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ons, I was a witness to her emp�ness Because therapeu�c alliance with a pa�ent. These rup-
significant deficits in my own life had been tures in the therapeu�c alliance are also trying
witnessed and comforted during my training for the pa�ent and can be a source of new
analysis, I was able to comfort her with what suffering for him or her. Henry, Schacht &
I had “received from God” (2 Corinthians 1:4). Strupp (1986,1990) have iden�fied the followi-
Polly and I mourned her losses of love, ng prac��oner behaviors in poor-outcome
dreams, and illusions. Within Polly’s void of cases: hos�le control (i.e. beli�ling and bla-
losses, she became known by me in ways her ming), hos�le separa�on (i.e., ignoring and ne-
mother and her church family did not know glec�ng), complexity (i.e., messages simulta-
her. As Polly and I mourned together in the neously conveying contradictory informa�on),
ashes of her suffering, we together experi- and less affilia�ve autonomy gran�ng (i.e.,
enced redemp�ve and authen�c Chris�an re- affirming and understanding). (See also Caston-
la�ng—the one who has mourned and recei- guay, Boswell, et al. 2010).
ved comfort, witnessing and comfor�ng an- Boisvert & Faust (2006) have demonstrated
other. Our authen�c bonds of love become that prac��oners tend to under-es�mate the
the very rela�onal fabric of the present and incidence of nega�ve treatment outcomes.
coming Kingdom of God. (Adapted, Hoffman, Other studies reveal similar findings: see Foa &
2013) Emmelkamp (1983), Mays & Frank (1985),
Strupp, Hadley & Gomez-Schwartz (1977) and
The authors understand human suffering since Strupp & Hadley (1985). Lilienfeld (2007) has
Jesus’ resurrec�on as a shared project between convincingly argued that a necessary but large-
the God who discerns good from evil and choo- ly missing variable to be studied in therapeu�c
ses the good, and the joint heirs in Christ (Rom. outcomes research is the problem of poten�al-
8:17) who can now also discern good from evil ly harmful treatments (PHTs) and has published
and choose the good. While human knowledge a list of empirically based PHTs.
of good and evil could not be reversed to an ori- Wampold (2006) offered evidence that harmful
ginal human innocence (Gen. 2:17, 3:3ff); God psychotherapists’ blindness to their own intra-
in Christ and through the Holy Spirit has em- psychic deficits may be more predic�ve of the-
powered regenerated ministers of reconcilia�- rapy outcomes than the therapeu�c alliance.
on who can now live in the ambivalence of For instance, prac��oners who were assessed
good and evil and choose the good and overco- with low self-esteem and elevated levels of im-
me the evil with the good (Rom. 12:21). In this pulsiveness, worry and emo�onal expressive-
fellowship, or partnership with God, we surren- ness in rela�onships (i.e. anxious a�achment
der to His project of shalom, and live in the styles) were found to be less empathic in the
eternal present to do the greater works than provision of psychotherapy. Henry, Strupp et al.
those done when Jesus was here with us (John (1993) found that prac��oners who were hos�-
14:12). le toward themselves were more likely to be
Central to our role as psychotherapists is our hos�le to pa�ents.
service as ministers of reconcilia�on. Staying in A psychotherapist’s early developmental for-
the suffering with our pa�ent un�l there is res- ma�on can also contribute to harmful outco-
urrec�on, o�en compels us to sit with the mes. Chris�anson (1991) and Hilliard, Henry, &
other “among the ashes” for much longer than Strupp (2000) have separately found that prac-
a week of days (Job 2). A theology of suffering ��oner memories of parental nega�ve percep-
calls us to persevere with the other in the ashes �ons during their child and adolescent deve-
with our own distress of some�mes not kno- lopment correlated with nega�ve interpersonal
wing what to do or say. psychotherapeu�c process. Henry & Strupp
(1994) found sufficient evidence to assert “a
When the psychotherapist falters theore�cally coherent link between early ac-
Suffering with a pa�ent is a trying event. Such �ons by parents toward the therapist, the the-
suffering can induce the psychotherapist to ta- rapist’s adult introject state, [and the thera-
citly if not ac�vely relinquish some or all of the pist’s] vulnerability to counter-therapeu�c pro-
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