January 29, 2008 · 5:45 am

Spurgeon on depression


A couple of times a year Diane Langberg invites one of her pastors to come and minister to us at staff meeting. It is always a rich time. Last week, Greg MacDougall talked to us about some of Spurgeon’s thoughts on depression. He summarized a chapter from Spurgeon’s Lectures to my Students. Gotta love the chapter title: “The Minister’s fainting fits.” As Greg said, “No, this isn’t about histrionic ministers, though someone should probably write about that, its about why we find ourselves in despair, what occasions our depression, and the lesson from it” (I’m paraphrasing Greg here from memory). By the way, I think we could replace “depressed” with anxious, and tempted towards addictions in what is written below.

So, here are some of Spurgeon’s points.

1. Why do we get depressed?

  • Duh, we’re human. No, he didn’t say, “duh” but we are sons and daughters of Adam and so we know suffering and brokenness.
  • We all have physical and mental infirmities. “Certain bodily maladies, especially those connected with the digestive organs…Are the fruitful fountains of despondency….As to mental maladies, is any man altogether sane?
  • The work of christian ministry encourages us to despair when we see sinners sinning all the more boldly
  • The Christian leader is somewhat lonely by position
  • “Sedentary habits have a tendency to create despondency in some constitutions.” Studying, reading, etc. He suggests “stiff walk in the wind’s face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best.”

2. When are we likely to get depressed?

  • Right after a great success, after a “cherished desire is fulfilled.”
  • Before a great achievement (when we may be tempted to give up)
  • “In the midst of a long stretch of unbroken labour…” we wear out and despair
  • When we are betrayed by a beloved
  • When troubles abound
  • For unknown reasons. This must not be forgotten. Many depressions may not have a discernible cause. What we do with them is more of the issue. “Causeless depression is not to be reasoned with, nor can David’s harp charm it away by sweet discoursings….One affords himself no pity when in this case, because it seems so unreasonable, and even sinful to be troubled without manifest cause; and yet troubled the man is…”

3. The Lesson:“be not dismayed by soul-trouble.” “Cast the burden of the present, along with the sin of the past and the fear of the future, upon the Lord, who forsaketh not his saint. Live by the day–ay, by the hour. Put no trust in frames and feelings. Care more for a grain of faith than a ton of excitement….Be not surprised when friends fail you: it is a failing world….Between this and heaven there may be rougher weather yet, but it is all provided for by our covenant Head….Come fair or come foul…be it ours, when we cannot see the face of our God, to trust under the shadow of his wings.”

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January 28, 2008 · 10:53 am

Science Monday: New Treatment for Mania?


The Harvard Mental Health Letter (v. 24:8, Feb. 2008) has a short blurb about a new medication being researched for the treatment of active mania.

Tamoxifen. Yes, the drug best known for treating and inhibiting the growth of estrogen sensitive breast cancers. Apparently it also inhibits an enzyme (protein kinase C or PKC) which may contribute to mania. The study lasted only 3 weeks and on a tiny sample of people (both males and females). But, there are positive signs that it stops active bipolar symptoms. 63% of those taking the drug improved, many within five days. Only 13% of those taking a placebo improved.

Side effects include hot flashes, increased risks for stroke and blood clots (known from its study in breast cancer patients). We will have to wait to see if it is useful just in bringing mania under control or also in long-term maintenance. Actually, we’ll have to wait a long time to see if it is ever used at all with manic individuals.

I do wonder about the back-story. How did this drug get targeted as a possibility. Was it in the lab or did doctors report that their actively manic breast cancer patients seemed to get better. That is how many of these discoveries get made. Viagra, for example, was first used to reduce hypertension. Turns out it was not particularly good at doing that. But, the men in the studies reported some other surprising and very desirable side effects.  Oh, if you can believe wikipedia, it also helps reduce plant wilting in cut flowers. Sorry, couldn’t help but add that little factoid.  

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January 25, 2008 · 9:48 am

Opportunity for free career and resume consultation!


Part of Biblical Seminary’s advanced counselor training certificate for those pursuing licensure includes a course on career and lifestyle development. Led by two seasoned (experience…not old) career and job change counselors, the course includes a special free-of-charge career clinic on February 11 staffed by the students.

