The Creepy World of Christian Counseling

[Rozlee]

I admit it: My son is a heel. He left a wonderful woman and a 6-year-old son to shack up with a skank.

They live in West Virginia. Yeah. Hallelujah land. My little grandson has been taking it bad. He's been having tantrums, crying spells, acting up at school and screaming at his mother and his other grandma, whom they are currently staying with. He cries when my son drops him off after visits and begs him to please stay with them. It's heart-wrenching.

They're on Medicaid now and Child Behavioral therapy up there is almost non-existent on public health. Hey, even regular health care is the pits. Anyone around here from W.V.? Sorry if I'm dissing your state, but as both an RN and a patient, I've had some terrible medical experiences up there.

My daughter-in-law's mother suggested Christian counseling. Everyone in her church raved about it. My daughter-in-law called me and asked my opinion.

As usual, I told her to check for the counselor's credentials. Was he/she certified by the NACBT? How long have they been in the field? Do they have good references? She's a terrific girl, but rather naive. Some of the church elders pushed her into it.

It sounds horrible. Some of the questions asked: Have you had an experience lately with people that have mocked your faith or persecuted you for your beliefs? Has Brandon (my grandson) had experiences in school with children that have mocked his Christian faith or beliefs? What children does he play with? What kind of beliefs do their parents have? The whole thing seemed to revolve around their personal religious practices and barely touched on the fact that my little man was acting out because he was watching his family disintegrating before his eyes. In fact, not to my surprise, they almost seemed to think my daughter-in-law had been somewhat lacking because it happened! And they ended the whole thing with references in scripture to demonic influences and children being obedient to their parents or suffering gawd's wrath and prayer, prayer, prayer.

I'm not too happy with my daughter-in-law being a religious person. But, I'm glad she's not in-your-face about it and is only a casual church-goer. I'm glad the Christian counseling experience soured her on it all. I guess I'll have to borrow from equity to finance my little man some actual therapy. But, if this is how they treat their parishioners that have emotional and special needs, my heart goes out to those parishioners. They're getting snake oil instead of genuine therapy. And they're probably getting a paranoid mindset from the leading questions being asked by said "Christian Counselors" about fantastical persecutions from outside their church. Maybe I'm tarring all Christian counselors with the same brush from one bad experience that I heard about. Being an atheist, I admit I'm biased. But, even so, it's scary. It's shit ass scary.