, its publication marked an opening for a different kind of engagement by the APA with spirituality and religion, namely, that “Prior to this article, the topic of religion (including integration) had been virtually ignored in APA publication materials. Since its publication, the APA has published a number of books and articles (in APA’s own journals) stressing the centrality and predictive importance of religious faith in psychological functioning” (Stevenson et al., 2007, p. 95; see for example Shafranske, 1996, and Miller & Delaney, 2005). In short, a good bit of the hostility and resistance to the role of religion and spirituality in life has been ameliorated, replaced by an unprecedented dialogue about the role of such factors in human well-being.

Even so, the degree and nature of this openness should not be overestimated or misunderstood. Our summary judgment is that there is much more openness to generic, humanistically grounded spirituality than there is to substantive religious faith, especially as that religious faith is grounded in formal creeds and ecclesiastical institutions. There is a growing trend in the field to view religious faith and spirituality as a natural human capacity that exists and persists because it serves basic human needs despite its ultimately illusory nature. A recent journalistic account (Azar, 2010) captures this well in its subtitle: “Religion may fill the human need for finding meaning, sparing us from existential angst while also supporting social organization, researchers say.” The traditional Christian has every reason to believe that true religion does indeed serve basic human needs, and we would argue that it does so because it is ultimately grounded in a true account of reality; the secular psychology accounts, however, serve to subtly erode such understandings.

This resistance to more formalized versions of religious faith, at times seeming especially directed toward orthodox Christianity, is often subtle, but not always. At this writing, two different court cases, winding their way through the appeals courts, have resulted from graduate students who are traditionalist Christians with conservative moral views of sexuality (particularly homosexual conduct) being ejected from graduate training programs in counseling (i.e., counseling per se as defined by the American Counseling Association, and as differentiated from counseling psychology) for holding views deemed incompatible with and not acceptable in the counseling profession. Even though there is a good case to be made that scientific findings have done little to invalidate the moral concerns of traditional Christians (Jones & Yarhouse, 2000; Jones & Kwee, 2005), and despite the ostensible moral neutrality of the APA and the various other mental health professional organizations, there are signs of movement toward similar reactions against Christian moral stances (also shared by traditionalist Jews, Muslims and Buddhists) in the discipline of psychology (APA, 2009); these moves have been contested (Jones, Rosik, Williams & Byrd, 2010). These are just some of the signs of tension in the relationship between religion and psychology broadly construed. The seeming openness of the field to spirituality should not be engaged naively.

In each of the chapters, we cite recent literature that examines the particular issues and psychotherapies we are addressing. Often this literature will be from the growing and increasingly sophisticated integration literature; at other times it may reflect literature that is a part of the more generic spirituality dialogue of the broader field. In composing this book we and our coauthors have been able to build on the work of many able scholars, to whom we are each heavily indebted.

Before embarking on our study, we will briefly examine the nature of psychotherapy and counseling, since it is vital to have a general picture of the nature of what we are appraising before we focus on the details.

What Is Psychotherapy and Counseling?

The topics we will examine in this book are germane to the concerns not just of professional psychologists, but to all mental health workers, pastoral counselors and pastors, and indeed to the concerns of informed laypeople who desire to be effective in their interpersonal ministries. But despite the number of people involved in this endeavor, defining psychotherapy and counseling is quite complicated.

The Problem of Diversity

Psychotherapy is a generic term that covers a wide variety of theories and techniques, all of which have articulate spokespersons and supporters and make claims of success. The varied theories and techniques are derived, for the most part, from clinical experience and reflection rather than deductively from scientific axioms or from systematic empirical research. This helps to explain the proliferation of therapy approaches. They emerge from each theorist’s unique experiences of the type of people he or she has seen for counseling, the types of problems they manifest, the cultural context of the therapist, his or her assumptions about how people change, and the core beliefs that shape the therapist’s life philosophy. This understandably leaves wide room for diverse approaches to people-helping.

There are an incredible array of approaches. Not only are there numerous major theories, but each seems to have a number of variations as well. Even twenty-five years ago, leading experts had identified 260 distinct schools of psychotherapy (Strupp & Binder, 1984); since then, many of these have drifted into obscurity only to be replaced by other unique approaches. Certainly, many of these approaches are kissing cousins rather than truly unique approaches.

