Philosophical Assumptions and Key Concepts of Christian Worldview - Coursework Example

Christian Worldview: Philosophical Assumptions and Key Concepts The use of Christian Worldview in applying psychotherapy to patients is becoming a major alternative in many cases; it is being used in secular counseling, too. This paper discusses how this worldview can be used in psychoanalysis to achieve a successful psychotherapy for patients. It also discusses a number of issues to be considered when using this alternative. Also discussed are a number of issues such as the models of health, models of abnormality and the way psychotherapy can be applied to help patients overcome their problems. Christian Worldview: Philosophical Assumptions and Key Concepts Christian Worldview is a concept of offering counseling to patients with psychiatric problems; according to it, applying spiritual and biblical concepts and philosophy will help the patients overcome their problems. This is very important in psychoanalysis because it not only provides a basis to diagnose patients with psychological problems but also makes it possible for these patients to be treated. The main assumption here would be that a patient will be aligned with biblical concepts. This is because, as Jared (2009) argues, for a patient to benefit from the therapy, he/she has to believe in the concept that the counselor is using. A closer look does indicate that those who are inclined to religious faith are more likely to be treated successfully with this Christian Worldview concept than those who are not be inclined to have religious faith or any form of spirituality. As a result, when applying the Christian Worldview in secular therapy, it is important to make sure that this does not come between the patient and his/her healing, by making sure that the patients will come to terms with the treatment. Failing to do this can cause a lot of problems, and the patient can end up being worse off than he was before (William, 2009). Christian Worldview is build around the idea that the patient will benefit more by looking deeper into himself/herself and identifying some his/her spiritual inadequacies. The main idea is that any psychological problems are caused by the person’s failure to come to terms with spiritual requirements. This view is quite different from the secular view, because the secular view is more inclined to believe that the patient’s problems are caused by the external world rather than the internal issues. This is because the secular view of counseling and psychiatric therapy focuses on the fact that psychological problems arise from the way a person looks at himself, and that this picture is always a result of what the person knows or believes the other people think of him/her (William, n.d.). Model of Personality According to Franklin (2011), the personality of a person is a result of two forces, internal as well as external. The internal factors may seem to be more genetic and can be inherited from the parents. This means that some aspects of a person’s personality are actually inherited and that if a person is an introverted person, this could be an inherited trait. On the other hand, there are those external factors that the person will adopt or internalize as he/she grows up. Research shows that the personality of a person starts to grow as the memory capacity reaches a point where the person can remember past events. This is at an early age of about three to four years, when the child starts to understand that he/she is an individual different from other people. At this age, children will be able to identify themselves with things and be concerned of how other people may think of them, and this is when their character and personality start to grow. This is where the external factors of personality development start to take part, and the person develops a self-image based on how people treat him and based on what he thinks people think of him. This means that the character of a person is a mountain of beliefs that will determine how the person behaves, acts and carries him or herself. This may actually affect a person’s intelligence quotient and emotional quotient. For instance, if the person has positive beliefs about himself, he may have an increased intelligence quotient and even emotional quotient. This knowledge is important when applying psychoanalysis to patients, as these factors are imminent in every human being (Jones & Butman, 2011). Model of Health In terms of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, health can be defined from many angles of view. For instance, a medical doctor may be more concerned about the physiological functioning of the body and declare a person healthy even if the person is suffering from emotional and psychological problems. A more complete definition of health would therefore have to encompass all aspects of human life, such as emotion, physiology and work. While emotional health has been ignored for a long time because scholars and other related entities chose to pursue other health-related courses such as medicine and nursing, mental and emotional health is becoming a very important aspect of human health. This could be a result of the fact that the world is becoming a harder place to live in with its many social and emotional tensions which the human race wasn’t prepared to face in the first place. Crowded cities, demanding jobs and economic tensions all come together to create difficult living conditions for billions of people, and this has increased the need for health. Given this definition, it is, therefore, logical to conclude that health is the ability of persons to live their lives without physiological problems and to live with a positive personality that they do not have to be afraid of. It is the ability to have a positive image of self as well as others, regardless of whom the person is and who the other people are. Above all, it is the ability to have positive and meaningful relationships with people in one’s life and being able to be of benefit to those people as well as to benefit from them, be it materially, socially or emotionally. A person who will be able to do this will be able to have a good health, emotional or otherwise. Also, such a person is able to contribute to the society in a better way and enjoy life to the fullest. How this is achieved can be debatable because there are differing worldviews on how emotional and psychological health can be achieved. For instance, the Christian Worldview differs from the monetarism worldview on how patients having emotional health issues can and should be treated. In this regard, it is clear that some of the factors that can be used to promote health, be it physiological or mental health, are good relationships with other people and a better understanding of self (Murdock, 2009). Model of Abnormality Given the above definition of health, it can be argued that abnormality is the opposite; thus, it is an individual’s inability to have positive and meaningful relationships with others. It is also the inability of people to have a positive image of themselves due to either having a very low image of themselves or failing to have an inflated in their image. It is good to note that having an inflated self esteem is also another way of having psychological problems that the person may need to solve. This is because an inflated self esteem can and does lead to the person being unable to respect others and to have meaningful relationships with them. As a result, anything that hinders or prohibits a