BroIgnatius:
If you want to help people who have sexual problems, do it as a Nouthetic therapist. That is a therapy according to biblical principles. There is no school for Catholics for this, but I am looking into starting one, but knowing your faith, the bible, the teachings of the Catholic Church thoroughly will give you the foundation needed.
I wouldn’t recommend this at all. There may be issues with modern psychology, but I don’t think that means throwing it all out (which is what nouthetic counseling does). I’ve seen a lot of people say that kind of thing actually made their problems worse.
Sorry, my friend, but you really do not know what you are talking about. The problem with secular counseling is that it includes practices that are contrary to the faith. For example, in secular sex counseling masturbation is encouraged. Patrick Carnes, the top dog in this field, even says that without masturbation a person cannot grow into a balanced adult.
Anytime anyone, including a traditional therapist or psychiatrist, uses biblical principles, that is Nouthetic counseling. One of the top psychiatrist in the country, Dr. Richard Gallagher, uses biblical principles, and one of the leading psychologist, Dr. Paul C. Vitz, of whom I am personally acquainted, uses biblical principles.
In fact, all Christian counselors who call themselves Christian counselors use biblical principle. These people may not use the term Nouthetic, but a rose by any other name is still a rose.
If biblical counseling made things worse for people, there can be only three possible reasons:
- the client was not open to the message of God and His truth
- the counselor held views he thinks are biblical but are not (many Protestants would be in this category)
- the counselor was not a good counselor
But, saying that biblical principles made things worse for people is to say that God made things worse for people. Nope. Not possible.
I have some 45 years experience as a counselor, and am in the planning stages of starting a school for people who wish to learn this is a concerted way. The only time I have seen biblical principled based counseling not work is when people did not want to change their lives to conform to the Christ-life. They wanted, rather, to do things their way, or not give up their favorite sin, and other reasons of that sort. Or when items 2 or 3 is true.
There is no biblical-based counselor I know who knows what they are doing that throws out the secular psychology baby with the bath water. And many of these people are traditionally trained therapist. Father Groeschel, whom I was personally acquainted, was one of those.
There is much that can inform us from the fields of psychology, psychiatry, medicine, sociology, and anthropology. And, as I mentioned there are many that come from the traditional mental health fields who incorporate biblical and faith based principles in their practices.
I am not sure what your qualifications are to “not recommend this”. Certainly, anecdotal information is inadequate to form any opinions.