By: Dr. Eric L Johnson
The Three Faces of Integration
Having considered the impact of late modern rules of discourse and practice with which Christians in the fields of psychology and psychotherapy have had to cope over the past few decades, we turn to consider three different faces of integration which have developed in response to these late modern pressures.
The Face of Anxiety: Dissociative Integration
In a classic integration article, Larzelere (1980) pointed out six levels at which the integration task can be conducted, the most basic of which is worldview. However, at the worldview level, the task is not to integrate, but “to clarify the presuppositions of world views used in secular psychology and to compare them with presuppositions appropriate for a Christian world view” (p. 5). The problem for those of us educated within a late modern psychology context is the extent to which—without knowing it—secular worldview assumptions might have influenced our understanding of human beings, while we consciously retained our Christian beliefs, since deeply-held worldview beliefs color the rest of our discursive/conceptual system. If this occurred, it could result in some degree of unconscious secular/Christian syncretism. How might this happen?
The Anxiety of Worldview Conflict. Atheism and agnosticism are native to the current human condition (“The fool says in his heart there is no God,” Psalm 14:1). However, the West has seen a sharp increase in such positions during the modern era. The slow but steady secularization of late modernism has profoundly affected the intellectual leadership of Western culture during the past 150 years. Education was one cultural institution at the center of this shift (Marsden, 1994; Smith, 2003; Taylor, 2007). As a result, Christians seeking undergraduate and graduate education during this time have been challenged ethically and spiritually, as well as intellectually. While some late modern educators and scholars have openly challenged religious belief in their classes and books, most of the influence of secularism has been indirect. By ignoring religion throughout most of the curriculum, the irrelevancy of God to modern life is rendered seemingly obvious.
What happens when late modern psychology is taught in religious contexts, without significant awareness of its implicit worldview assumptions? In a recent cross-sectional study of psychology students at a conservative Mormon university, Slifeand his colleagues (2011) have reportedly found a significant shift from freshman to senior years in worldview thinking from theism to naturalism. How can such movement occur in a strongly religious environment? In light of available neuropsychological, memory, and social psychology research, let us hypothesize. It appears that information tends to be stored in the brain in different brain regions and neural networks based on conceptual categories (Banich 1997; Markowitsch, 2000; Smith & Jonides, 2000). Let us suppose that the secular psychological information (and its usually implicit naturalistic assumptions) was taught at that Mormon university according to late modern rules of discourse, so that explicit reference was rarely made to God or religious beliefs. Though the professors were likely relatively highly religious and the psychology was being learned by relatively highly religious students, it was being stored in new neural networks that were unconnected to the neural networks where the students’ religious beliefs and theistic worldview assumptions were stored, so that they became functionally dissociated. Without someone drawing attention explicitly to the contradictions in worldview assumptions, there would be little or no awareness of the conceptual conflict.
Social psychologists have also identified social pressures that could strengthenthis trend in intellectual development (Cialdini, 2009), for example, knowledgeable, likeable teachers advocating a secular approach to psychology and adhering to its late modern rules of discourse, and most peers receiving it all without much question. (Such pressures are likely even stronger for graduate students, whose mentors are also gatekeepers to their future.)
Sealing the dissociation could be some strong motivational dynamics. Consciously-held worldview and religious beliefs are usually integral to a religious person’s identity and sense of self. As a result, the more awareness a student has of aconflict between his strong religious beliefs and the secularity of their studies, the greater the likelihood that some anxiety would be aroused. According to Aronson’s (2008) modification of cognitive dissonance theory, threats to one’s self-concept can cause discomfort (or anxiety) that can be a powerful unconscious motivator for modifying one’s thinking in ways that reduce it. There are various ways to do so. In the present case, one can simply avoid thinking about the religious/secular conflict. Another way is through intellectualization, for instance, by forming a rational and religious justification for keeping separate psychology and one’s faith.
Dissociatiative Integration and the Science of Psychology. In Christian circles such justification could be provided, at least in part, by weak versions of the integration concept. The term “integration of faith and learning” implies that one will be bringing together one’s faith and one’s learning. This rightly resonates with the deep desire Christians have to live their lives integrally related to their God. So labeling a psychology program as integrative, using the term integration periodically, and perhaps including a capstone course on integration can help reassure faculty and students that they are being consistent with their faith, in spite of the fact that very little time in the program was actually spent practicing integration. Indeed, one wonders if, in some cases, theintegration term may have been used unconsciously to justify why the Christian faith and theology was largely absent in the psychology instruction. As is well known, the “levels-of-explanation” view is an approach to the relation of psychology and the Christian faith which formally separates psychology and theology into different “levels of explanation” that ought not to be mixed together, since they are different disciplines with different methods and aims (Myers, 1978; 2010). But what are we to think about a model that actually resembles a levels-of-explanation approach but is called by its proponents integration? In such a case, the Christian faith and secular psychology are actually not being integrated, and their autonomous and separate existence is being sanctioned by the term “integration,” which in actual fact now means its opposite. This convoluted practice likely reduces the cognitive dissonance and anxietythat greater awareness of the actual contradictory conceptual state of affairs, but it is more accurately labeled dissociative integration (DI). Obviously an oxymoron, it has the virtue of alluding to the confusion and anxiety that may underlie a use of the integration label that enables one to practice a secular psychology implicitly, while still maintaining consciously one’s strong Christian commitments.
