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Intentional Legacies: Integration and Beyond
Don MacDonald, PhD
Former President, CAPS West

Integration

Integration of faith and psychology was the compelling call of Christians in psychology during the 1970s and 1980s. That charge remains. It is, however, no longer singularly compelling. We must develop extensions of that broad mission or diminish as an organization.

The idea that the broad theme of integration was necessary but no longer sufficient interestingly occurred to me toward the end of the CAPS Conference in Anaheim. At the Saturday night banquet I heard the importance of integration extolled. To that, I silently said, “Amen.” Simultaneously, however, I realized it was the same message I had heard often since the early 1970s. It was same message that initially drew me to the Christianity- psychology connection. Has anything changed in thirty years? Do we need other messages?

Jesus charged His disciples to evangelize the world (Matthew 28: 18-20). Nothing has changed about the Great Commission either, yet it has broadened and diversified. Jesus first brought the good news to His own ethnic people in Judah. While some disciples continued that emphasis, Paul and other disciples took the message to the gentiles. Later generations of evangelists carried the message throughout the world. Each extension of the message required addressing different people groups in ways that made sense to them so that they could understand the good news of Christ (e.g., the people of Fiji, late Twentieth Century psychologists).

Part of the former tang of integration has been diluted by spirituality entering the mainstream of psychology and other mental health professions. Integration is no longer the only spiritual show in town. The amorphous, socially constructed “spirituality” now in vogue is far from the divinely created Spirituality of the living God. Yet many non-Christian psychologists, counselors, family therapists, and social workers might not know the difference. The blessing of spirituality entering the professional mainstream is that Christians are the most free in the one hundred years plus of psychology to express their faith in relation to their profession (Heie, 1996). The curse is that Christianity, and integration with it, is merely one of many choices on the spirituality menu. Many now seek to integrate spirituality with profession via a pan-spirituality, which is a hodge-podge of personally defined notions and, as such, impervious to accountability.

Here is an example of pan-spirituality. An editor of a national counseling journal asked me in the early summer to write the lead article for a special edition of a professional organization’s publication (MacDonald, 2004). For the first time ever the organization agreed to print articles addressing spirituality. I was intrigued and honored to be asked to undertake such a pioneering task, so I agreed. After writing the journal article and going through multiple revisions, though, I increasingly experienced it as a thorn in the flesh.

Shortly after beginning the article, I found myself feeling blocked. The editorial parameters for writing the article reduced spirituality to the lowest common denominator. That is, anything is spiritual as long as an individual thinks it so. “A Summit on Spirituality” (1995) expressed this sentiment:

Spirituality is…a capacity and tendency that is innate and unique to all persons. (It) moves the individual toward knowledge, love, meaning, hope, transcendence, connectedness, and compassion. Spirituality includes one’s capacity for creativity, growth, and the development of a values system. Spirituality encompasses the religious, spiritual, and transpersonal. (p. 30)

This statement is, in fact, another iteration of humanistic thinking that crystallized approximately one thousand years ago and has popped up in numerous venues since (Tarnas, 1991). As the preacher in Ecclesiastes (1: 9, NAS) said, “…there is nothing new under the sun.”

I know the journal editor personally and understand that pan-spirituality is not the editor’s idea; it was a concession to the anxieties of the broader professional association. I too bought into these concessions by continuing to stick with our agreement. As Friedman (1999) noted, leaders of contemporary groups tend to organize themselves around the most anxious and dependent members, resulting in agendas meant to avoid controversy rather than meant to accomplish something. Such is the pressure exerted by professions (more so in the social sciences than the physical sciences) where the vast majority declare themselves agnostic, atheistic, or pantheistic (Corey, Corey, & Callanan, 2003; Stark, 2003) and are only comfortable with spiritual discussions that are agreeable to everyone. The overall outcome of these pan-spiritual dynamics is “the loss of religious certainties and of transcendence with its larger horizons” (Smith, 2001, p. 1) or—as Steere (1997) so eloquently put it—“spiritual homelessness.”

Integration is in danger of being sucked into the black hole of pan-spirituality. If that happened, the life-saving message of salvation that is core to integration could also be compromised. This is especially likely to happen without the type of clarion call that integration once provided. Indeed, an example of this situation is that the term integration increasingly appears in mainstream professional sources to denote what was once call eclecticism (MacDonald & Webb, 2003). The term may have already lost its faith-practice link vis-à-vis most mental health care professionals. It is imperative, then, that CAPS leadership and/or members find marquee ways to express integration as we have understood it for three decades. Perhaps it is also time to generate a theme or themes in addition to the broad concept of integration.

Beyond

Nothing is broken with the motif of integration. The primary difficulty seems to be one of getting out and clarifying the message. In order to do this, it is essential for CAPS members to become increasingly active and visible in the professional mainstream. Presenting at our own conferences and publishing in our own journals is vital and must continue. We have the additional responsibility, however, to participate in the larger marketplace.