Appointments are available every half hour or so, and they recommend that you bring a résumé. They’ll help with questions you may have about getting a job, work situations, and overall career goals. If you are out of the area but would still like to take advantage of this opportunity, feel free to request that here in a comment and I’ll email you privately to get contact info. If you fax your resume to us, we’ll see about getting you a phone conference. Slots are limited.

Here’s a link to the flyer location on Biblical’s website that will give you more details:
http://www.biblical.edu/pages/embark/flyer_for_career_clinic.pdf

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January 25, 2008 · 5:52 am

Teen Missions Int’l feature in Christianity Today


The print version of February’s Christianity Today arrived at my home. In it is a short story about Teen Missions International(TMI) based in Merritt Island, FL.  I can’t find the article on the web yet, but here’s why I enjoyed seeing the pictures and reading the short story:

24 years ago (1983) I reluctantly agreed with my parents to register for a TMI summer missions team. I would be giving up the summer between my junior and senior years in high-school to go with a group of teens somewhere in the world in order to do construction and evangelism. Why didn’t I want to go? I wouldn’t be able to train for the fall cross-country season and I was intent on being the #2 runner on the team (#1 was impossible since he was the New England regional champ). So, I set limits. I would go only if I got my first choice: Austria. Not sure why that was my first choice having never been to Europe. I would only go if the money I raised came in without me having to do much asking, since I hated sales. Well, I got my first choice and the money “magically” appeared within very short order. So I had to go.

I know that some have significant doubts about the value of short-term missions trips. Is it worth the cost? Who really benefits? And while the concerns are not without merit, I am fully persuaded that the summer of 1983 changed the course of my life. No, I wasn’t on the road to drugs and alcohol. But, the faith of my parents really hadn’t become mine. But by the end, I had begun to mature in my faith and committed myself to some sort of full-time Christian service.

So, what is this TMI, you might be asking. Youth and adults join teams at Merritt Island, FL. You live in tents for 2 weeks in a true bootcamp environment. The water smells like rotten eggs. There are chiggers and mosquitoes. Daily, you do bible study, learn construction skills (e.g., laying brick, mixing cement, digging footers), and train as a team on a serious obstacle course. No phones, no ipods. You wash in a bucket and you flush with a bucket. You wear work-boots all the time. Then after 2 weeks of work and bonding, you gather your army bags and travel with your team to your part of the world for the rest of the summer to do whatever your team intended to do. My team traveled to Austria by plane and train. We were to begin construction of a building for a ministry to addicts (if memory serves). We had all sorts of trouble with the site (mud slides) but accomplished building some of the base structure. We did some evangelism. But the largest construction was to our souls. I went from knowing about Christ to knowing Christ. When you are out of your comfort zone and away from family, you have the opportunity to consider your life, your values, and are primed to hear from the Lord.

There are a million great stories and experiences (e.g., riding the train across Germany at night only sitting on a jump seat, being accosted by a hoodlum in the train station, staying up all night to shoot scenes in a film called, “Blood, Sweat, and Cheers”, bathing in a ice cold stream and using pit toilets in the woods). I won’t bore you with them but they were life shaping. You cannot easily live the same once you see the world from the perspective of another. You cannot easily live the same when you expose yourself to the larger Kingdom of God.

I still have one friend from that summer who drops by this site.  Maybe Don will give his take on the time. Oh, I came back weighing about 25 lbs less due to a food shortage on the team and because of the muscle loss, I was fourth on the x-country team. Disappointing but in the scope of things, not important.

If you ever have the opportunity to send a youth to this (or go as an adult), take the chance. It will change your life.

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January 24, 2008 · 5:51 am

A nation of speech making?


Am really enjoying Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals which details the lives of Abraham Lincoln and his rivals for the Republican nomination for president. She writes well, keeps it moving, but includes great stories about the shaping of each of the characters’ lives. I’m left with two thoughts: (a) I know not the suffering of that era. So much death and loss by many at young ages; (b) The drive of these men to learn, read and memorize the bible and the classics under such difficult circumstances. Our electronic age makes us lazy.

But check out this quote that Goodwin gives us at the start of chapter 3:

“Scarcely have you descended on the soil of America,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in the year Lincoln was serving his first term in the state legislature, “when you find yourself in the midst of a sort of tumult; a confused clamor is raised on all sides; a thousand voices come to your ear at the same time, each of them expressing some social needs. Around you everything moves; here, the people of one neighborhood have gathered to learn if a church ought to be built; there, they are working on the choice of a representative; farther on, the deputies of a district are going to town in all haste in order to decide about some local improvements; in another place, the farmers of a village abandon their furrows to go discuss the plan of a road or school.”

