Therapy and recovery exist for similar reasons and have similar goals, such as healing, growth, change, improved functioning, healthier relationships, and so forth. The ways in which each accomplishes these goals, however, are different, as are the underlying beliefs regarding how change happens.
Definition of terms: therapy refers to secular psychotherapy with a trained and licensed professional (psychologist, clinical social worker, professional counselor, psychiatrist);
recovery refers to 12 Step recovery programs in which the recovery participant chooses his or her own higher power; Christ-centered recovery refers to 12 Step recovery programs in which the only higher power recognized is Jesus Christ.
One similarity between therapy and recovery is that healing and change take place within the context of relationships. In therapy, the quality of the therapist-client relationship is a critical determining factor in the success or failure of the therapy. In recovery, the relationships between the recovery participants contributes immeasurably to the success or failure of one’s recovery. Sharing who one is and what one struggles with in a group of people who share similar struggles counteracts feelings of isolation and the belief that one is different.
A critical difference between therapy and Christ-centered recovery lies in the answer to the question “How does healing happen?” One of the underlying beliefs in therapy is that the patient or the client has the power within to heal self. The role of the therapist is to facilitate this healing process. The belief in recovery, on the other hand, is that the individual is powerless to cure self. This admission of powerlessness is believed to be critical and foundational. It is believed that until one takes the first step of admitting one’s powerlessness, recovery cannot begin and change will not happen. Therapy is about empowering the client to meet his or her own needs and to make necessary changes. Christ-centered recovery is about maintaining an attitude of powerlessness and learning to turn to one’s higher power, Jesus, for the strength and power to change.
The difference between the belief systems of therapy and Christ-centered recovery became blatantly clear to me during a meeting I attended while working as a mental health professional. Present at the meeting were seven therapists, including myself. We were talking about working with clients who were abused or neglected as children. The focus of the discussion was how to teach the clients to parent themselves. As I sat at the table listening to the discussion taking place around me, I felt depressed and frustrated in reaction to my colleagues’ lack of awareness of their heavenly Father and their failure to teach clients to turn to him for parenting rather than turning to self. A very deep sorrow welled up inside me as I continued to listen to my colleagues describe how they were teaching their clients to lean on “selves” and “parent selves,” rather than to run into the arms of their heavenly Father who loves them with a perfect love. My sorrow grew out of my memory of how isolated and alone I felt when I trusted in myself and my abilities, when I was self-reliant rather than God-reliant. In my opinion, when therapists teach clients to parent selves, they inadvertently help clients to stay stuck rather than to heal. It has been my experience that those of us who were deeply hurt in childhood are unable to heal our own hurts. The hurts are too massive, too pervasive. When I turned to myself to try to parent myself, I was unsuccessful in doing that. I simply did not have what it took inside me to heal them.
I spent many years and many dollars as a client in therapy while simultaneously working as a psychotherapist. Psychotherapy taught me to identify my unhealthy thought patterns and behavior patterns, helped me to understand why I had developed these unhealthy patterns, and helped me change them to healthy ones. What psychotherapy didn’t do, though, was fill my emptiness, heal my feeling of aloneness and disconnection from people, and give me a sense of being valuable and worthwhile. Through the help of psychotherapy, I was able to change on the outside. My inside, however, remained untouched. That was healed through involvement in a Christ-centered recovery program. Though it is beyond question that countless numbers of people have attained and maintained abstinence and sobriety through the help and support of secular twelve-step programs, and though I did participate in a secular recovery program for a period of time, my true healing and growth came through working a Christ-centered recovery program.
Another important difference between therapy and Christ-centered recovery involves the concept of forgiveness. In therapy, one is encouraged to resolve issues related to people who have hurt us and to change behaviors that hurt self and others. In Christ-centered recovery, one is encouraged to forgive people who have hurt us and to ask for forgiveness from people we have hurt.
Prior to my involvement in a Christ-centered recovery group forgiveness was not in my personal repertoire of healing arts. It was also not in my professional repertoire of therapeutic strategies and techniques. I have no memory of ever hearing forgiveness mentioned when I was in graduate school learning how to be a therapist. I also have no memory of ever hearing about forgiveness during my years as a client in therapy. As far as I can recollect, the need for to forgive those who hurt me, to ask forgiveness from the people I hurt, and to forgive myself was never mentioned. Therefore, it was no wonder that forgiveness was not on my radar screen. Through working the Christ-centered 12 Steps I learned what forgiveness is and what it is not.
I learned that forgiveness is: a choice, I don’t have to feel like forgiving someone to forgive him her; a free gift given with no strings attached; surrendering our right to get even; choosing to keep no record of the wrongs; a heart condition. Forgiveness takes place in the forgiver’s heart. It is intrapersonal, not interpersonal. It is also a permanent condition, a lifelong commitment. I cannot forgive someone and take it back later.
I learned that forgiveness is not: forgetting; excusing the wrong that was done; tolerating the wrong that was done; denying the wrong that was done; justifying what was done; pardoning what was done; refusing to take the wrong seriously; pretending that we are not hurt; erasing the need for consequences; quick; easy; a magic balm that takes away feelings of hurt and anger.
Though all of the above lessons I learned about forgiveness were important, the three most important ones were: 1. The choice whether or not to forgive does not depend on the wrongdoer’s attitude or perception of the wrong. I can choose to forgive someone whether or not they see themselves as having done something wrong and whether or not they are sorry; 2. Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. I can forgive someone and choose not to reenter into a relationship with him or her; 3. Forgiveness is an essential, nonnegotiable ingredient in the healing of deep wounds. In these instances, forgiving benefits the forgiver far more than the forgiven.
As I struggled to forgive people who had hurt me, I fought against my desire to get back at them, to make them hurt as much as they had hurt me. During this process, I was comforted by the following words of Lewis B. Smedes in Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve: “Nobody seems to be born with much talent for forgiving. We all need to learn from scratch, and the learning almost always runs against the grain.” When I finally was able to forgive them I began to experience an internal sense of peace and joy. I was also able to get on with my life unhindered.
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