Christian Counselling International

Theotherapy Counseling Modality – White Paper

Brief History

Theotherapy, as a modality of Christian Counseling, had its origin in the mind of the Rev. Dr. Mario E. Rivera Mendez in 1956.

After having studied psychology, theology and aspects of medicine, Rev. Dr. Rivera saw the need to integrate the knowledge of these diverse fields of human understanding to obtain a therapeutic modality that could give answers related to the human condition and to assist in helping people with serious emotional conflict.

The result of this interdisciplinary integration was the modality of Christian counselling known as Theotherapy.

From its beginning up to the present, Theotherapy has grown and continues to grow theoretically and geographically. Thousands of people have received therapy under this modality and a great number of others have been educated to be Christian counsellors having in this manner shared biblical therapeutic principles. Theotherapy is known in different countries of the world including the United States, Central and South America, United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain.

Definition

The etymological definition of the word Theotherapy is Theo (Gk. God), and Therapy (Gk. a way of bringing healing).

Theotherapy is a modality of Christian counselling that utilises biblical psychological principles to bring about the integration of human beings through a spiritual, psychological and physical integration. It is considered an eclectic modality in the sense that it is open to receiving from different schools of psychological thought that which is useful and efficacious in helping in the process of healing a human being. But all thought, principle, tool or technique is evaluated in the light of the Holy Scriptures (the Christian Bible).

Methodology of Theotherapy

Philosophical Suppositions

In talking about the philosophical suppositions in Theotherapy we eventually fall into theological presuppositions. As we know, psychological thought is influenced by the philosophical understandings in a person's life. A person's personal philosophy dictates their primary orientation, the axis on which to rotate further understanding, that leads the thought in general to seeing all of a person's life's expressions in a certain light.

The clinical psychologies attempt an interpretation of individuals' lives; theology attempts to interpret life. Browning (Religious Thought and the Modern Psychologies, 1987) tells us that the modern psychologies function within broader contexts of significance. He mentions five cultures:

• The culture of distance – Freud
• The culture of joy, psychological humanists – Jung
• The culture of control – Behaviourism
• The culture of care – Erickson
• The Christian culture

Each culture represents an attempt at dealing with human conflict, but in the light of a specific philosophical conceptualisation and contextualisation. What is different among the first four mentioned cultures and the Christian culture is that the Christian culture attempts to deal not only with the psychological, but also with the spiritual. Theotherapy falls under the Christian culture.

Theological Suppositions

Theotherapy is not only a psychological modality, that seeks to help persons in need (PIN), it is also a theological modality functioning upon a biblical and Christ-centered basis. Its theology directly influences its psychology, and without its theology Theotherapy's theoretical framework would be void of the essential character that sustains its therapeutic nature.

There are six principle psychotherapeutic systems, which are:

• Humanist therapies
• Family and Systems therapies
• The Dynamic therapies
• The Cognitive Behavioral therapies
• The Medical & Biological therapies
• The Moral & Theological therapies

We can then say that Theotherapy falls into the last of these systems and categories.

Psychotherapy

Theotherapy can be considered as a psychotherapy in the sense that it uses techniques that are commonly used in psychotherapy, such as:

• Offering support and tranquillity.
• Desensitization of the PIN towards anguish.
• Promoting adaptive functioning.
• Offering understanding and insight.

But Theotherapy goes beyond the conceptualisation of a secular psychotherapy (secular being the exclusion of anything religious, spiritual or Christian) since it places an emphasis on the spiritual life of the PIN and the possibility that spiritual influences exist upon the human psyche.

Having a Christian base, Theotherapy assumes, by faith in the written Word of God, a biblical epistemology, and anthropology with creationist origins and a human ontology based, in ultimate instance, on God. Both the principle theoretical source, the Christian Bible, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God are considered indispensable for the elaboration and the theoretical and practical structuring of Theotherapy, due to the fact that without these particulars we would have to consider human beings as the only other source available for the theoretical elaboration and praxis. In Theotherapy human beings are considered an inadequate primary source of therapeutic knowledge.

Model of the Personality

A model of the personality is the understanding of that which determines the action and character of a human. This must include a reasoning of the structure of the personalty and the fundamental characteristics of a human being.

Beginning with the premise of an anthropology of theocentric origin, Theotherapy sees the human being as a creation of God, made in His image and likeness. It sees humans as a pneuma-psycho-somatic (spirit, mind, body) being. Human beings were created ‘good’ (in Theotherapy terms, in the P(a) state), but in a given moment there was dissolution of the Theo-anthropologic relationship due to human disobedience, giving in this way, entrance into the world to sin.

Sin, due to its separatist nature, is manifest in people as rejection and is an influential factor in the conduct and thought of every human being (Romans 3:23), producing separation and destruction of human relations. Hamartological (sin) studies demonstrate that sin, that is persuasive in the totality of a person's being, in its most elemental form can be considered to be rejection. Rejection has it's influence not only in the multiple interpersonal conflicts that we know of, but is also the source of all psychopathology.

People need the agapean principle to sustain their pneumatic, psychological and somatic lives. Without this principle the systems that constitute our being disintegrate, provoking pathological symptomatology.

Model of Abnormality

We presume, when speaking of abnormality, that there is an established understanding concerning what constitutes normality. Even though this concept (abnormality) continues to be vague and there is difficulty in defining it in psychological circles, Theotherapy has found help in formulating a clearer definition from its studies of Genesis.

Humans were created in a state of perfection in acceptance, or P(a) state, but when humans sinned, one unit of acceptance was subtracted from the P(a) state, thus forming P(a) - 1. Because God's initial creation was good, according to Scriptures, to say P(a) - 1 is to say that a distortion in that goodness set in. We have said that rejection set in when this occurred, thus producing the formula P(a) - 1 = R. This indicates that the P(a) state, in losing just one unit of acceptance, created an imperfection relationally that opened the door to rejection in creation.

This formula indicates that humans historically did know a ‘normal’ state, due to the fact that in the beginning they knew an unadulterated acceptance. To have a notion of a normal state, even though this state be totally foreign to what we are and how we live today, helps to know in what direction we should orient our lives therapeutically to obtain the designed therapeutic results, as for example, an adequate interpersonal unity and love. To know what is adequate behaviourally, we use the Bible as reference.

Model of Health

Every therapeutic theory seems to have a vision of a complete being that goes hand in hand with its concept of abnormality. Even the therapists, that have as their goal to be totally neutral in terms of values when they say they are simply trying to reduce human suffering, are working from the implicit hypothesis that the minimization of pain is part of what it means to be a complete human being.

In Theotherapy the completion of our being through healing is obtained once a personal relationship is achieved with our Creator. Healing is a goal that is not obtained spontaneously, but through a process. This process involves replacing negative emotions, accumulated in the mind, with love. It is a process of purification through love (1 John 4:18). It is the utilisation of the agapean principle to bring true transformation to a human being.

Model of Therapy

The therapeutic intervention emphasizes genuine relationships in which the person can live in peace with God, his fellow man, and himself. Four therapeutic tools are used to achieve the goal of relational healing. The use of these tools depends on decisions made by the PIN which permit them to cross the therapeutic bridge.

These tools as found in the Word of God, are Forgiveness, Acceptance, Surrender, and Theotherapeutic indifference. And it is with the utilisation of these tools that one can find completeness in their life by restoring relationships. These tools permit the restoration and healing of relationships, and by healing relationships a person can be truly happy. The process takes time. Through time, effort, and the utilisation of these biblical principles a person can become relationally healed and thus find purpose and meaning in their life.