Since many approaches to psychotherapy claim impressive results, it is difficult to evaluate critically the ultimate worth of a particular theory or technique. One must get the broad perspective when assessing the value of a specific system: Who is working with whom, under what conditions and assumptions, and on what particular problems and concerns? There is an ever-present danger of the overenthusiastic extrapolation of a theory or technique to client populations or problems for which it was never intended, or for which there is little or no reason to suggest its effectiveness. For example, the unquestionable effectiveness of behavior modification with many autistic children (Lovaas, 1987) has little bearing on its use with adults struggling with the meaning of life. Likewise, counselors should be appropriately humble in their pronouncements about their theories and techniques, though we don’t know of a single counseling approach that hasn’t in some form claimed to be the true and best way.

Defining Psychotherapy and Counseling

In light of all this diversity, it is not surprising that academicians, clinicians and researchers have found it difficult to agree on a specific definition of counseling and psychotherapy. As London (1964) noted, many find it easier to practice the art and science of people-helping than to describe it.

Still, across theories and techniques there appear to be some common features. In fact, many theoreticians and researchers today argue that these common factors influence, or even determine, the likelihood of a successful therapeutic outcome. Some approaches to understanding these common factors focus on the common techniques that all psychotherapists seem to use (though with differing frequencies). A classic work from thirty years ago (Garfield, 1980) concluded that most psychotherapy comprises varying mixtures of four basic interventions offered by the therapist or counselor: (1) offering reassurance and support, (2) desensitizing the client to distress, (3) encouraging adaptive functioning, and (4) offering understanding and insight. While clearly there are some intervention strategies that don’t fit in any of these categories, this analysis still has some validity. Understanding these common features can be helpful as one tries to define counseling.

Another recent approach to the investigation of common-factors focuses is not on technique but on variables that seem to determine or shape the outcome of any counseling approach. As we will explore more in chapter eleven, McMinn and Campbell (2007) interpret the best meta-analytic empirical research on psychotherapy to indicate that the key variables that influence positive outcome include specific psychotherapeutic techniques, but more importantly expectancy effects (the degree of hopefulness and optimism versus pessimism of the client), the quality of the relationship between the counselor and client, and the degree of contextual or situational support (or lack thereof, or even stressfulness and aversiveness) in the person’s immediate environment.

We would describe individual counseling or psychotherapy as a dyadic (two-way) interaction between a client who is distressed, and perhaps confused and frightened, and a professional helper whose helping skills are recognized and accepted by the client. The two engage in an ongoing, private, collaborative encounter that is structured as to time, place and overall purpose in a way that informal friendships are not. The relationship is likely to rely heavily on verbal communication of the client’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviors. The client comes to believe in and develop hope from what happens in therapy, in part because the therapist appears to have a theory for understanding and explaining the client’s distress as well as having intervention techniques for reducing it. In a supportive atmosphere with an empathetic and caring therapist, the client begins to disclose and reevaluate feelings and behavior patterns, to understand and accept previously rejected aspects of herself, to take risks, to become more open and honest about herself, to learn new methods of living with self and others, and to gain new satisfactions from life. With the client having less need for the psychotherapy, the process is usually terminated by mutual consent with the therapist (adapted from Frank, 1961; Garfield, 1980; and particularly Goldenberg, 1983, pp. 172ff.). While this definition assumes that the client is an individual, increasingly practitioners of psychotherapy are open to the client being a couple, a family, a group or a larger system.

Given that counseling and psychotherapy is so intensely personal and yet is regarded as a professional rather than personal relationship, how is psychotherapy and counseling different from friendship? As is commonly observed, a lot of good counseling goes on over cups of coffee, in the barber shop or over a backyard fence; perhaps a lot more than goes on during any given day in the offices of psychotherapists (Matarazzo & Wiens, 1972). There are some important differences, though. Ideally, the therapist is able to avoid undue emotional involvement with the client so as to be more objective, allowing the client to more freely communicate his thoughts and feelings (Copans & Singer, 1978). The therapist’s personal qualities and the environment she creates encourage risk taking and facilitate the acquisition of skills and sensitivities that will foster the development of health and wholeness. Perhaps the most important distinction between psychotherapy and friendship is that the former is by definition a one-way relationship emotionally and psychologically, and it is the client who is supposed to derive good from the interchange. The growth and healing of the therapist is not the purpose of this limited and purposeful relationship (Korchin, 1976). Friendships, on the other hand, are ideally mutually beneficial emotionally and psychologically, and are not structured intentionally for the benefit of only one of the parties involved. It is obvious, though, that we cannot say that psychotherapists derive no benefit from the therapeutic relationship, as financial, professional and social benefits certainly can and do accrue to the psychotherapist who is effective.

