As a psychologist and psychotherapist who specializes in the relationship between psychology and faith, I regularly work with religious people who struggle with feelings of unworthiness and guilt. Some of them have developed symptoms of OCD/Scrupulosity because their thoughts and feelings convince them––despite what Christ taught––that they are not forgiven for their sins even when they have repented. Sometimes, they find themselves compelled to call their priesthood leader every morning to confess all their sins, just as they did the day before, to calm their mind and get a brief respite from debilitating obsessive thoughts and feelings of guilt.
With ancient religious roots, self-compassion has become too secularized and psychologized.
Because I uniquely position myself to help people of faith with psycho-spiritual issues, church leaders regularly ask me to speak to their members about related topics. Recently, I have been asked to speak more often about self-compassion. Like other concepts with ancient religious roots, this topic has become too secularized and psychologized of late. Compassion has been mostly or altogether separated from its original purpose and meaning—‘to suffer with another.’ Now ironically made into a property of the self, each of us needs to develop and practice self-compassion in order to be healthy and well.
Too Much Self!
This shift from the religious and the relational to the secular and the individual is commonplace in psychology. It is not an exaggeration to say psychology has a fixation on locating properties and qualities within the self and then placing responsibility for the care of those properties onto the self. Here are just a few examples:
- Be more self-reliant and strive to become increasingly self-sufficient, recognizing each person is ultimately responsible for themself.
- In pursuit of self-mastery practice self-control over thoughts, self-regulation over feelings, and self-discipline over actions.
- Develop a strong and positive self-concept and high self-esteem. Minimize negative self-talk and maximize positive self-affirmations.
- Be true to yourself, live in a manner that is self-authentic and self-congruent, and beware of becoming the social self––which is the self others want you to be.
- Above all else, love yourself, which entails things like forgiving yourself and practicing self-compassion and self-care.
Why does psychology demand so much of the self both professionally and in its wildly popular “self-help” arm?
Why the Self?
Almost 400 years ago, a French soldier, mathematician, scientist, and philosopher by the name of Rene Descartes endeavored to find certainty––which had long been the holy grail of philosophical inquiry. His 1637 publication Discourse on Method describes his application of a systematic form of skepticism through which he doubted everything possible. Descartes doubted the existence of God, the physical world, the existence of other people, and even our own bodies until he arrived at that which could not be doubted: doubt itself. To doubt is to engage in doubting. So, doubting anything––including doubt––requires doubt and the doubter. Doubting, he concluded, is a form of thinking done by a thinker. So, the thinking self is the one thing that cannot be doubted and, therefore, must be certain. This is the origin of perhaps the most influential philosophical assertion of the Western world, “I think, therefore I am,” or “When I am thinking, then I exist.”
The Burden of the Thinking Self
This makes the often frustrating “chatter” in our heads (Kross, 2021) necessary to the survival and maintenance of the self. But survival requires more than continuous thought, it requires correct thinking. Wrong thinking may not threaten being, but it wobbles the certainty of its foundation. One could live getting things wrong, but not securely or safely. So, we think very hard to get things right. From a Cartesian worldview, thinking has to be constant and correct.
The burden of self-contained thinking leaves little bandwidth available for caring about other things, including other people.
The burden of self-contained thinking leaves little bandwidth available for caring about other things, including other people. Research bears this out, showing our thoughts, conversations, and posts are self-centered most of the time (Ward, 2013). Social isolation and loneliness have become a significant public health epidemic in many countries (Surkalim and others, 2022). Psychology and psychotherapy contribute to this problem when only offering people self-solutions, which leave the self increasingly isolated (Cushman, 1990). But when the thinking self alone is the trusted source of certainty, what else can be done?
Faith in Self or Faith in Christ?
For Christians, the philosophy of being doesn’t begin or end with Descartes and his doubt. Sixteen hundred years earlier, Jesus Christ told his followers to trust in Him––not in themselves––saying, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself” (Matthew 16:24). His words echo the proverb “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). Nephi––whose thoughts condemned him as a “wretched man” (2 Nephi 4:17)––would not put his trust in his thoughts and feelings, instead crying out, “O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of the flesh” (v. 34).
Trusting in Christ over personal thoughts and feelings … requires faith … no matter what one thinks and feels about themself.
Faith over Feelings
Consider again the psycho-spiritual issue of feeling guilty and unworthy. When breaking a commandment or neglecting the things one should do, a feeling of guilt is common. If the guilt works in a manner consistent with God’s will, then it will lead to repentance and the forgiveness God promises. The guilt should then end, having served its purpose. But often, for many people––and not just those with OCD and Scrupulosity––the guilt remains, and the forgiveness is questioned. Was the repentance sincere and sufficient? Was the sin really forsaken? Were full reparations made? Shouldn’t I feel better? Why do I still feel bad? Maybe I don’t deserve forgiveness. Maybe I can’t be worthy again. Into our heads we go.
Trusting in Christ over personal thoughts and feelings … requires faith … no matter what one thinks and feels about themself.
Choose His Thoughts Over Your Thoughts
This is not easy. It is actually scary. It is hard to give up something that feels familiar and essential to existence for something promised by someone other than the self, even God. It requires the leap of faith captured so beautifully by Minnie Haskins (1908):
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
Putting faith in Christ over ever-present thoughts and feelings is a very real and conscious choice that has to be made and remade on a regular basis. Thankfully, we have access to His thoughts––which are not our thoughts––as scripture stated by Him directly or revealed through His prophets. He has spoken to those who wrestle with their own thinking and feelings, with anxieties and fears, people who are “careful and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41). He shows that we can be careful and troubled and still trust in His words. To accept His forgiveness, peace, and comfort, we can’t make our thoughts and feelings the arbiter of our status with the Lord, and we cannot employ self-compassion. Instead, we must yield to His compassion and what He has said over and over again that
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish; neither shall any man [not even oneself] pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27-29).
References:
Cushman P. (1990). Why the self is empty. Toward a historically situated psychology. American Psychologist, 45, 599-611. doi: 10.1037//0003-066x.45.5.599. PMID: 2190505.
Haskins, M. L. (1908). God knows. In https://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/the-gate-of-the-year/
Kross, E. (2021). Chatter: The voice in our head, why it matters, and how to harness it. Crown: New York.
Surkalim, D. L., Luo, M., Eres, R., Gebel, K., van Buskirk, J., Bauman, A., & Ding, D. (2022). The prevalence of loneliness across 113 countries: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 376, e067068. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-067068
Vieten, C., Scammell, S., Pierce, A., Pilato, R., Ammondson, I., Pargament, K. I., & Lukoff, D. (2016). Competencies for psychologists in the domains of religion and spirituality. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 3(2), 92–114.
Ward, A. F. (July 16, 2013). The Neuroscience of everybody’s favorite topic: Why do people spend so much time talking about themselves? Scientific American.
