Geoffrey W. Sutton PhD, Psychology and Culture

  Demons, Spirits, and Scary Spirituality Evangelical Christians are warned against activities that invite Satan or evil spirits into their lives. “Don’t read Harry Potter.” Stay away from the Ouija board.” “Yoga is a pathway to spiritual evil.”  Christians who read the Bible in a literal or near literal way have plenty of texts to give them reasons to believe they are in the midst of millennia-old spiritual warfare and the battle is getting more intense as some see the end of the world in sight. In 2020, I completed writing a textbook on Counseling and Psychotherapy with Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians . One topic that struck me as unique is the subject of Chapter 14, “ Devils, Demons, and Deliverance. ”  When I looked at books that offer approaches to Christian Counseling, I noticed a gaping hole when it came to helping Christians troubled by what they understand as demonic influence or the work of the devil in their lives. 12 Things to Know About Christian...

" Thank God for psychologists and Lexapro. Without them, I might be dead today." --Jonathan Merritt ( 2018, February 16 ) Jonathan Merritt's body vibrated. Then he had difficulty breathing. He grips us with his story of a panic attack. Then he shares his story of faith and psychology. Friends diagnosed a spiritual problem. A professor advised against a professional therapist saying, "you already have a wonderful counselor in Jesus." Merritt has more to say about Christian beliefs and mental health so, I suggest reading his post. I now move to related thoughts on Christianity and psychology. ***** I was sitting in a church pew one Sunday evening when a pastor launched into a rant against psychology. I left and never went back. At the time, I was in the process of earning a master's degree in Counseling at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Since those days, I find that my profession is still unwelcome in many conservative church...

Hope Shines a Light Hope Wins Have you ever look forward to an event and found it to be even better than expected? Hope is about expectations. High levels of hope represent a combination of plans and motivation directed at reaching a goal. A group of us are looking at the effectiveness of Christian counseling from the perspective of people who have recently attended counseling sessions. As we continue to collect data, one finding stands out­­—those with high levels of hope appear healthier on a variety of measures. What is hope? Hope is a positive motivational action schema. The two components of hope work in tandem to help people achieve goals. According to hope theory developed by C.R. Snyder and his colleagues at the University of Kansas, hope consists of two components: agency and pathways. Pathways are the routes or ways people develop to achieve their goals. For example, a person may enroll in college to obtain a degree on the path to a career in c...

What Interventions do Christian Counselors Use? This is the final post in my series of findings from a 2014 survey. In this post I include list of interventions and the frequency they are used by Christian counselors. This list of interventions includes spiritual practices some Christians use or request when in need. In some cases, we expanded a common practice like prayer so we could obtain more detail. We included prayer types that might only be used by Pentecostals and Charismatics because little is known what that small segment of the counselor population might use. Spiritual practice Common Never Rarely Sometimes Often Most 1 Refer to Bible 74.4 6.80 18.80 46.00 17.20 11.20 2 Invite God’s presence 65.67 21.89 12.45 21.89 15.88 27.90 3 Pray about issues 55.42 18....