Are Psychotherapy and Counseling Different?

An important and often hotly debated question that is no more settled today than it was thirty years ago is how psychotherapy and counseling are to be differentiated (McLemore, 1974). The traditional distinction promulgated by doctoral-level practitioners has been that counseling is done by less comprehensively and intensively trained professionals (e.g., pastors, school guidance counselors) and by paraprofessionals (lay counselors or mental health volunteers). It is done with less seriously disturbed groups of persons, such as those struggling with decisions of what career to pursue, whether or not to get married and so forth. Counseling has often been regarded as relying heavily on the giving of wise advice as a major mode of intervention.

Historically, psychotherapy was thought to be more appropriate for “deeper” problems and was most often done by more highly trained or certified therapists. The focus was on significant personality change rather than adjustment to situational and life problems. It is sometimes said that psychotherapy attempts significantly to change the personality of clients, often paying less attention to specific current life problems, while counseling works within existing personality structures to help people adjust to the current demands on them.

Although some authors still prefer to make a distinction between counseling and psychotherapy, we have chosen to use the terms interchangeably in this text for two main reasons. The first is that clinical and counseling psychology, which were once substantially different disciplines and arose out of different historical roots, have grown closer together over the last several decades. The distinctions between the two subdisciplines were hard to make out twenty-five years ago (see Altmaier, 1985) and are even harder today. Notably, among the doctoral-level faculty in our own clinical psychology faculty at Wheaton College are a number of respected colleagues whose doctorates are in counseling psychology.

Perhaps more importantly, we will not make the distinctions here because the very same theories are utilized as guides for the change process by psychotherapists and counselors. Survey textbooks for counseling theories and methods, and for psychotherapy theories and methods, contain almost identical content. While there can be different emphases in books to the two professional populations, the basic theories are not different.

Structure of the Book

Our perspective in this book is decidedly psychological and spiritual. In taking this perspective we do not wish to minimize the clear importance of the biological/physical perspective on mental health, nor of the sociological/sociocultural perspective (Yarhouse, Butman & McRay, 2005). But our focus will be on the current interactional psychotherapies. We believe that a careful critique of these approaches is important for the Christian world today.

We also believe that psychologists do not have the final word in understanding humanness, suffering and growth. If anything, psychologists have been saying too much and the populace has been listening too much. It is no wonder that many today describe psychologists as the “secular priests” of our age. We believe that the centrality of religious reflection must be reasserted, as well as the value of philosophical, artistic, literary and other facets of our human ways of knowing.

Psychotherapy has assumed a position of high visibility and importance in many sectors of our American society. Our goal is to come to a new understanding of this field in order that we might more effectively participate in the work that God is doing in and through his church. The needs of contemporary society are creating new and potentially challenging roles for Christians who desire to minister in the name of Christ to a hurting world. We believe strongly that a greater awareness and knowledge of both the assets and liabilities of the major psychotherapy approaches can contribute in a significant way to the larger mission and work of the church.

As we mention in our acknowledgments, the most significant change in this book, as we move from the first edition to the second, is our indebtedness to numerous coauthors who have worked to create new versions of each chapter in this book. We believe the diverse perspectives that these coauthors bring added new richness and vitality to our work.

This book is structured in three parts. In the two introductory chapters we have outlined a summary of our view of what it means to relate or integrate the Christian faith with a field like psychology or psychotherapy theory. Chapter one discusses this process in general terms and deals with some important and frequently expressed objections (at least in conservative circles) to such an approach. Since an examination of psychotherapy from a Christian perspective must proceed from a foundational Christian understanding of persons, chapter two focuses specifically on the broad strokes of our Christian view of persons. Having clarified our method and the Christian view of persons, we then proceed into the heart of our appraisal.

Chapters three through ten cover a variety of approaches to psychotherapy. The four major paradigms in the field today are the psycho­dynamic, the cognitive-behavioral, the humanistic, and the family approaches; in a real sense, we devote two chapters to each of these four major paradigms. The most important representatives of each of these traditions are examined from our Christian perspective. Each chapter will begin with a summary presentation of each model; the interested reader can get a more exhaustive presentation of these approaches by consulting the volumes suggested for further reading at the end of this introduction and at the end of each chapter.

