Integration Capstone

At Regent, we talk a lot about the integration of Christianity and psychology. That is, how do I approach my clinical work from a Christian worldview? To what extent do I bring my faith into the therapy room, and to what extent to I view myself as a "Christian psychologist" as opposed to a "psychologist who happens to be a Christian"?

One of the last courses of our academic career at Regent is an Integration Capstone class, in which we spend hours just sitting around and chewing on the thoughts and ideas of high-profile integrationists, as well as our own perspectives on integration. Our capstone assignment, if you will, is to develop a 5-10 minute presentation of our own approach to integration, a landmark experience or event that shaped our integration journey, or just some kind of personal interaction with the topic of integration. I thought I might share my own presentation with you here. What a long, strange trip it's been as a Christian doctoral student in clinical psychology, alternately experiencing antagonism both from psychologists and the church. It is my prayer that, by the grace of God, my career will be a journey of integration and a testament to how God is Lord over all things, even psychology.

My thoughts, if you are interested...

My integration journey has been sort of a gradual one; that is, there is no particular landmark event or experience I would point to as “the one” that shaped my integration philosophy.
But as I look back over the past four years, I can identify a few driving forces and overarching themes that have been the most influential, so those are what I’ll focus on now.

The obvious driving force behind my integration development has been the hand of God. But as far as the particular instruments that God has used in my life, the most influential by far has been my husband. I know how that probably sounds, but it’s really true. As Joel has pursued God throughout our marriage, he has been constantly pushing me also to learn more about what I believe and why I believe it. He loves the Word of God and is always challenging me to compare my attitudes, opinions, and actions against the standard of Scripture. In fact, when I haven’t been reading about psychology, I’ve been reading up on my theology. As a result, I can see an overall trajectory in my life over the past few years toward a greater understanding and love of Scripture, and greater application of Scripture to all aspects of my life.

I obviously have not mastered this, and so I want to be careful to say this with great humility. But I can definitely say that God has been gracious in opening my heart and mind to see Him and His truth more and more clearly.

A major piece of this growing in my faith has been a growing knowledge of and appreciation for the sovereignty of God. If you had asked me at the beginning of our program if God was in control of everything, I would have said, “of course!”. Obviously. That was a part of my basic understanding of Scripture and my faith.

But as I progressed through my training and especially as I started to see clients, this truth became ever more precious to me. I started out with that whole idealistic thing, where I thought I could take every single client to a place of wholeness and happiness. As I realized how foolish that was, I became incredibly troubled at the thought that I couldn’t “fix” people. That’s why I signed up for this gig, right? But I learned to find comfort in two things: First, I had a supervisor who challenged me to think more realistically about my expectations for therapy. Duh, right? So then I started to view my relationship with my clients as a particular chapter of their lives, a small piece of their overall progress.

And second, I clung to the sovereignty of God and His promises in Scripture. He is often gracious even to those who don’t love Him, sending rain on the just and on the unjust, but He also declares that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. He is a God of healing and peace, but not everyone is guaranteed healing and peace in this lifetime. And that’s ok. My job is to be faithful to His calling in my life, to be obedient to His Word and do my part with excellence. As a psychologist, that will obviously mean offering compassion and working toward healing for my clients; but when healing doesn’t come in the form of gigantic therapeutic gains, I can be ok with that and acknowledge that this person is ultimately in the palm of God’s hand, along with the rest of creation and His children. God is God, and I am not.

One other aspect of integration I’d like to mention goes back to my husband. As I’ve spent the last few years wrestling with what it means to be a Christian psychologist, and as Joel and I have grown together in our faith, he has challenged me to apply Scripture to my work as a clinician. There have been some particularly tricky client situations that have stretched the limits of my understanding and pushed me out of my comfort zone. When I’ve shared these situations with my husband (in a strictly de-identified context, of course), he has questioned how my therapeutic goals line up with my beliefs as a Christian. At times I’ve been able to answer him easily, but sometimes – I just didn’t know. I feel blessed to have such a person in my life, who is not a psychologist but has sharpened me as an integrationist and pushed me toward forging a unified identity out of these two areas of my life.

So where do I stand now, in my integration approach? I’m not totally sure, I haven't quite worked all the kinks out; but I do know that if God is truly Lord of all and Lord of my life, then my psychological work must be subject to Him as well. I find great harmony between the techniques we use, and the truths of Scripture, so implicit integration is often easy for me. I love the opportunities for explicit integration as well – using Scripture in therapy, discussing spiritual questions, etc. For me the challenge to integration comes with those tough clients, difficult cases, and situations that might try to blur the edges of my Christian convictions. But I remember that at the end of the day I answer not to the APA, not to an ethics board, but to the God of the universe. I obviously will do my best to adhere to all legal and ethical standards of the profession: it’s not that I hope to be a renegade Christian therapist bringing everybody to Jesus. But I do hope to be so familiar with the Word of God and so attuned to His spirit that I can exercise discernment and wisdom in fulfilling my ultimate responsibility to Christ even and especially as a psychologist.