The Secular Therapy Project | Hacker News Reader

The Secular Therapy Project

seculartherapy.org

22 pointsadamzerner10 comments

The false promise of "secular" therapy is that it will give you the view from nowhere. A scientific, independent perspective untainted by beliefs or bias. Unfortunately, anyone who has met a person knows that this kind of independence doesn't and can't exist in real life. So a "secular" therapist will still have all the same individual bias and beliefs, but they won't have them articulated and enumerated in a creed or a body which can be scrutinised. It will all be pushed down into the subconscious, with just as much impact but far less accountability and visibility.

If secular therapy needs to provide a view from nowhere in order to fill a need, then I'd say you're right. But it seems like the goal here instead is to provide an alternative for people who are disillusioned with the answers their religion was able to provide, and who no longer feel that other religious people are trustworthy. There's quite a few people like that in America right now.

But does therapy have to do with spirituality? Yes, if like the SC mentioned, the customer's reason to be in therapy is them falling from grace with a certain spiritual movement. How many though go to therapy because of that? And how many because they can't cope with lost loves, financial struggles and such?

I only met three therapists in my life (so far) and none had anything to do with "spirituality". Of course they asked where I stand but they definitely didn't push anything towards supernatural. The meetings happened in two (different) European countries so I might wonder, is this "spiritual therapist" an US phenomenon?

From their FAQ:

> While being religious in no way means someone cannot be a good therapist, far too many therapists integrate or insert spiritual, religious or New Age ideas into therapy, even when they know their client is not religious.

> We cannot make any assurances about therapist qualifications or experience. [...] We would advise you to look carefully at a therapist’s qualifications, licenses, etc. once you have made a connection and the therapist has provided you with their contact information.

So why all the cloak and dagger? Why not just get a bunch of therapists to sign a pledge or join a public registry?

Cloak and dagger? Sounds like a standard disclaimer on a big directory to me.

I agree, but there's a certain amount of matchmaking being done here that requires more disclaimers about the project not being able to guarantee anonymity for patients or providers. I understand the former, but I don't see why you'd join this as a therapist but try to keep it secret.

> Secular therapists often don't advertise that they are humanist or atheist because that might alienate the churches and ministers who frequently make referrals to them, as well as potentially driving away religious clients.

I'm not sure I totally buy it, but at least that's their rationale, and it sounds fairly reasonable to a certain degree. Therapists might not want to advertise that they take a secular approach if they believe it might drive away potential customers. Though I'm not exactly sure why it would drive away potential customers -- isn't the point that they get recommended to by ministries because they are good therapists regardless of their faith? If they do not push spirituality onto their customers, and ministries still recommend them, would those ministries stop recommending them if they found out that they advertise that they don't push spirituality (i.e. the actual approach they take with patients)?

I have to say though that some parts of this feel a bit strange. The registration page has an (optional) question asking "What, if any, is your former religion?". Like, wouldn't it be reasonable for a currently religious person to seek out a secular therapist? Sure, this doesn't exclude religious people in any shape or form, but at the very least it feels a bit leading as a question, almost as if being an atheist is expected of the patient. Full disclosure, I consider myself to be vaguely religious, so I might be looking at this from a tinted lens, but I would also prefer a secular therapist to one that matches my beliefs.

> If they do not push spirituality onto their customers, and ministries still recommend them, would those ministries stop recommending them

Yes, this would definitely happen in many parts of the US.

I'm a minister, in New Zealand (not the US!). I'd always recommend a Christian counsellor to a parishioner who needed counselling, and I'd always go to one myself. If I'm going to unburden myself on a professional I'd rather have a counsellor who was on the same wavelength about God stuff, and I'd really really rather not have one who thought my beliefs were wrong/stupid/etc.

Looking at the Secular Therapists project they clearly fall into the "think my beliefs are wrong/stupid/etc" category. The about us page talks about religion "infecting minds!"

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