What is Therapy?
In a nutshell it's the ability to work together with others to understand problems and come up with plans for fixing them.
I love therapy. I love education. I love religion. I love the law. I absolutely love when they are integrated and I find a lot of parallels between the them. When I discovered the reason why everything makes better sense. You see the school of theology came first and then there was a great divide over time and the school of psychology was born and it is an off shoot. The school of psychology went into another direction. I find this entirely fascinating. If you think of it in reverse it's like all things lead back to God.
I also think this split is important when you are considering making life decisions that impact others. In reality no matter what way you ultimately decide God is there for you and so is psychology and even our government. I like the casino phrase the House always wins. I love that religion or the law will either encourage you, inspire you, or force you to do what is right. Why? The House always wins. This is true across the board. However, what pains me everyday is the amount of pain humans inflict on each other in the name of advancement, love, and self preservation. I'm not immune to it either and my hands are not exactly clean. I find myself often filtering my words and actions through the theology and psychology lens and have to rely on grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness to see me through. I am learning that the power of education is a great equalizer. There are many ways to get and be educated because ultimately if you are listening our Creator is always speaking. Sometimes too much but nevertheless He is still speaking. We just have to turn our internal radio on to the correct frequencies.
After two decades of working in an environment that is anti-christian I find it completely amazing and dumbfounding that one is accept so freely (psychology) and the other one has deliberately been kicked to the curb or thrown out of the window and called archaic (theology). As I look at the news this week there seemed to be two school shootings, a war, and nonstop violence in our country and our world and the frequency has increased. I find it interesting that more people aren't highlighting the disconnect between the two schools of thinking.
I believe that theology and psychology both work. I also think that one can't work well without the other. You see they both claim to support the structure of family which research supports is best to raise healthy children. I find it entirely interesting that people say go to one school and end up divorced and when other people go to the other school they end up staying together. Some for good reasons and others not so much.
I have some wonderings on this entire process that I would love to explore further or read about at a later time from highly educated experts. I love reading neuroscience articles and case studies for fun.
Focus on Theology and Psychology to Improve Education and our Modern Society.
Why is one allowed and encouraged in public schools and in public places and the other one isn't?
If we are all different and different is embraced in our independent country than why isn't the school of theology allowed to openly be onsite everyday and during major crisis? Why is our children been told across the board that one is more important and more culturally relevant and the other one is foolish and backwards?
What is one allowed to be practiced and the other one is forbidden? With the amount of children, teens, adults, and seniors experiencing so much mental distress during this time psychologist and theologist are experiencing a dramatic influx of new clients that more life coaches, educators, parents, leaders and etc are needed to help support our troubled society. This dramatic influx is taxing the system.
One child might need psychology to make sense of the world and another child might need theology to do so, why is one given more preference than the other? What happens when someone needs a hybrid approach and it isn't provide until they are in a medical setting? Why is one given more higher archery than the other? When both are needed at this time to make positive and dramatic changes to our education system, our prison system, and to our society overall.
Points to consider: Have a hybrid approach been considered? Has anyone considered the research on the benefits of prayer being reintroduced since the absence of it seems to have increased school violence, reduced children's ability to access music and art, increased unnecessary testing, reduced teaching history and character education, increased disciplined problems, and decreased meaningful parental involvement. In other words reduced fun and increased mental distress, anxiety, and stress in children and in everyone else especially to all of their caretakers.
I would love a quick study on the data because it's seems like lives are depending on it. I would also encourage leaders to use the data and research already collected from decades of studies of increase crime and behavior issues, test scores, and etc. Then, use that to draw conclusions and then present the evidence unbiasedly to create rapid and meaningful reform.
What is needed is more training. We need to train more people overall to help care for others. We need more mental health trainings. We need more sensitivity trainings and more awareness trainings for people of all demographics including people with diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health conditions. We need to avoid thinking of therapy as a way to help people with mental health issues it is much broader than that. Everyone and I mean everyone needs mental health education that embraces psychology and theology coping techniques. The reality is you never know who might need what at any given time. The choice should be given to the students/clients and their families. More societal training is needed for emergency and rescue situations across the board and in the recovery phase as well which is a slower process.
Looking ahead: What can be done to reduce violence in our schools and in our country? The constant stress of violence across our nation has taken a toll on our leaders, our communities, our educators, and our families. It is spilling out everywhere from our digital streets to our urban streets. Our country as well as other countries in crisis need an immediate tune up. The effects of primary and secondary trauma is creating a vicious cycle that many are unable to break free from and meaningful recovery before another crisis begins.
As a child I remembered the importance of having assemblies in school, community, and church gatherings to discuss the importance of drugs and alcohol. These energizing To this day I still remember MADD moms against drunk driving and Say No to Drug campaign which still affect my choices today.
Other ponderings
How does violence contribute to the rising cost of medication, medical bills, gas prices, high cost of food, opid and drug crisis, and etc? How can we get off this vicious cycle of crazy? What is the root causes and what can be truly done across the board to see more positive and lasting changes?
How can we get more consistent and clear cut legislation without promoting one sect and demoting another sect in the political realm and the court of public opinion? But rather elevating everyone fairly not just one sect at the expense of another. Our next world, community, and country leaders may be in the sect we are not recognizing or purposely ignoring. We need to cultivate, inspire, and encourage everyone and get everyone eating at the same educational table. Where they can receive grace, love, job, education, and health opportunities.
How can prayer, meditation, exercise, safe places and other coping techniques help those who are struggling?
How can more hybrid therapy provide more mental health breaks, cognitive behavior therapy, and behavior remediation for people struggling to process the intense nature of our current society?
How can we make our society more healthier and function more cohesitively so we don't rely so much on artificial enhancements and stimulants to make it more acceptable to us?
How can we better build our society, our world, and our families on the rock?
What needs to be put back into schools to make them flourish and how can scientific research be used to bring back mental health strategies and common sense legislation and inclusive techniques that work in and out of the classroom for everyone?
How can we put back teaching history, arts, music, literacy, and mediation prayer techniques so that we can teach our children, teenagers, adults, and seniors how to cope during difficult times in healthy and productive ways?
How can we teach students, educators, parents, managers, and community leaders across the board to see people as more than one dimensional but in three dimensional and to recognize and acknowledge that we are all interconnected and that we all depend and need one another?
How can we get these real conversations started? How can we get these conversations started in our schools, universities, churches, communities, and in our governing bodies?
Citations:
Righttime Media-Jennie Allen Get Out of Your Head
Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner
Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas
TV show: Big Bang Theory
wgts
k-9 for Christ
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