Biblical Stories for Psychotherapy and Counseling by Kaplan Kalman;Schwartz Matthew; & Kalman J. Kaplan

Author:Kaplan, Kalman;Schwartz, Matthew; & Kalman J. Kaplan [Schwartz, Matthew B. & Kaplan, Kalman J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Clinical Implications

It is often tempting to project a worldly cynicism to protect oneself from hurt or disappointment. "I didn't really expect anything," one might say, "and you are naive to have hope." This can extend to protecting oneself from rejection in love and failure in work.

From such a vantage point, hope seems naive, faith is to be dismissed, and love is illusory. Goodness is merely weakness, and right and truth are determined by might. The difficulty is that the cynical response sounds so much more sophisticated. Mistrust sounds so much more worldly and smart than trust, and negativity sounds so much more rooted in experience than optimism. Indeed, the sense of the tragic seems to reflect a deeper vision than a hopeful stance.

A biblical approach to therapy suggests that the opposite is true. Hope in the face of all the onslaughts of life may, in fact, represent a clearer and deeper vision than the tragic. The things that cannot be seen may be even more important than those that can be. This does not mean that patients should be encouraged to act foolishly or to put their lives at risk through meaningless and illusory attempts to illustrate power and freedom. True freedom can come only from putting oneself in God's hands and relinquishing a need to control everything in the environment. True freedom allows one to experience a sense of awe in the wonders of the world.

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