Page 192 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 6
P. 192
Christian Psychology alive
Michael Cook (USA)
A Response to Hanna
Ranssi-Matikainen’s
Christian Marriage Camps
as an Intervention in
Marriage Crises
I will begin with a slightly embarrassing confes- Michael D. Cook currently serves as
sion; I found Dr. Ranssi-Matikainen’s disclosure an Associate Professor in Huntington
of increasing marital dissolution in Finland to University’s Graduate Counseling
be ironically relieving, given a similar – perhaps Program. His undergraduate degree
even worse – decline of marriages in the Uni- is in Sociology (B.A.) from Albany
ted States. As one who strives against what of- State University, his advanced de-
ten feels like an overwhelming tide of divorce grees are a M.Div. in Pastoral Mini-
and family dysfunction, the news normalized stries and a Ph.D. in Psychology and
my embattled experience. Thus, as a pastor, Counseling from New Orleans Bap-
professor, and marriage and family therapist, I tist Theological Seminary. Mike is a
must commend Dr. Ranssi-Matikainen for her Licensed Marriage and Family The-
ministry to couples and families; she has both rapist (IN) and has served in several
my admiration and my appreciation. I sense mental health facilities and in several
not only a kinship in faith, but also a kinship in churches. He specializes in marital
calling and purpose. To maintain vitality in fa- therapy, trauma therapy, spiritual for-
mily ministry against a growing swell of family mation and formational counseling.
dysfunction, as she has done, is a noteworthy
accomplishment, and any criticism of her arti-
cle – constructive as it is – is offered in a spirit
of encouragement and “iron sharpening iron.”
Despite my following concerns, I greatly affirm
the author’s intent to position marital and fa- I grew excited as I expected to read a descripti-
mily relations in a Christian context. Though on of the interventions around which the camp
other traditions – secular and otherwise – have experience is structured and of some evaluati-
much to share, the Bible and Christian thought on of its efficacy. My hope was to add to or to
and tradition are a rather deep well regarding adjust my own repertoire of therapeutic inter-
marital and familial concerns, and perhaps one ventions based on the efficacy of the interven-
of the greatest tragedies is that modern Chri- tions potentially described herein. However,
stianity has more preferred to draw water from the title turned out to be misleading as no such
strange wells than to retrieve from our own. description of the camp experience was offered.
After all, whether the concern is marriage and The focus of the article was rather a descripti-
family functioning or any other, the retrieval of on of a historical-cultural and theoretical ma-
the waters of understanding and remediation trix through which the marital dynamics were
from our own deep well is the first and primary viewed and of the research results. The omissi-
task of Christian psychology. on of the description of the camp intervention
was disappointing. Further, I found no descrip-
Upon reading the title, Christian Marriage
Camps as an Intervention in Marriage Crises,
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