The book will conclude with an examination of how one can profitably draw from more than one approach in elaborating one’s approach to counseling (chap. 11) and a discussion of what it means to be a Christian counselor (chap. 12). Our main premise in these concluding chapters is that there are many ways to counsel Christianly. But it is not and cannot be the case that “anything goes.” We hope that our suggestions in these concluding chapters will help the process of putting it all together for the reader.

This volume is offered in fervent hope that it will instigate and support the rigorous development of thoroughly Christian mental health professionals who will manifest and embody biblical truth as they serve those in need of quality mental health services.

For Further Reading

Browning, D. S., & Cooper, T. D. (2004). Religious thought and the modern psychologies (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.

Corey, G. (2009). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Brooks Cole.

Corey, M. S., & Corey, G. (2011). Becoming a helper (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Corsini, R. (2008). Current psychotherapies (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Some of the many accessible textbooks providing broad overviews of the current theories and practices in psychotherapy and counseling.

Johnson, E. F. (Ed.). (2010). Psychology and Christianity: Five views (2nd ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

The best “one-stop shop” to read about the dialogue over how Christian faith and psychology can relate.

McMinn, M., & Campbell, C. (2007). Integrative psychotherapy: Toward a comprehensive Christian approach. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.

Tan, S. Y. (2011). Counseling and psychotherapy: A Christian perspective. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Representative samples of the kinds of rigorous Christian engagement available in reflecting on psychotherapy.

References

Altmaier, K. (1985). Counseling psychology. In D. Benner (Ed.), Baker encyclopedia of psychology (pp. 252-254). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.

APA Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation. (2009). Report of the Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation. Retrieved from www.apa.org/ pi/ lgbt/ resources/ therapeutic-response.pdf.

Azar, B. (2010, December). A reason to believe. APA Monitor on Psychology, 41(11), 52-55.

Copans, S., & Singer, T. (1978). Who’s the patient here? New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Corey, G. (2009). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Brooks Cole.

Corey, M. S., & Corey, G. (2011). Becoming a helper. (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Corsini, R. (2008). Current psychotherapies (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Frank, J. (1961). Persuasion and healing. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Frank, J. (1973). Persuasion and healing. (Rev. ed.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Garfield, S. (1980). Psychotherapy: An eclectic approach. New York, NY: Wiley- Interscience.

Goldenberg, D. (1983). Contemporary clinical psychology (2nd ed.). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Johnson, E. F. (Ed.). (2010). Psychology and Christianity: Five views (2nd ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Jones, S. L. (1994). A constructive relationship for religion with the science and profession of psychology: Perhaps the boldest model yet. American Psychologist, 49(3), 184-199.

Jones, S., & Kwee, A. W. (2005). Scientific research, homosexuality, and the church’s moral debate: An update. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 24(4), 304-316.

Jones, S., Rosik, C. H., Williams, R. N., & Byrd, A. D. (2010). A scientific, conceptual, and ethical critique of the Report of the APA Task Force on Sexual Orientation. The General Psychologist, 45(2), 7-18.

Jones, S., & Yarhouse, M. (2000). Homosexuality: The use of scientific research in the church’s moral debate. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

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Stevenson, D. H., Eck, B. E., & Hill, P. C. (Eds.). (2007). Psychology and Christianity integration: Seminal works that shaped the movement. Batavia, IL: Christian Association for Psychological Studies.

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Yarhouse, M., Butman, R., & McRay (2005). Modern psychopathologies: A comprehensive Christian appraisal. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

1 The Integration of Psychology and Christianity

Stanton L. Jones and Richard E. Butman

Christian counselors and psychotherapists are vitally concerned with understanding the human condition, fostering human flourishing and alleviating human suffering. Our field has arisen in a time when it is painfully obvious that improving our standard of living and our physical health does not guarantee anyone a sense of personal well-being. Far too many people are in emotional, mental or spiritual pain.

Out of a desire to improve the human condition and alleviate suffering, many Christians today are interested in the mental health fields. There is a strong desire to enrich Christian ministry by drawing upon the resources of the evolving field of psychology and its related disciplines. What thoughtful pastor or counselor would not want to use all available knowledge and techniques to make his or her people-helping as effective as possible?

But there is also considerable ambivalence about and outright opposition to drawing upon the strengths of psychology among some conservative Christians. Some describe the field of psychotherapy as “satanic” or “completely secularized” and “unredeemable.” While in graduate school, one of us (Stan) spoke to Jay Adams, the founding father of “Biblical Counseling.” I asked if he had any words of guidance for Christians studying psychology, to which Adams responded, in essence, “Drop out of graduate school. If you want to serve God as a counselor, you can only do so by going to seminary, studying the Word of God rather than the words of men, and becoming a pastor.”

