By becoming a psychologist, you’ve likely come to understand the limitations of psychology as a holistic framework. It can measure, diagnose, and correlate—but it cannot fully account for the soul, the spirit, or the transcendent dimensions of human flourishing. As a licensed practitioner, are you permitted to go beyond the ‘immanent frame’? Can you speak of meaning, mystery, or God in a professional capacity? If not, then what exactly is the boundary of your role—and what is its value when someone is seeking healing at the level of meaning or soul? Where should a person turn when the deepest wounds are not only psychological but existential.?
I think this is an argument for chaplaincy. However, I think it is important to note that when therapists reach the outer limit of the area of competence, they often employ methods from eastern philosophy that quickly blur the line between psychology and spirituality. While they attempt to strip yoga, tai chi, and meditation of overt religious content, people invariably explore deeper. I know people who in state funded addiction rehabs were being taught to open up their third eye. When they objected on religious grounds, no one seemed to comprehend that a problem existed.
As the old timers down in the Arkansas Ozarks where I grew up would put it, "we done gone splat on the windshield of materialistic reductionism".
By becoming a psychologist, you’ve likely come to understand the limitations of psychology as a holistic framework. It can measure, diagnose, and correlate—but it cannot fully account for the soul, the spirit, or the transcendent dimensions of human flourishing. As a licensed practitioner, are you permitted to go beyond the ‘immanent frame’? Can you speak of meaning, mystery, or God in a professional capacity? If not, then what exactly is the boundary of your role—and what is its value when someone is seeking healing at the level of meaning or soul? Where should a person turn when the deepest wounds are not only psychological but existential.?
I think this is an argument for chaplaincy. However, I think it is important to note that when therapists reach the outer limit of the area of competence, they often employ methods from eastern philosophy that quickly blur the line between psychology and spirituality. While they attempt to strip yoga, tai chi, and meditation of overt religious content, people invariably explore deeper. I know people who in state funded addiction rehabs were being taught to open up their third eye. When they objected on religious grounds, no one seemed to comprehend that a problem existed.