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Foundational Discussions in Christian Psychology

guage with which the client speaks of the events lute terms complete with a DSM diagnosis. The
and situations of her/his life, and the narratives starting point in psychotherapy, as in evangeli-
that the client has thus constructed to make sen- cal theology, is the human problem, the thing
se of life. Through practices of reflexive questio- that’s wrong, the thing that must be fixed.
ning, the problematic realities are deconstruc-
ted and preferred realities are re-constructed. This is one of the basic tenets of evangelical
In addition to the Freedman and Combs text theology, based on the New Testament teachings
mentioned above, several other important text about the problem of sin. The most extensive
books have been written to delineate this work description of this is in Romans 1-3, where the
(White and Epston, 1990; Morgan, 2000; White, Apostle Paul concludes that “there is none righ-
2007) teous” and that “all have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God”. Dabney (http://www.spur-
One of the key slogans in narrative practice the geon.org/~phil/dabney/5points.htm#t) writes,
idea that the person is not the problem, the pro- “By original sin we mean the evil quality which
blem is the problem. This invites the therapist to characterizes man‘s natural disposition and
look at the problem as something that is other will. We call this sin of nature original, because
than the person. The person is not a problem, each fallen man is born with it, and because it
rather, the person has a problem, or in even is the source or origin in each man of his actual
more narrative terms, a problem has taken a transgressions.”
place in a person’s life with is constraining the
way the person wants to live his life. The doctrine of original sin is often one of the
The question is, how shall we think of the per- first statements made in a list of articles of faith.
son with whom we are meeting? Do we see her Evangelical preaching is often intended to be
as a lost sinner, or as an image-bearer? I con- “preaching for conviction,” that is convincing
tend in this paper that the starting point in both the listeners of their sinfulness in order to then
theology and psychotherapy will influence the offer the good news of salvation. The suffering,
stance we take when counselling or ministering. death and resurrection of Jesus, it is believed,
If the therapist sees the client as damaged, as ha- cannot be understood apart from the context of
ving a pathology, he will take a different stance human utter sinfulness. The person is the pro-
than the one that Epston took in the anecdote blem, and must be convinced that s/he is the
above. If the pastor begins with the stance that problem.
the person seeking pastoral counsel is a depra-
ved sinner, she will respond differently than if This approach is being challenged by missiona-
she sees that person as a bearer of the image of ries who are seeking to relate to cultures which
God. The therapeutic outcomes will likely be have a different understanding of human fai-
quite different. lings. Several authors in a recent edition of Mis-
sion Frontiers have described their efforts to
Evangelical, and especially Calvinist, theology make the gospel understandable in the Buddhist
invites us to think of persons in this way. The culture of Thailand. (See MF Nov/Dec 2014).
first truth of five-point Calvinism is that we are For example, Banton and Mali Boon-Itt (2014)
in a state of “total depravity.” We were born in state: “Sin: in Buddhism there is no such con-
original sin. “In sin did my mother conceive cept, only bad deeds, bap—that is black actions
me” (Psalm 51, KJV). The conclusion to this (kamma), which in Buddhism is action that is
then is that we begin with a pathologizing of the unskillful, akusala, hampering one‘s attainment
person. The person is the problem. of nibbana.” The anthropology of the practices
This theology shares with many approaches to of narrative therapy also contradicts this fun-
psychotherapy this attitude towards the pro- damental belief in human fallenness. There is a
blems with people. In psychotherapy, it’s called problem, to be sure, but it is not the person. The
psychopathology. In psychotherapy then, the problem has entered the person’s life in such a
first step is the “assessment,” in its most abso- way as to oppress and constrain the person in

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