Psychiatrists and Religion

Now, Religion in the News. A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from Fox News.com September 4, 2007, with the headline: “Psychiatrists Are the Least Religious of All Physicians.” The following are excerpts: “Psychiatrists are the least religious of all physicians, a nation wide survey reveals, according to a study published in a September issue of the journal, Psychiatric Services. ‘Something about psychiatry, perhaps its historical ties to psychoanalysis and the anti-religious views of the early analysts such as Sigmund Freud seems to dissuade religious medical students from choosing to specialize in this field,’ said lead study author Farr Curlinn, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. Participants responded to a hypothetical scenario involving a mentally disturbed patient saying whether they would refer the patient to a psychiatrist, psychologist, clergy member, religious counselor, healthcare chaplain, or other. Overall more than half of other physicians would refer a patient to a psychiatrist/psychologist.”

Tom: Dave, I have to take issue with this article, because number one, psychiatry and psychology—particularly psychotherapy—it’s very religious. I mean, you have to buy into all kinds of ideas that, well, certainly many Freudian ideas are based on his own delusion, his own perversion, and so on. But Freud was, he called himself a godless Jew, and he was out to destroy Christianity.  So I could see some people who have a religious bent not to want to get involved with that, but still it’s all about self, self is god—that’s the bottom line here, so, it’s very religious.

Dave: But, Tom, it has nothing to offer, and we’ve dealt with this from every angle, I guess, but it began with a medical model that was Freud’s medical model, and we just kind of talked about that. There’s no medical connection really.  “Why am I depressed?” Well, it could be connection between the mind and the body, but there is no magic: “We’re going to somehow straighten you out, you know, like we’re going to fine tune an engine; we’re going to work on your brain, we’re going to give you some drugs, probably.”

And I’m thinking of Peter Breggin, one of the world’s leading experts on psychotropic drugs, medicines. He said, “No one has ever verified a chemical imbalance in a brain.” The only chemical imbalances we know of are caused by the drugs they give you, supposedly, to cure them. So “we are going to work on the brain.” It’s not the brain. This is why Thomas Szasz, one of the leading research psychiatrists (Jewish, by the way, as Freud was, so he has a right to talk abut Freud and Jung), and as it was he who said Freud’s major motive in life was destruction, revenge against Christianity. But Thomas Szasz wrote a book titled, The Myth of Mental Illness, because a mind can’t be sick—the brain can be. But they don’t believe in the mind, although there are increasing numbers of neuroscientists, for example, Sir John Eccles, Nobel Prize winner for his research on the brain, described the brain as (we’ve probably used this quote before) “a machine that a ghost can operate.”

So that’s what happens in the altered state: your connection is loosened, and a ghost, a demon, can get in there. Wilder Penfield, a professor of medicine, University of Toronto for many years, he said, ”The brain is like a computer programmed by something independent of itself, outside of itself, that we call the mind.” So now, what would “independent of” mean in physical terms? It doesn’t mean anything. So they began to realize there is a nonphysical part of man—and by the way, this should cause concern to people because when the brain is rotting in the grave that nonphysical part of you is still functioning and must give an account to God.

Tom: Dave, going back to this article, medical students, professionals, physicians, and so on, it says, “…responded to a hypothetical scenario involving a mentally disturbed patient saying whether they would refer the patient to a psychiatrist, psychologist, clergy member, religious counselor, health care chaplain, or other.” And, “overall more than half of other physicians would refer a patient to a psychiatrist/psychologist.” Now, that’s been our great concern all along. Now only do we have pastors in this country, evangelical pastors as being right up to the top of the list in terms of referring their sheep—shepherds referring their sheep out to professionals. And now, even if you turn somebody over to a physician to get them checked out physically to see if it’s an organic problem, then, if it’s not, they refer them to psychotherapists. It’s a major problem, Dave.

Dave: Well, Tom, that’s what you expect because they are trained in this way, this is the only answer they have. But, Tom, as this article didn’t quite go into all the statistics, the profession that has the most divorces, the most suicides, the most people under the care of psychiatrists, and so forth, are the psychiatrists themselves. They don’t have the answer, and yet what else? This is the most atheistic profession. And, Tom, I know a few people who went into that profession and totally turned against God because that’s what it will do.  And one of them that I know of committed suicide. He came from a Christian home, turned against Christ, became a psychiatrist in the process, and ended up hanging himself under a bridge in Los Angeles.

Tom: Well, Dave, you can understand it. I mean, as grievous as that is, when you push God out and you think you’re going to solve man’s problems, and you’re going to take the problems of people day after day into your own head, your own heart, your own mind, it’s destructive at least.

Dave: The highest percentage of psychiatrists are going to psychiatrists; they don’t have any answers.