Neither one of us took Dr. Adams’s advice. We have, however, tried to maintain our foundational commitments to Jesus Christ in our work as psychologists. This book is the fruit of the working out of that goal. It covers a significant aspect of what we believe it means to be a Christian psychologist, mental health professional, counselor or psy­chotherapist.

This book is about thinking Christianly about contemporary approaches to psychotherapy and counseling. We strongly believe that it is not enough simply to pray for clients, or to refrain from discouraging their spiritual sensitivities, or to have high ethical standards while the Christian psychotherapist otherwise uses the methods and practices of theories and methods derived from secular sources. Every theory or method of people-helping carries with it a system of beliefs, a way of seeing or understanding people: who they are, why they experience what they do, how they can change and what they should be aiming for in life. As Browning and Cooper (2004) put it, psychological science (and particularly the applied psychologies) “cannot avoid a metaphysical and ethical horizon” (p. xiv). These theoretical suppositions may or may not conflict with direct assertions of the Christian faith or with more indirect implications of the faith. It is because we feel that these theories of psychotherapy have often been either summarily dismissed or uncritically embraced by Christians that we have attempted to provide a balanced appraisal of these views from a Christian perspective.

In this first chapter we want to set our foundations by grappling with the core of how a religious faith should interact with the seemingly “secular” and “scientific” field of psychotherapy. Since this task is often called “the integration of psychology and Christianity” or of “psychology and theology,” the core of this chapter is a discussion of what integration means. We approach this in two stages, discussing first the general stance of the Christian toward “secular knowledge,” then moving to the more specific issue of our stance toward “psychological knowledge and science.” We will then briefly discuss criticisms from various directions of the integration movement and conclude with a discussion of the specific integration methodology we will use to appraise or critique the various approaches to psychotherapy.

How Does Christianity Relate to “Secular Knowledge”?

Being a Christian is easy when faith is contained in a “spiritual” corner of one’s life. But the living God has a mind of his own. Not being content with such limits, he often breaks out into the rest of our lives and lays claim to territory we had not yet thought about deeding over to him.

Often he first lays claim to our moral lives, with the result that we discover that being a Christian entails confronting and struggling with our selfishness, jealousy, anger, pettiness or rebelliousness. This often has implications for our vocational lives, such as when we must curtail unethical practices or when we must reassess the values that have energized us for years.

But God can lay claim to our thought lives as well. Do we need to think differently about politics, science, art, philosophy and indeed all areas of life as a result of our faith? Indeed we do. The claims of the gospel are all-inclusive, spanning every dimension of our private and public lives, because Christ has been declared the Lord of all (Col 1:15-20).

What does it mean for sincere Christians to relate their religious beliefs and faith to an area not overtly or obviously religious or theological? There is a distinctive Christian position on the nature of God and of salvation, but is there a correct Christian position on literary criticism, on thermo­dynamics, on the nature of human memory, on the fundamental motivations of human personality or on the nature of depression? Answering this general question on the relation of faith and scholarship or science has absorbed the energies of many Christian thinkers over the centuries.

This is not a new question. Thanks to the work of faithful believers over at least three millennia, we have abundant examples to follow in answering this question, examples that are too little known among Christian students today. Let’s begin with the Old Testament’s description of the “wise man” or “sage.”

Derek Tidball (1986) points out that in ancient Jewish society, before the coming of Christ, there were three types of “pastors”: priests, prophets and wise men. “The objective of the wise men was to provide down-to-earth counsel about the ordinary affairs of life” (Tidball, 1986, p. 43); thus, it seems to us that there are many parallels between the wise man role in ancient Jewish life and the role mental health professionals serve in contemporary American life. Tidball suggests that the wise men did not often provide their counsel according to explicit divine revelation; they were grappling with practical matters which simply were not a preoccupation of God’s revelatory energies. In other words, they dealt with matters for which no simple recourse to “the Bible says X” was possible. “Their approach was to consider, with steady logic, the truth which was hidden within human nature and creation in order to discover the regularities which could form the basis of their lives and counsel” (Tidball, 1986, p. 43). The provision of such wisdom is a prime duty of the Christian psychotherapist, for whom it is vital to remember, as did these wise men, that true wisdom begins with “the fear of the LORD” (Prov 1:7).