“Citizens assemble with the sole goal of declaring that they disapprove of the course of government….To meddle in the government of society and to speak about it is the greatest business and, so to speak, the only pleasure that an American knows….An American does not know how to converse, but he discusses; he does not discourse, but he holds forth. He always speaks to you as to an assembly.”

Sounds just about right today as well. We talk, we “hold forth” but not so much for dialogue but to state our opinions. What do you think?

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January 23, 2008 · 5:06 am

Integrative Psychotherapy II


Chapter one of McMinn’s and Campbell’s Integrative Psychotherapy begins with Christian foundations. Interestingly, chapter 2 (next week) is entitled Scientific Foundations. We may not want to make those distinctions. This chapter lays out their theological anthropology. They begin by asserting that a responsible Christian psychology is founded on the “bedrock” of a Christian worldview. “Christianity–informed by Scripture and responsible theological appraisal–is trump” (p. 25). This is a significant change from older integrative models that often describe their task as weighted equally on the pillars of psychology and theology.

The remaining portions of the chapter discuss what it means to be made in God’s image. They employ 3 ways of looking at imago dei: functional, structural, and relational. Functional: God’s image is revealed in human behavior (especially in our managing and stewarding behaviors). Structural: God’s image is revealed in our moral and rational capacities. Relational: God’s image is revealed in relationality and communicative activities. Psychology also addresses these areas (adaptive behavior, cognitive behavior, effective relationships).  These form the 3 domains of Integrative Psychotherapy.

Then they tackle the Fall. They acknowledge that many psychotherapists live in denial about sin. Taking sin seriously, they say, doesn’t have to mean forgoing empathy. Instead the view it through the lens of Augustine. Sin, they assert is both a state of being (therefore “free will and personal resolve are not enough” to change behavior) and an act. We sin and are sinned against. Why does this matter to counselors? Because we have a tendency to deny and distort due to the effects of the Fall. Sin mars and colors everything one and everything. A robust doctrine of sin enables counselors to recognize the brokenness in the world.

The authors conclude the chapter looking at the theme of redemption. “A doctrine of sin, viewed in the context of a God who loves humanity, is the Christian’s great hope because it opens the possibility of redemption–God buying us back from the bondage of sin through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, restoring a right relationship with those who were lost in their sin” (p. 44). Long sentence, but sums of their view of redemption.  This matters to the Christian counselor because it means there is hope for change, hope for healing, hope for redeeming broken things. This hope is not a general hope of change but founded, for them, in the revelation and incarnation of Christ. “And so a Christian approach to psychotherapy calls us to consider more than general revelation….In short, [it] involves an awareness of sanctification as we all seek to be transformed by the divine life revealed in and mediated to us by Christ” (p. 49).

My thoughts? McMinn and Campbell make a significant break with prior integrative models by acknowledging that the Christian worldview does provide a trump to all other competing reality claims. This does not need to set up an unnecessary sacred/secular divide but does remind us that the biblical data isn’t a sidebar to Christian care, but front and center. I’m glad to see them emphasize this without reservation. Too often folks talk about psychological truth as what is found in general revelation. This is problematic for two reasons. First it denies the rich psychological data in the bible. Second, general revelation has been misused to mean neutral data outside of Scripture. But, general revelation really is natural that points to the existence of the triune God.  

Its clear this text isn’t trying to be an advanced text in biblical anthropology. But what it summarizes is in keeping with classical theology. We’ll have to see how this works out in their model and practice. They write for the professional counseling student. To keep them interested they have little sidebar vignettes and practical tips. Some may like that but I find it a bit annoying because it breaks the flow of their argument. But, I suppose it does tell the student that what they talk about is not all pie in the sky.

Next week, I’ll summarize their scientific foundations in chapter 2.

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January 22, 2008 · 10:59 am

Thinking about the shepherd’s perspective in Psalm 23


Since I am counseling a number of pastors, missionaries, and other christian leaders I have been thinking a lot about the life of shepherds of God’s flock. Shepherds spend their life in and among sheep. They worry over the health of the flock, finding the best food, protecting from dangers. They risk their own lives (and reputations), They consider how to comfort and correct. Good shepherds know and value their flock.

The sheep, on the other hand, rarely think about the shepherds; rarely concern themselves with the well-being of the shepherds. And so the life of the shepherd is a lonely life–if not in close community with other shepherds.

