You Don’t Need a Therapist, You Need Relationships

“It took me several therapists before I found one I liked.” I heard this statement in an ad I saw a while back as I was patiently waiting for my video to start. I had already seen quite a few ads for online therapy. I’m not sure what that says about my online behavior or what my phone might have heard me muttering, but I hope I was being shown these ads simply because everyone was getting blasted by them. If not, and if Google is reading this article, please stop sending me therapy ads.

This particular line about trying out different therapists before finding the right one struck me as unusually absurd. I think more than anything I was surprised by the agenda being promoted by this video. It wasn’t overtly telling people struggling with crippling life problems that they should try therapy. No, it was normalizing the whole concept of therapy for everyone. It was seeking to suggest that therapy should be a normal part of life, and choosing a therapist is as normal and casual as choosing a new show to watch or which restaurant to go to. The creators of this ad knew what they were doing. They wanted people to watch the ad and get the impression that basically everyone should have a therapist, and that finding a therapist is like finding a primary care physician. Everyone needs one, and you should probably try out several different ones until you find the right fit.

On one level, that’s not surprising. More customers means more profits, so for an online therapy company to suggest that therapy is for everyone makes sense. But I found the whole thing incredibly sad and borderline dystopian. Now, I doubt this was a genuine testimony. This was probably a paid actor, but I imagined the scenario the advertisers wanted me to imagine. I thought of someone at home, alone, overwhelmed by life, trying out half-hour to one-hour talk sessions with random strangers until they found someone they clicked with. It honestly sounded like someone who just needed a friend, a close friend, someone who was grounded and could listen to their problems and give them counsel. Living in a culture that has stripped away marriage, stripped away church, and stripped away face-to-face interactions, people are noticing there is a hole. Many therapists are happy to step into the gap, but I think we need to take a step back. I think a relationship with someone we already know is going to be better than lining up a therapist.

 

Some Qualifications

With a click-baity title like the one used for this post, I can hear the protests coming fast and hard, so let me answer a few objections I know people might have. First, for the grammar nerds out there: yes, I know that the title is a comma splice. The problem is semicolons and periods in a title would look really weird, so it was the least bad option. Second, and more seriously, I am not saying that therapists are bad people or even that they are doing anything wrong by being a therapist. More often than not, therapists are people who care about others and want to help them.

Third, I am not saying that therapists never help people. I think talking to a friendly stranger about your problems will probably help you think through your problems and ease your loneliness. But that is like taking an Advil when you have brain cancer. Will the Advil help? Yes, it will temporarily relieve the pain, but it won’t fix the problem. And if you keep taking Advil rather than receiving treatment for cancer, you’re going to be in a worse position.

Finally, I’m not even saying that people should never ever go to therapy. I would, of course, be worried about the worldview of a therapist. I would want the therapist to be Christian, and would prefer a biblical counselor who is going to be explicitly rooted in Scripture. But I do think that there might be extreme situations where having someone who has dealt with similar extreme situations could be helpful. I just don’t think your average American citizen needs such help, and I think a therapist should be a last resort rather than your first option. I think God designed it so that your help should come primarily from family, friends, and pastors.

 

You Need Family

Families should be the first ones to help you if you have problems. One of the major problems we see right now is a loneliness epidemic sweeping our nation. That is exactly what we should expect to see. As our culture continues to attack and undermine the family, as pursuing a career continues to be the measure of success, and as marriage continues to be delayed, we should expect loneliness. After all, when God saw that man was alone, He didn’t send Adam a therapist, He sent him a wife (Genesis 2:18, 22).

I want to be careful here. Some people would love to be married, have tried, and haven’t been able to get married. My heart truly goes out to such people, and they are not who I have in mind with this critique. In such situations, I would encourage looking to the church family that God has given them. But for others, their singleness has come from prioritizing other things (normally career), from a resistance to the idea of a long-term relationship, or simply from a lack of concern. The default in our culture has become singleness until the mid-30s, and this is not good. A husband or a wife should be the first place you turn when you are struggling with personal problems. Siblings and parents are also often a big help. I realize that families can be broken, and that some family relationships deteriorate, but as a general rule if you need help you should turn first to your family.

