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Posted on Jan 10, 2013 in philosophy, psychology, responding to arguments, youtube | 8 comments

Can a skeptic be a mental health professional?

In recent months, some have expressed concern with my chosen field of graduate studies – Mental Health Counseling. Throughout some interactions with some proponents of ‘alternative medicine,’ truth relativism, religious ideologies, and even some who profess to be skeptics, I have been told that I should reconsider my scholarly pursuits because I am not fit to be a mental health professional.

I have been told that I do not ‘respect’ others’ beliefs and thus would be unable to be an effective counselor because of various philosophical stances I hold. I believe that persons who voice this person lack knowledge pertaining to counseling.  Counselors, being aware of their beliefs and resolving to maintain a position of ‘value neutrality’ on particular issues, can be effective mental health professionals.

Counseling sessions should not be ‘philosophical boxing rings’ in which counselors ‘impose beliefs’ and/or debate their clients. It’s simply not the place.

Listen to a recent Youtube video I uploaded further addressing this topic:

  • http://www.atheistrev.com/ vjack

    From the perspective of someone who works in a graduate program training counselors, I’ll make three points. First, there is no reason whatsoever that your atheism makes you unfit to be a mental health professional. As long as you realize that counseling is not the place to attempt to talk anyone out of their beliefs, it should not be an issue. Second, it is true that counseling seems to attract all manner of quackery and woo. All this means is that you’ll want to be careful in selecting training opportunities and may need to practice keeping some of your opinions to yourself (a skill I utilize almost daily). Third and finally, it may be somewhat challenging to maintain a career as a counselor while simultaneously being an outspoken activist who has one’s name in the local media quite a bit. It certainly is not impossible, but depending on where one lives, it may not be ideal.

    • MosesZD

      Politcal activism, as pointed out in this post, could be a problem. Less so in progressive states, but in those deep red states… Yeah, it could hurt.

  • MosesZD

    Of course, I have a very, very small circle of atheist friends, one of whom is a brilliant psychiatric nurse practitioner and has an incredible practice built solely by the word-of-mouth of current and former patients.
    Being a counselor is about your training, your insights and your empathy and not whether you believe in the Great Gazoo…

  • Clare45

    There is a need for secular therapists and there is now a secular therapist project based in the U.S that has attracted about 90 therapists so far, designed to match patients with therapists who do not push religion as part of their therapy. Christian colleges have apparently been turning out religiously biased therapists by the boatload, so some counter action is needed to inject some sanity (excuse the pun) into the situation.

  • http://www.laughinginpurgatory.com/ Andrew Hall

    I live in the Boston area, and my wife and I are in the business (she’s a master’s level clinician/manager (MSW), I have been a manager of residences for people who have disabilities). We’re both atheists, and make good faith efforts at being skeptics. We have a wide range of friends and associates who are therapists and are secular. Our marriage counselor was (we have transitioned out of therapy for quite a long time) was a brilliant Jewish atheist. I work for a human service agency that has an atheist CEO. People who say that skeptics can’t be good clinicians are simply wrong.

  • http://BitchSpot.JadeDragonOnline.com Cephus

    Actually, if the goal is achieving good mental health for your patients, then I don’t see how being anything but a skeptic can be effective. I don’t view religion and religious faith as positive mental health models, thus “respecting” them is like “respecting” insanity. The whole point ought to be to get rid of emotional and mental baggage that stops an individual from achieving reality-based mental equilibrium.

  • http://www.facebook.com/gojaejin Jeremy J. Goard

    Are you a tournament Scrabble player?

  • http://twitter.com/iamcuriousblue iamcuriousblue

    The naysayers are making a totally flawed argument – clearly they too have beliefs, after all. Those beliefs may be incompatible with the worldview of someone being counseled. So by the same token, they should disqualify themselves. But really, a basic part of being a therapist is that you’re not out to convert somebody to your worldview, but simply help them deal with their mental health issues, and as long as a therapist understands that, there shouldn’t be a problem. Somebody who doesn’t understand those boundaries is going to have problems treating people whether they’re an atheist, a Christian, or a new-ager.

    I think it’s actually very important to have more skeptics involved in fields like this for another reason – psychology and related fields are *rife* with pseudoscience, bad theories, and bad studies, and it only gets worse as you get away from research psychology into applied fields like counseling. One will still find dodgy therapeutic methods like therapeutic touch, NLP, EMDR, etc still extolled by some and not widely questioned. So the perspective of somebody who takes a skeptical approach and applies evidence-based techniques is extremely valuable.