Tidball seems to suggest that there are two primary elements of the wise man’s or sage’s methodology: grounding their approach in God’s word in the Scriptures, and then searching in human experience with “steady logic” for enduring truth. In a recent volume Coe and Hall (2010a, b) also urged that Christian psychology be founded on following the model of the sage, and, like Tidball, seem to suggest the same two methodological elements. On this basis Coe and Hall argue that “the Old Testament sage’s psychology is not an act of integration; rather, it is one single, though complex, act of doing a science or psychology” (2010b, p. 155). Unfortunately, Coe and Hall are simply wrong that the work of the sage is not an act of integration in nature, and their specific citation of Proverbs 24 as a prototype of the work of the sage is helpful in establishing why.

Coe and Hall seem bothered that the integrationist turns to and engages secular sources of wisdom to expand our knowledge, striving to make sense of such secular knowledge within our deeper Christian intellectual commitments. But it turns out that this is exactly what the Old Testament sage or wise man did. In addition to being grounded in God’s Word and using steady logic about what we observe of human nature, the very Old Testament sages that wrote Proverbs and Ecclesiastes did what we are here calling integration.

The author of Ecclesiastes, thought by many scholars to be King Solomon, calls himself “Qoheleth,” which can be translated teacher, preacher or sage.[1] And in explaining his own methodology, he writes “He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The Teacher [i.e., Qoheleth] searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true” (Eccles 12:9-10). Just how far-reaching was that search for proverbs by Qoheleth? Quite extensive, it turns out. Proverbs 24, as well as Proverbs 31 and other passages in these two wisdom books, are heavily influenced by pagan wisdom literature. As I argued elsewhere (Jones, 2011), it turns out that the sages who wrote the Old Testament wisdom literature were well grounded in the Hebrew Scriptures and skilled in steady logic, but also facile in the pagan, secular literature of the day. The sages who composed Proverbs were discerning editors and compilers, integrationists who appropriated good ideas from secular literature, adapted them and built on them.

Recognition that Proverbs 24 is just such a passage is so widespread that it has made its way into the notations of prominent evangelical study Bibles. The English Standard Version Study Bible notes that Proverbs 22:17–24:22 or “The Thirty Sayings of ‘The Wise’ ” reflects “an awareness of the Egyptian wisdom text, The Instruction of Amenemope, dated to about 1250 B.C. Clearly [the sage/author] did not slavishly copy Amenemope, but there are many affinities in content” (p. 1173; see also the New International Version Archeological Study Bible). Far from slavishly copying, theologian Daniel Treier argues that the sage/author always adapted what he drew from secular literature to godly purposes: “the most important features for interpreting particular proverbs [drawn from pagan sources] concern their recontextualization within or relation to the fear of YHWH, Israel’s God” (forthcoming, p. 113 in ms.; see also Waltke, 2004, 2005). So we have evidence already in the Old Testament of the value of appropriating secular wisdom to God’s purposes, if that work is done with due diligence to remain faithful to God’s revealed Word.

Let us now move into the New Testament era, the era of the church. Among conservative Christians today, many assume that a “Bible only” stance of antagonism toward “secular knowledge” is what has marked “real Christians” for two millennia. Often unwittingly, they adopt a posture mimicking one of the most prolific early church fathers, Tertullian (c. A.D. 160-220), who wrote (taking “Athens” as a metaphor for secular Greek philosophical wisdom and “Jerusalem” for the wisdom of the Bible as directly inspired by God):

What indeed does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the [philosophical] Academy and the Church? What between heretics and Christians? . . . Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no inquisition after enjoying the Gospel! With our faith, we desire no other belief. For this is our palmary faith, that there is nothing which we ought to believe besides. (in Geehan, 1971, p. vi)

Sadly, Christians who adopt such a stance are unaware that Tertullian was himself a brilliant product of a broad, humanistic education in the very Academy he mocks in this quote, and that he drew capably and well on that broad background in service of the gospel as he wrote apologetics and theological works. In this quote he was engaging in a bit of preacherly hyperbole to make a particular point; the quote in isolation considerably exaggerates his true position on the value of secular knowledge.