Dissociative Integration and Psychotherapy and Counseling. The late modern therapy ethical norms of discourse that we noted above have convinced many Christian therapists that they may not share their therapeutically relevant Christian beliefs with those with whom they work. As a result, some may conduct months of therapy with people without initiating any discourse about God and the Christian faith. Some of these therapists nevertheless use the term integration to label their approach, perhaps qualifying it with the adjective “implicit” or “intrapersonal” or “ethical.” Needless to say, there are entirely valid Christian uses of these adjectives. (See chapter three of Johnson, 2007a, for a more thorough discussion of ethical integration.)
Sometimes this loose appropriation of the label integration is further justified by a metaphorical use of theological concepts. For example, some might call their work “incarnational,” since they are manifesting the love of Christ for the counselee, or arguethat one’s therapy is a kind of “redemption” since counselees are being “redeemed” from their pathology. However, if no mention is made explicitly, in session, of Christ and his redemption or resurrection, appropriated by faith by the counselee, such language utilizes a profound Christian metaphor for what is otherwise standard secular therapy. This would not seem to qualify as actual integration, because it keeps the theological language in theory on one pole of the metaphor while maintaining the psychological discourse in practice on the other.
Perhaps the primary test of whether such dissociation is operative is if the Christian counselor uses Christian resources when working with Christian counselees. Christians can debate the advisability and conformity to professional ethics of initiating Christian discourse with non-Christian counselees, given the late modern rules of discourse discussed above. But the gospel of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is the good news of God’s great psychotherapeutic intervention, and it provides enormous cognitive, affective, and relational resources for therapy work with Christians. Christian therapists who value integration should relish counseling Christians, so they can do more integration.
Why is the term integration used by some Christians who practice as secular therapists? A Christian psychodynamic interpretation might go like this: sincere Christians who believe they must conform to late modern rules of therapy discourse, but who want nonetheless to consider themselves legitimately Christian, use the term “integration” to reduce the discomfort and anxiety they feel about the disjunction between their faith and work and to keep themselves from questioning their conceptualand practical dissonance more deeply. If this does in fact occur, it too would seem to qualify as a dissociative kind of integration.
At the same time, critics need to appreciate that in dissociation one is not conscious of what is occurring. As we noted above, dissociative integration is a function of education, training, and credentialing in a social context in which late modern psychology controls what is permissible to say (and hence, to think). As a result, many Christians in the field have a vastly more sophisticated understanding of late modern psychology than they have of the Christian faith and its relevant intellectual resources (reflective of their training), so they are simply unaware of how little integration they are actually doing. Rather than just criticizing (or ignoring) such brothers and sisters who are sincerely seeking to serve Christ in their vocations, we need to figure out how to do a better job of assisting them to fulfill their desire to integrate!
These are serious allegations. Could they possibly be true? I know they are, in my case at least, for I am describing what I have learned as I have worked through my own dissociated integration for decades. I am deeply grateful to God and to Michigan State University for the late modern psychology education that I received. However, I have found it “integrated” with my own native tendencies to dissociate my faith from my daily and professional life. Perhaps some dissociation is an inevitable risk of learning from the best of secular psychology, a possibility for which we must prepare our students.
What can we do to promote the healing of our dissociation? It is similar to those who have been exposed to more intense trauma: as we become increasingly aware of our distorted dispositions, we learn to look for evidence of them, to work on them, and to cry out to Christ for help to overcome them, so that we do not remain a victim (or aperpetrator), but more and more a survivor, one who takes responsibility for one’s remaining blindness and seeks the healing that is available in Christ.
Eric founded the Christian Psychology Institute a decade ago while serving in Christian higher education. Since retiring from Houston Christian University in May 2024, he has devoted himself to building CPI into a national hub for training, scholarship, and certification in Christ-Centered Therapy.
An accomplished author and editor, Eric is widely respected for his work at the intersection of theology and psychology. He brings over 25 years of pastoral counseling experience and is a frequent speaker at conferences and academic events.
Eric is married to Rebekah and cherishes time with their two children and three grandchildren. In his free time, he enjoys hiking and bike riding.