Families not only help us when we are down, though, they also give us something to live for. I remember a young man who was about to get married telling me that he had found making money to be empty, but that he hoped having a wife and kids to provide for would bring more meaning. He was right. God made men in particular to be leaders, providers, and protectors. God made women to be mothers and caretakers. God designed us as humans to lead families. When men have no one depending on them and women have no one to care for, it’s like revving an engine that is in park. Things are going to overheat and wear down sooner.

Now that energy can be successfully rediverted. Paul was single, and he encouraged the church at Corinth to invest their extra time (and energy) into the church in 1 Corinthians 7. Yet most people haven’t taken the extra bandwidth from their singleness and poured it into service for God. If you don’t follow the normal path that God created humans for (having a family), and instead use your time, money, and energy on pursuing happiness, you will paradoxically end up miserable. And that’s not something that therapy can fix.

 

You Need Friends

So the first line of defense is a solid family. If you are lonely, you should turn first to your husband, wife, parents, or siblings for help. But the Bible also has a lot to say about friends. Your best friend should be your spouse, but having other godly friends in your life to pray for you, encourage you, and confront you can be invaluable. Obviously, the best place to make such friendships is in the church. There you will find people who are going down the same path that you are and have wisdom that they can share that will help you in the problems of life. There you will find people who also struggled with a rebellious teen, or who got a frightening diagnosis, or who felt overwhelmed by the difficulties of life.

I’m privileged to work with a great group of pastors at the church I serve. We’ve said before that one of the advantages of having a pastoral staff like we have is that bad ideas die quicker. I’ve excitedly made pitches of things I thought would be great only to see a frown come across the face of another pastor, followed by a few questions designed to show problems I might not have thought about. I’ve come to realize that often when that happens my friend is right. We all need that, not just in ministry but in life. We need people who will sharpen us, who will push us to be better, and will push back when we start saying and thinking things that aren’t true. This is the body of Christ. This is what the New Testament calls us to do in passages like Romans 15:14 or Hebrews 3:12-13. If you don’t have friends or aren’t participating in a church, then problems will likely grow in your life.

One of the advantages of therapy is that the person you are talking to doesn’t really know you. It’s easier to open up in such a circumstance, as you probably won’t see them again outside of the office. But that’s also one of the greatest weaknesses of therapy, because they don’t really know you. They know the version of you that you present in the sessions you have together, but there’s a whole lot about yourself that you probably won’t tell them. It may be more awkward to tell someone who knows you what you are struggling with, but long term it’s healthier and more likely to lead to a good outcome. So get friends who will help you grow, and if you don’t know where to find any get plugged in at a good church and go looking for them.

 

You Need a Pastor

So if you have a major issue you need help with, who should you go to? Well, I would trust a non-Christian therapist the least. They might have stumbled upon some things that are truly helpful because of common grace, but they might also give you the wisdom of the world that would make your life worse. What about a Christian therapist? Again, I would be hesitant here. Many Christian therapists will bring Scripture into the equation if you ask for it, and many of them will use biblical concepts like being thankful (gratitude journals) or controlling your thinking (cognitive behavioral therapy), but these will often be run through a modern medical grid. What about a biblical counselor? I’m not opposed to biblical counseling, but we don’t see biblical counseling in the New Testament. We see all believers helping believers (Romans 15:14), and we see pastors given for the building up of the church (Ephesians 4:11-13). I’m not saying all therapy is bad and there is never a time when you should use therapy or better yet biblical counseling. I am saying that if something in your life isn’t working, your reflex should be to check what God has said and make sure you are doing everything according to Scripture. And I think the person best equipped to do that is likely your pastor.

We live in a world where therapy is increasingly normal. It’s sad to me to see that many Christians have turned to therapy to fix their problems in their lives when God has given them the help of families, a church family, and pastors to provide that very help. As we look at our country, it’s hard to ignore the fact that more and more people are turning away from what Scripture says and are charting their own course. The result, not surprisingly, is depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Therapy might work as a stopgap to help people struggling in that way, but it won’t solve the problem. To really solve the problem, we need to get back to living life the way our Creator told us to live – in families, church communities, and with healthy spiritual leaders to guide us. In other words, you don’t need a therapist. You need relationships.

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Ben Hicks is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis. This article originally appeared on his Substack.

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Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash