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In recent weeks, an article published by The Gospel Coalition addressed an increased tendency for women to seek psychological or therapeutic support outside of the church
The concern expressed is one that some church leaders have expressed for many years, that people may no longer seek pastoral care, and seeking therapy is a way of displacing faith, Scripture, and the presence of God in people’s lives.
I do not deny that faith communities and church leaders can be powerful places of meaning, hope, and care. Many people do turn to their church and spiritual leaders as a refuge in times of distress, and this can be a genuine source of comfort and strength.
At the same time, the way this issue is framed by Kleinschmidt raises important questions about the appropriateness or benefits of seeking support outside of the church — especially for those (often women) who have experienced harm, silencing, or misuse of authority within church contexts.
A False Either–Or: Therapy and Faith Positioned as Rivals
One of the most concerning aspects of Kleinschmidt’s discussion is the framing of therapy instead of church. For many women (and men), this is a false dichotomy.
Seeking therapy does not mean setting faith aside; for many, it is part of caring responsibly for the whole person. Ironically, the concern raised in the article rests on the very separation it critiques. While warning against a three-part view of the person (body, psychological, and spiritual), the argument implicitly treats “psychological” care as something that sits outside faithful life with God. In doing so, it reinforces the idea that therapy operates in a separate or competing domain, rather than recognising that psychological care can be one way people attend to their embodied, relational, and spiritual lives before God. Framing certain forms of care as spiritually legitimate, and others as neutral, secondary, or spiritually suspect, reflects a longstanding sacred–secular divide, and obscures the integrated nature of psychological, relational, and spiritual life.
Rather than therapy fragmenting the person, it is often the framing of therapy as spiritually suspect that creates the division. For many people, seeking therapy is not about isolating the psychological from faith, but about addressing suffering that has overwhelmed their capacity to engage spiritually, relationally, or emotionally
Furthermore, the assumption that therapy places people “under the authority” of a therapist misunderstands ethical psychological practice. Therapy does not exist to replace conscience, faith, or moral agency. At its best, it helps restore agency, clarity, and capacity—particularly when these have been eroded by trauma, chronic stress, anxiety, or relational harm.
For many people, therapy does not remove or replace God. Rather, therapy can help them to re-engage with life, relationships, faith, and spiritual community.
Psychological Care Is Not Godless Care
The article raises the concern that “psychological” struggles have been separated from God’s presence or authority, as though anxiety, relational distress, or emotional pain now exist in a godless sphere. This reflects a category error.
The psychological is not a rival domain competing with God. It refers to how human beings think, feel, attach, regulate emotion, and make meaning. Scripture itself is saturated with accounts of fear, despair, grief, relational rupture, and longing. These concerns should not be treated merely as moral failures, but as profoundly human experiences.
To suggest that attending to psychological injury somehow diminishes a life lived with God risks oversimplifying both theology and human suffering. Many people turn to therapy because they are overwhelmed, traumatised, or unable to function, and are seeking support from someone with specialised training and skills in addressing these concerns. They do not seek support from a therapist because they believe God is irrelevant. In much the same way that a person with a broken leg or cancer would be encouraged to seek care from a well-qualified medical professional with specific expertise, those experiencing mental health struggles may require support from clinicians trained to understand and treat psychological issues.
This perspective also rests on an assumption that therapists are uniformly secular or dismissive of faith, an assumption that does not reflect either the diversity of practitioners or the ethical obligations of psychological practice.
The Problematic Framing of “Authority” in Counselling and Pastoral Care
A further concern is the repeated emphasis on authority in the article—particularly the implication that seeking pastoral counsel is, in some sense, seeking God’s authority in a situation, while seeking therapy risks placing oneself under an alternative authority. This framing deserves careful scrutiny.
When someone seeks pastoral care, they are still seeking care from a human being. A pastor or spiritual leader is not God. When pastoral counsel is implicitly framed as operating under God’s authority in a way that psychological care is not, several risks emerge.
Authority, Care, and the Risk of Harm
This is a concern as equating pastoral care with divine authority can unintentionally increase the potential for harm, particularly for those in vulnerable or dependent positions.
When a pastor is experienced not simply as a source of support or wisdom, but as a representative of God’s authority in a person’s life, this can:
- Inhibit questioning or discernment
- Discourage second opinions or outside support
- Make disagreement feel like spiritual rebellion
- Intensify shame when advice does not help or causes harm
- Increase susceptibility to certain types of abuse and grooming, including adult clergy exploitation.
In such contexts, people may comply not because the guidance is wise or safe, but because resisting it feels like resisting God. From a psychological perspective, this dynamic is a recognised risk factor for coercion, dependency, grooming, and spiritual abuse.
Pastoral Care Is Not the Same as God’s Voice
Christian tradition has long held that wisdom is discerned in community—through Scripture, conscience, prayer, and the counsel of others. In many denominations, no single human voice carries divine authority over another person’s life.
Therefore, to suggest, even implicitly, that seeking pastoral care places a person more fully under God’s authority than seeking psychological care risks confusing spiritual guidance with spiritual control.
Both pastors and therapists are people offering care, perspective, and support. Neither is God. Neither should be treated as the final authority over another person’s decisions, relationships, or conscience. Ethical psychological practice explicitly resists this kind of authority dynamic. Therapists are trained to avoid dependency, to support autonomy, and to help people clarify their own values, beliefs, and responsibilities—including spiritual ones.
The Safety Question Cannot Be Ignored
What is largely absent from the conversation is a serious engagement with why women, in particular, may hesitate to seek help within church structures.
Many churches, particularly those shaped by conservative or complementarian frameworks, operate within male-dominated leadership systems. While not all churches are unsafe, church leaders have not always been safe for women, particularly surrounding issues that involve marriage, boundaries, abuse, coercive control, or power.
For some women, seeking help within church contexts has resulted in:
- Minimisation of harm
- Pressure to forgive prematurely
- Encouragement to endure unsafe situations
- Spiritualisation of abuse
- Breaches of confidentiality
- Being counselled by leaders without training in trauma or mental health.
Therapy is not an Act of Defiance
From a trauma-informed perspective, therapy is often sought when a person’s internal resources and external supports have been exhausted. In clinical experience, many women—and men—from religious communities arrive in therapy after years of trying to cope through church endorsed piety only to find that their distress has increased rather than resolved.
Others come to therapy to process trauma experienced within high-control religious communities. In these cases, seeking support from a clinician who is appropriately trained and somewhat removed from their religious system can provide space to clarify values, make sense of what has occurred, and, for many, identify or re-engage with a safer faith community
Therapy, in these cases, is not about self-indulgence or secularisation. For some individuals, therapy is the first setting in which their experiences are taken seriously and believed. Rather than fragmenting faith from life, this process can support greater integration—enabling people to re-engage with their relationships, responsibilities, and spiritual commitments in a more grounded and whole-person way.
Spiritualising Mental Health and the Risk of Stigma
Many religious individuals experience barriers to seeking professional mental health support that are shaped by faith commitments and community norms. Research shows that people who identify as religious or spiritual are less likely to recognise a need for formal care and are less likely to seek such care even when distressed. Qualitative studies further indicate that while faith can be a source of strength, religious beliefs can also create tension with professional help-seeking, with some individuals reporting reluctance to pursue mental health services because of stigma and spiritual interpretations of distress. Broader reviews of the literature identify religious involvement as a potential barrier to accessing mental health services when doctrinal beliefs or community attitudes discourage engagement with clinical care.
Pastors and church leaders, therefore, play a critical role in reducing mental health stigma and supporting access to appropriate care. However, this role is best exercised not by positioning pastoral care as the primary or superior response to psychological distress. When articles frame therapy as a spiritual concern or imply that seeking psychological support reflects a drift from faith, they risk reinforcing stigma and discouraging help-seeking. By contrast, when pastors openly acknowledge the limits of pastoral care, affirm that mental health challenges are not spiritual failures, and actively support collaboration with qualified professionals, they create safer pathways for people to seek help without shame. In doing so, church leaders do not diminish faith; rather, they strengthen trust, protect the vulnerable, and contribute to care that is both faithful and responsible.
The Importance of Acknowledging the Limits of Church Care
Churches play a vital role in spiritual formation and community life. But expecting churches to meet all psychological, relational, and trauma-related needs is neither realistic nor safe.
Pastors and ministry leaders are rarely trained to assess trauma, mental illness, or complex relational dynamics. Even when they are wise, compassionate, and well-intentioned, they are not substitutes for specialised care, just as psychologists are not substitutes for spiritual community. Acknowledging limits is not a failure of faith, but an expression of wisdom and humility
While the article rightly affirms that the church can be a “valuable resource” for those with anxiety, it does not follow that it should be the only one. Faithful care involves recognising limits, protecting the vulnerable, and embracing collaboration rather than competition in support.
For a deeper exploration of the themes raised here — particularly questions of power, authority, and care within church contexts — I recommend this conversation I had about the Controlling Church on the With All Due Respect podcast.
Kylie Walls is a psychologist whose clinical interests include trauma and abuse recovery, faith-related harm, and relationship difficulties. Her academic work has included published research on coercive control and attachment in intimate relationships. She holds a Master of Psychological Practice and a Master of Guidance and Counselling.
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