It is more important to note that the early church never systematically embraced any such repudiation of secular knowledge. Indeed, engagement with secular knowledge has always been important to the church. Philosopher Arthur Holmes’s Building the Christian Academy (2001) gives an exceptionally readable introduction to this fascinating history. Holmes discusses how the earliest Christian liberal arts academy was established in Alexandria, Egypt, in the third century. The term liberal arts in the ancient world had nothing to do with today’s political liberalism. It was an ancient Greek term by which they distinguished the type of technical education suitable for slaves, whose job was to do specific tasks, from the education suitable for liberated peoples—the free citizens of the state, whose role was to guide the civic order by their wisdom and breadth of learning. As opposed to technical education, the liberal arts centered on the trivium (the three arts of language—grammar, logic and rhetoric or persuasion) and the quadrivium (the four mathematical arts—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music). A liberal arts education was presumed applicable to everything; it ideally equipped the student to reflect deeply and critically on the current state of affairs, preparing the citizen to lead.

According to Holmes (2001), the first Christian liberal arts academy was established almost eighteen centuries ago for four reasons, reasons as relevant today as then: (1) to interact with the best thinking of unbelievers for the sake of evangelism and apologetics to reach nonbelievers with the gospel, (2) to learn from non-Christian thought, since clearly nonbelievers can think rigorously and well, and it would be arrogant of Christians to think that they have nothing to learn from non-Christian thought, (3) to worship and honor God, who is truth in himself and the source and the author of everything, by thinking broadly and well, and (4) to provide a holistic education of both mind and character, fostering growth both in intellect and in personal maturation, out of recognition that we are unitary beings whose minds are interconnected with our hearts and souls.

Holmes (2001) summarizes some of the high points of the Christian academy over the ensuing centuries. He mentions the great monasteries of the medieval period, where monks that loved God and loved knowledge preserved learning through the Dark Ages. There were direct connections between such monasteries and the establishment of the first great universities at Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, universities that began as training schools for clergy, yet were comprehensive in their curricula; the founders of these institutions originally saw learning as an outgrowth of sincere Christian faith and a liberal arts education as necessarily done in the context of Christian reflection on the subject matter.

Theologian Don Browning (2010) recently sketched one particularly pivotal moment in the church’s engagement with secular knowledge. For centuries the great thinkers of the church had focused on the writings of Plato for their dialogue with secular thought, but one millennium ago in Spain and Sicily, the medieval intellectual world was shaken and revitalized by the rediscovery of the texts of Aristotle. These texts had been lost in the Christian world but preserved in the Islamic world, and as these two worlds collided in Spain and Sicily, the texts of Aristotle became the focus of an intellectual dialogue among Islamic, Jewish and Christian scholars. This rich dialogue spurred forward the explosive progress of science and the humanities in the following centuries. The work of Thomas Aquinas, whom many consider the greatest mind ever to work in the Christian tradition, is clearly indebted to the fruits of this religious dialogue.

Returning to Holmes (2001), his next focus for discussion of the Christian academy is on the heroes of the Protestant Reformation, whose indebtedness to their engagement with secular learning is remarkable. John Calvin, for example, is often described today as a theologian, but in truth he was educated in the humanities (liberal arts) and specifically in the field of law. So also Jonathan Edwards, whom many regard as the most capable scholar America has ever produced, was deeply shaped by his liberal arts education.

In the following two centuries Christianity in general and Protestantism in particular fostered the development of modern science by (1) providing a theological foundation for an embrace of physical reality as good and worthy of study, (2) emboldening the search for universal laws by construing the physical world as the engineering of a universal law-giver who had left imprinted on the world the traces of his rational mind, (3) inspiring empirical research by emphasizing God’s free will in creating, such that the structure of the world could not be deduced by the armchair philosopher but had to be discovered by the empirical researcher, and (4) providing personal motives for scientists such as improving the world to bring glory to God or helping to provide rational evidence for God’s existence (Brooke, 1991). In this early period of what is often called modernism, faith was not seen as antagonistic to science, rationality or knowledge at all, and so it was common for great figures in science such as Francis Bacon, Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo Galelei, Blaise Paschal, Isaac Newton and many others to be devout Christians of various sorts while standing as dominant figures in their scientific fields.

But it is in the 1800s and 1900s that we begin to see why it makes sense to talk about “integration,” because during this period faith and learning became disintegrated and fragmented from each other. In the late modern period the intellectual movement called the Enlightenment drove a deep wedge between faith and reason. For very complicated reasons, religion, tradition and authority came to be seen as the enemy of knowledge (Toulmin, 1990). What emerged over time was a view that “facts” were produced by logic or by empirical science, whereas religion was ultimately about values, ethics or about some other undeniable, ethereal aspect of human experience that had nothing to do with the world of facts (Johnson, 2010b; Jones, 2010). Increasingly, faith was seen as the enemy of knowledge, ushering in our situation today where so many of the “new atheists,” such as Richard Dawkins, trumpet science as the antithesis of religious faith. And these developments have had a profound impact on educational institutions as well; whereas the original mentality in the great universities of the world was that theology was the “queen of the sciences,” today, religion has been driven from, or to the periphery at, most of the universities, and these schools are often experienced by Christians as communities of great hostility toward orthodox faith (e.g., Marsden, 1994).