So, yesterday I had a thought. What does Psalm 23 read like from the human Shepherd’s perspective? Yes, this Psalm is about the Lord. But we have our human shepherds to guide us as well.

  • The shepherd guides the sheep on the right path? Who guides the shepherd?  
  • The shepherd leads through the valley of the shadow of death. Who calms the fears of the shepherd?
  • The shepherd prepares an overflowing table in front of enemies. Who protects the shepherd?
  • The shepherd anoints the sheep. Who binds up the Shepherd?  

We know from the prophets that there are many dangers for the Shepherds. They can abandon the sheep out of their own fear. They can speak “peace, peace” to avoid conflict. They use the sheep, feed on the sheep to satisfy their own desires.

So, where do the shepherds receive their care? From each other and the Lord. Here’s where the analogy breaks down (and good that it does!). In our case, our shepherds are also sheep like us. So, we can care for our shepherd/sheep when sheep cannot care for their shepherd.

I’m reminded of Isaiah 40 of the example of God as Shepherd. He comforts Israel despite her sin and punishment. He reminds Israel that he is greater than all of Creation and that the sheep should look at his incomparable majesty and be comforted. And while human shepherd grow weary (v. 30f), the Lord renews those who put their hope in him in order to run and not weary, to walk and not faint.

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January 22, 2008 · 5:25 am

David White on “Sinners Need Forgiveness not Blame”


Check out this great (short) eassy in the Philadelphia Daily News by HarvestUSA’s David White. He addresses the all-too-common tendency for Christians to sound self-righteous when talking about sexual sins. Here’s the link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080112_Sinners_need_forgiveness__not_blame.html?adString=ph.news/news_update;!category=news_update&randomOrd=011608074014

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January 21, 2008 · 12:41 pm

Science Monday: Suicidality in Teens across Cultures


This week we spend time in our psychopathology class considering the biblical literature regarding causes and effects of suffering. We do this because any course on problems in living must help students first understand the depths and complexities of suffering. Otherwise our study of problems will be rather sterile if we can’t deeply feel the pain. Some painful suffering leads to suicidal thoughts and that is where I want us to go today…

The January 2008 issue of American Psychologist (63:1) considers “Cultural Considerations in Adolescent Suicide: Prevention and Psychosocial Treatment.” Suicide is most likely to be considered by those who feel intolerable emotional pain and perceive no way out of that pain–other than death.

Not surprisingly, there are significant racial and cultural differences in rates of suicide across ethnicities (Native Americans have the highest, African Americans have the lowest in both genders). Culture plays a big role in each ethnicity’s perception of suicide behaviors, choice of help-seeking behaviors, and what might help prevent suicidality. A couple of examples from the article:

  1. African American male emphasis on coolness may protect them from giving into suicide at first but may increase the likelihood of individuals trying “to provoke others into killing them as an indirect method of suicide” (p. 19).
  2. High rates of suicide among Native American youth, “occur in the context of high rates of other risk-taking and potentially life-endangering behaviors” (p. 21).

The authors look at issues including acculturative stress, enculturation, different manifestations of distress, and cultural distrust in trying to treat and prevent suicide across various cultures. They contend that few culturally sensitive prevention and treatment models exist at this point. In other words, we cannot assume that generic methods of encouraging youth to seek help when distressed will be helpful. In other words, if given the chance, we must make sure we try to understand their (not our) perception of their situation, their pain, their family/community, and possible avenues of hope. Further, we must try to understand how they may perceive us (the counselor) due to our own ethnicity and position of power. We must counter our tendency to allow fear to draw us into a position where we start exhorting our teen clients–thereby shutting them down.

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January 18, 2008 · 9:53 am

Conference Opportunity to hear Dr. Langberg with Ruth Naomi Floyd


Wanted to let locals know of an upcoming conference that should be quite enjoyable. On February 23, 2008, the TenthWomen 2008 Annual Conference (one day) features Diane Langberg and the gospel jazz vocalist, Ruth Naomi Floyd. Diane will speak three times and Floyd will give three short periods of special music. Conference title: The God of All Comfort. The schedule also lists time for group worship and Q & A. Both of these women are powerful in their medium and I highly recommend attending. For more information, see www.tenth.org. Cost is 35 dollars (includes lunch if you pre-register) or less if you are in college or grad school.

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