person from being able to relate with others in a healthy way can be seen as an abnormality. The main symptoms of abnormality would, therefore, be the inability of such a person to have a correct image of himself or being unable to function properly within the acceptable mental and psychological parameters, which a healthy person is supposed to have. It is, however, good to note that different people have different peculiarities and it may not be justified, for instance, to say that an introverted person is less mentally of emotionally healthy. At this point, it is good to note that personality and character must be compared. Personality of a person may affect a person positively or negatively. If a person’s personality is coming between him and his ability to develop a positive character, that person may fall under the “abnormal” bracket. This is because the personality should not be a wall to prevent a person from having a positive relationship with other people (Maxwell, 2011). Model of Psychotherapy Psychotherapy is designed and intended to be a tool with which mental health professionals help their patients overcome their problems through a range of processes, most of which include counseling. Sometimes it may involve the use of drugs – in cases when the patient’s problems are too serious and may need to be solved by the use of medication and psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, however, will be focused mainly on the counseling part; it will come up with ways to diagnose the patient’s problems, identify which of the many psychological disorders the patient may be suffering from and then come up with a solution. The main role of psychotherapy is to help the patient come back to reality; this is done through conversation, which helps patients readjust their reality to the original. This is in the recognition that most, if not all, patients with psychological problems are patients dealing with an unfortunate reality that they cannot bear, and so they create an alternative reality. This alternative reality then encloses them in a space where they are not able to live their lives in full and are unable to interact with the real world. Roles of Psychotherapy The role of psychotherapy is to return the patients to their original healthy state by guiding them through the healing process. It is used by a professional councilor or psychiatrist to help the patients regain their mental and emotional health after the patient has been diagnosed with any form of mental disorder. The process of Psychotherapy The process of psychotherapy starts when a client and a trained professional meet. In most cases, there will be a form of agreement regarding the start time and the structure of the psychotherapy. The professional will diagnose the patient to discover psychological problems and will use one of the many mediums to help solve these problems. Techniques of delivering psychotherapy There are a number of ways for delivering psychotherapy, but the most popular one is spoken conversations that last for a specified time and are carried out in pre-specified dates. The psychotherapist will have sessions with the patients, always monitoring progress and taking the right action to help them get rid of the problem. Other forms include art, written word and even play for younger patients such as children. Discussion and Conclusions Many years of study have shown that mental and psychological health is becoming a major need for many people in the world. This is because the abstractness of the concept of mental health has been a cause of a long journey to a cohesive theory that will help harmonize the delivery of mental and emotional health to the millions of people who need it. In a country like America alone, it is deemed that one in every five people is in need of psychological help. Unfortunately, not only are there no clear and agreed ways to deliver this but also there is no universal acceptance of psychotherapy as a way to treat these kinds of health issues. For instance, a person suffering from malaria or any other disease will willingly and unashamedly seek help from a professional. The same person may be ashamed to seek for help from a psychiatrist. The fact that there are different views on how mental health and illnesses should be diagnosed and treated is also another issue. On top of this, the fact that there is a huge portion of mental health care professionals who prefer to use a direct Christian Worldview in treating patients may also contribute to a bad perception of psychotherapy by the public. Limiting of psychotherapy to one religion can also be a very huge detriment to the profession. On the other hand, the use of Christian Worldview cannot be totally be dismissed, especially considering that there are many Christians in the world. Psychotherapy can be seen as a means to bring people having psychological issues to the reality and extract them from the false reality that they have subconsciously created for themselves. The use of Christian worldview to administer psychotherapy can be very successful if applied properly. The professionals applying this model of psychotherapy must, however, be very careful and be sure that the patient will be able to relate with the Christian worldview. For instance, Christian patients who ascribe to Christian faith may directly benefit from this as opposed to those who are not Christians. At the same time, it would be important for the psychiatrist using this Christian Worldview model to be very careful because where faith is applied, the patient may want to know whether the doctor does believe in the things that he/she is telling him. This is important because, as discussed in this paper, the patient may end up being hurt more and plunged deeper into his/her hole of alternative reality if the doctor does a mistake with him/her. Conclusion It is becoming increasingly important for alternative methods of psychotherapy to be investigated and considered for use. As long as psychotherapy is the use of the available psychological knowledge to help patients having such problems to be treated, it will be important for other alternatives such as Christian worldview to be considered. Mental health care cannot and must not be treated like medical health, because, unlike medical health, where one virus can be treated with the same drug, in mental health what may help one person may not be useful to another. This means that people practicing psychotherapy must be vigilant when dealing with each patient and be quick not only to diagnose the mental problem and offer the available psychotherapy processes but also to identify which alternative psychotherapy may help a specific patient. References Franlin, J. (2011). Character and personality development. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education Books. Jared, P. (2009). Understanding mental health: What role does religious faith play? Journal of Psychology, 3 (4), 19-32. Jones, S. L., & Butman, R. E. (2011). Modern psychotherapies: A comprehensive Christian appraisal. Westmont, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. Maxwell, K. (2011). Personality and character: The relationship and differences. Journal of Mental Health, 4 (5), 90-93. Murdock, N. L. (2009). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: A case approach. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Wiliam, J. (2009). Phychology for alternative therapy. New York, NY: Pearson Education. William, J. (n.d.). Book of theology and counseling. New York: Pearson Books. Read More