The apostles had occupations prior to and during their ministries. They engaged the mainstream culture while spreading the message of salvation. They got the message across by their words and by their actions. Probably their occupations helped put them in contact with some of the people to whom they carried the Good News. They also modeled a valuable way for CAPS members to get out the message of integration.

We have a local example of mainstream engagement. Christopher Rosik, Past-President of CAPS West, published an article and a rejoinder in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (Rosik, 2003ab). Dr. Rosik discussed the controversial clinical matter of conversion therapy for those clients who choose to undergo the process. He also discussed the issue of ethics in who decides therapeutic goals, particularly when the therapist disagrees with the client’s choices.

Dr. Rosik is to be commended for such important contributions to the profession. The journal editor is to be commended as well for her courage in deciding to publish the articles, despite the predictably anxious objections of many journal readers (e.g., Green, 2003). Dr. Rosik modeled integration by his public discussion of therapeutic and ethical matters. He also provided alternative perspectives for readers of a publication who seldom have the chance to encounter such views.

We have many options open to us for addressing integration in more specific ways than in the past. Research and clinical applications are the key areas of engagement. Many CAPS members are active in one or both areas. While any topic can relate to integration, some that more obviously relate are: (a) ethics (e.g., Rosik, 2003a), (b) multicultural issues (i.e., faith, spirituality, religion as matters of diversity; e.g., Sink, Rowley, MacDonald, Jones, & Perrine, in press), (c) theories and models of psychotherapy (e.g., MacDonald & Webb, 2003), and, of course, (d) spiritual or religious issues (e.g., Jones, 1994; McMinn & Wade, 1995; Nicholi, 2002).

For those who are active in research and/or clinical applications, the next step is to get the results in front of colleagues who do not share the faith as well as those who do. It is a laudable and difficult characteristic that many Christian professionals are too humble to publicize their accomplishments. Whether the professionals publicize themselves or someone else does it for them, it is important to get the word out. A wide variety of outlets are available: journals, paper and on-line; newspapers; college courses; conferences where atheists, agnostics, and other religions present (e.g., Division 36 of APA, ACA, AAMFT); and spots on radio or television shows. I believe that the more we appear in these forums, the more interesting faith-related issues become to a broad audience. A growing interest in faith-related issues, then, might stir up more interest in CAPS as well. A regular and updated posting of such pieces as articles, clinical ideas, supervision tips, and faith-practice questions on the CAPS West website could be helpful, too.

These are only a few ideas, of course. I hope CAPS members will contact me or other Board members to share their ideas. I believe we are poised at a crossroad for the organization and for Christians in psychology. If we seize the opportunities for change and development now before us, we will someday look back on this time as a blessing.

Corey, G., Corey, M. S., & Callanan, P. (2003). Issues and ethics in the helping professions (6th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Friedman, E. H. (1999). A failure of nerve: Leadership in the age of the quick fix. Bethesda, MD: Edwin Friedman Estate.

Green, R. (2003). When therapists do not want their clients to be homosexual: A response to Rosik’s article. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 29, 29-38.

Heie, H. (1996). The postmodern opportunity: Christians in the academy. Christian Scholar’s Review, 26, 138-157.

Jones, S. L. (1994). A constructive relationship for religion with the science and profession of psychology: Perhaps the boldest model yet. American Psychologist, 49, 184-199.

MacDonald, D. (2004). Collaborating with the spiritual side of students. Professional School Counseling, 7.

MacDonald, D., & Webb, M. (2003). Avoiding the syncretism of psychotherapeutic theories. Manuscript submitted for publication.

McMinn, M. R., & Wade, N. S. (1995). Beliefs about the prevalence of dissociative identity disorder, sexual abuse, and ritual abuse among religious and nonreligious therapists. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 26, 257-261.

Nicholi, A. M., Jr. (2002). The question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, love, sex, and the meaning of life. New York: The Free Press.

Rosik, C. H. (2003a). Motivational, ethical, and epistemological foundations in the treatment of unwanted homoerotic attraction. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 29, 13-28.

Rosik, C.H. (2003b). When therapists do not acknowledge their moral values: Green’s response as a case study. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 29, 39-45.

Sink, C. A., Rowley, W. J., MacDonald, D., Jones, J., & Perrine, N. (in press). Models of multicultural counseling and psychotherapy: A synthesis for beginning counselors. In D. S. Sandhu (Ed.), Alternative approaches to counseling and psychotherapy. Huntington, NY: Nova Science.

Smith, H. (2001). Why religion matters. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.

Steere, D.A. (1997). Spiritual presence in psychotherapy. Levittown, PA: Brunner/ Mazel.

Summit on Spirituality (1995, December). Counseling Today, 30.

Stark, R. (2003). For the glory of God: How monotheism led to reformations, science, witch-hunts, and the end of slavery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.

Tarnas, R. (1991). The passion of the Western mind (pp. 209-219). New York: Ballantine.