The Failure of Evangelical Mental Health Care: Treatments That Harm Women, LGBT Persons and the Mentally Ill

by John Weaver

In the evangelical community, a variety of alternative mental health treatments--deliverance/exorcism, biblical counseling, reparative therapy and many others--have been proposed for the treatment of mentally ill, female and LGBT evangelicals. This book traces the history of these methods, focusing on the major proponents of each therapeutic system while also examining mainstream evangelical psychology. The author concludes that in the majority of cases mental disorders are blamed on two main issues--sin and demonic possession/oppression--and that as a result some communities have become a mental health underclass who are ill-served or oppressed by both alternative and mainstream evangelical therapeutic systems. He argues that the only recourse left for mentally ill, female and LGBT evangelicals is to rally for reform and increased accountability for both professional and alternative evangelical practitioners.

Genres: Religion, Mental Health, Counselling

329 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 3, 2014

Reviews

[Larry Newberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Insightful. I read this through in a couple of days. Having experienced the complete failure of Nouthetic Counseling first-hand, this book helped me understand this controversial approach to "helping" people with mental illness. I am grateful for the fine work John Weaver has done by shining a light on the darkness that is "Biblical" Counseling.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone who has experienced trauma from evangelical mental healthcare.

[J. Ewbank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where to even begin? I am an evangelical. I graduated from a Methodist College with a degree in psychology and followed it up with a M.Div at Garrett-Evangelical, a United Methodist Seminary. Even with my training in college and some in seminary, I would never have tried to help anyone with a serious illness, that would be the job for trained counselors. I wish there was another name to use than evangelical for this work because it tars others as well. However, I do know that there are the extreme folks who see things differently.

The book. This book is well researched. I have never, however, heard of these schools of "psychology", at least we did not discuss them in college or seminary. I know that many of them are fairly recent and are not main line. Did not know that people believed sin to be the basis for manic depressive, or schizophrenia. A new one on me.

Weaver has done a lot of research and put it together to show how some very conservative elememts of Christianity treat mental illness. He has done us a service in this regard.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the Isms" "Wesley's Wars" and "To Whom It May Concern."

[Jonathan Ring · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very very interesting. I was totally unaware that such a wide variety of biblical counseling existed. I was also appalled by the methods of counseling described in the book. If it wasn't clear before that taking a biblical approach to counseling would inevitably lead to greater illness then it should be by the end of this book.