Psychiatrists Least Religious of All Physicans

A new study has found that among physicians, those specializing in psychiatry are the least religious. The study author, Farr Curlin, speculates that it may be because of psychiatry's:

"...historical ties to psychoanalysis and the anti-religious views of the early analysts such as Sigmund Freud..."

I think there's much truth in that, however, I think it goes deeper. The fundamental belief of psychiatry and psychology is that problems of the soul and spirit can be dealt with apart from God. The entire discipline was in fact founded by those who sought to cut God out of the process of dealing with such issues.

Martin and Deidre Bobgan in their excellent book Psychoheresy: The Psychological Seduction of Christianity say this:

"Because they rest on different foundations, move in contrasting directions, and rely on opposing belief systems, psychotherapy and Christianity are not now, nor were they ever, natural companions in helping individuals."

There is a belief of course among some practitioners that "religion" can be helpful to the person struggling with "psychological problems" but the idea that such problems are really manifestations of man's fallen nature and can be dealt with completely and thoroughly using Biblical principles, in fact must be dealt with that way for true solutions to be found, is foreign even to most practitioners who call themselves Christians. God is helpful, of course they would say, but by no means required. I have even known counselors over the years who claimed to practice from a Christian perspective yet had unbelievers as clients and saw no problem in "treating" them using psychological methods without seeking their conversion.

What I'm always driven back to when looking at this topic is the 1800 or so years of church history prior to Sigmund Freud. How exactly did believers deal with problems of the soul and spirit during those 1800 years? They dealt with them through the application of Biblical principles to the situation. There was no need for a professional class of "healers" because these principles were ministered to people through the church. People might even sometimes have continued to be "depressed" or "unhappy" for a while as God used that in their lives to increase their dependence upon Him or to teach them other Biblical principles. This is of course anathema to the "you must be happy and fulfilled all the time or there's something wrong with you" mindset of today. The idea that God may actually want us to be uncomfortable for a season for our own good never even enters most people's minds today, including many of those who practice "Christian psychology."

All in all, I think psychiatry is the least religious medical discipline because it is the only one founded upon the assumption that God is irrelevant to its practice. When something is founded upon a faulty assumption then the techniques developed out of that assumption (techniques used by both psychiatrists and psychologists) will be faulty as well. As the scriptures tell us, a bad tree does not bear good fruit (Luke 6:43)