How Does Christianity Relate to Secular Psychology? The Integration View

It is in this intellectual context that contemporary psychology has come to maturity (or what passes for maturity). As Jones (1994), Johnson (2010b) and many others have discussed, almost every movement in psychology has had a facet of antagonism toward, dismissal of or the impulse to explain away religious faith in general and often Christianity in particular. The psychologies of Sigmund Freud, B. F. Skinner, Carl Rogers and others are often explicit (and contemptuous) in their dismissal of Christianity, and thus appropriation of what is of value from these approaches takes great care and discernment.

Even though Christians ought to approach the topic of psychology believing in and celebrating the unity of all knowledge in Christ, the practical reality we encounter is a field of knowledge that has become disintegrated and fragmented. Vast swaths of the discipline of psychology contain implicit or explicit commitments antagonistic to Christian faith, as the chapters that follow in this book will illustrate. The task of the integrationist in this present circumstance is to bring back together that which God intended as a seamless whole but which in present reality lies fragmented.

We use this term integration even though we regard it as problematic. The word implies that things that don’t naturally mix must willfully be brought into connection, to be integrated. This is surely not the vision of faith and scholarship that we are advocating, as we believe that faith and scholarship naturally and inevitably interrelate.

We will not often refer to the integration of psychology and theology (i.e., the academic discipline), because this implies that the goal is the fusing together of what are and should properly be two distinct conceptual disciplines. Surely integration is misguided if it is directed at creating a new academic discipline, such as “psychotheology” or “theopsychology.”

There are a number of different approaches to understanding the integration of Christian faith with the discipline of psychology.[2] Indeed, a plethora of articles and books have been dedicated to sorting and resorting these approaches. Years ago Jones (1986) characterized the main three approaches to integration as (1) ethical integration, the focus on the application of faith-based moral principles to the practice of science (including, in this case, the professions of psychotherapy); (2) perspectival integration, the view that scientific and religious views of any aspect of reality are independent, with the result that scientific/psychological views and religious understandings complement but don’t really affect each other (e.g., Jeeves, 1976; this view has come to be called the levels-of-explanation view); and (3) humanizer or Christianizer of science integration, an approach that involves the explicit incorporation of religiously based beliefs as the control beliefs that shape the perceptions of acts, theories and methods in social science (e.g., Evans, 1977, 1989; or Van Leeuwen, 1985). Let us use this same grid to understand the basic layout of the discussion of the relationship of psychology and Christianity today, but broaden the final category of humanizer or Christianizer approaches into two groups as follows.

Ethical integration

. Practitioners of variations of the ethical approach have found particular expression recently among Anabaptist Christians. For instance, out of their basic theological commitments, Jacobsen and Jacobsen (2004) suggest that the primary goal of the Christian scholar should be to “strike up the friendships [with secular scholars] that might lead to mutual respect and cooperation” (p. 24). Relationships become the primary ethical imperative for the Christian scholar. Any approach to scholarship that is not first premised on an imperative of cooperation, in this view, is suspect. These authors emphasize the contours of friendship over truth claims of Christian faith, arguing that “Christian scholars will probably need to develop a range of new, less grandiose ways of relating faith and learning that are more attuned to contemporary scholarly practices” (p. 28). They seem to prioritize cooperation and acceptance, and to be averse to conflict with the secular academy.

Another Anabaptist ethical work is the proposal of Dueck and Rei­mer (2009) for a “peaceable psychology.” While much more open than the Jacobsens to conflict with the secular academy (indeed, they are adamant in their criticisms of the field of psychology), Dueck and Rei­mer are not at all prone to propose that we seek out approaches to Christian scholarship that conform to secular standards. Indeed, they call Christians to construct a distinctive psychology, both theoretical and therapeutic, that is driven by its allegiance to Christ in its being marked by ethical commitments to peacemaking and reconciliation. Their approach clearly is driven by its ethical dimension.

The levels-of-explanation and Christianizer approaches are well on display in Johnson (2010a), who in