Americans are over-diagnosed with mental health issues to receive chemical treatments rather than taking care of the spiritual lack at the root of the problem, according to Dr. Greg Gifford.
Gifford, an assistant professor of biblical counseling at The Master’s University, appeared on Morning Wire on Sunday to talk about his recent book, “Lies My Therapist Told Me,” in which he dissects an over-diagnosis of mental health issues in the United States.
Far more Americans are diagnosed with mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, than are truly suffering from physiological issues. Many such problems can be solved if the patients are willing to address deeper spiritual issues, according to Gifford.
“When you believe that all that there is is a natural explanation, when you have a naturalistic worldview, then you’re looking for a naturalistic category to explain what’s happening in your inner person,” Gifford told Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham. “Naturalism has set the stage for us to blame things on our brain that are not truly brain issues.”
Christmas Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships
The process for diagnosing mental health issues relies on flawed arbitrary, naturalistic science. In addition, once a person is diagnosed with a mental illness, the “therapeutic terminology” used to describe a supposed chemical imbalance comes to define how a patient sees themselves–as a patient with an illness rather than a person with a spiritual crisis.
In reality, many people are missing a proper understanding of themselves and their relationship with God, leading to tension in their “mind” and soul that has been confused for a biological problem with their brain, according to Gifford.
“The mental health movement has actually confused the brain and the mind and used medical terminology to describe the immaterial mind, and our mind is not material. You can’t touch it. You can’t put it under a microscope. You can’t study it with scientific methods because it’s immaterial,” said Gifford.
To heal many problems seen as mental illness, Gifford says that people should go see their pastors before seeing a therapist.
“As a Christian, if you’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, I need to go to my psychologist, my therapist, to help me with my mind,’ I’m saying, no, I think you should actually go to your church and look to your pastor, and look to the means of grace that God has provided to bring about mind renewal, which is what the Bible calls it,” said Gifford. “You’re going to see better results than what your psychologist was ever going to provide for you.”
Watch the entire interview here.
.png)
.png)
