LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
The Myth That Psychology Can Heal the Past
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
10/2022
According to widely accepted psychological theory, humans are captives of their past.
Many Christian writers use the term “adult children” to describe people who were damaged in
their youth by divorce or emotional or physical abuse. They generally believe that we must
return to the past in order to experience healing in the present. One Christian psychologist says,
“We are as much our past as we are our present and our hopes for the future. To cut off the
past is to erase part of our story, our journey, our self. The reclamation of the past involves the
courage to be all that we are so that we can be all that we will be in our relationships to
others.”1 He lists three purposes for the journey into the past: “removal of the denial,
reclamation of the self, and movement toward real change.”2
While I agree that we should not deny the facts of the past, I find no scriptural command to
return to it or to reclaim one’s self in order to accomplish real change in the present. Instead, I
find the command to deny ourselves and to take up our cross daily to follow Christ (Mark 8:34,
35).
Another prominent Christian psychologist concurs with the current psychological concept
of “the inner child.” In order to heal this inner being, he suggests that you “use your memories
as the key to understanding your past and the influence your inner child has had on your
emotions and reactions as an adult.”3 He recommends the use of your imagination to free you
from your past.4
Inner Healing and Imagination
Collins points out some of the legitimate concerns believers have with occult practices that
often appear in the garb of psychology: “biorhythms, reincarnation, astrology, ESP, Eastern
meditation, altered states of consciousness” and more.5 As a result, he says—
some writers have condemned visualization, self-talk, the healing of memories and other
frequently used therapeutic methods. These have been labeled “occultist,” and even their
Christian advocates are described as misguided and deceived. These are serious allegations. If
they are true, then psychology is indeed a more dangerous force than most people suspect.6
To integrationists, “visualization, imagination and guided imagery are related words that
describe the use of mental pictures to bring increased understanding, relation or self-
confidence.”7 For example, visualization takes place when an athlete mentally reviews each
move he is about to make or when a speaker imagines the positive reaction his audience will
give him. It sounds innocent enough. So what’s the problem?
Dave Hunt writes in The Seduction of Christianity:
So in the name of the latest psychology we are being led back into primitive paganism/
shamanism, which then enters the church because psychology is embraced as scientific and
neutral. Tragically, this is often done by sincere Christian leaders who imagine that they are
bringing a revival to the church.8
Is Hunt overreacting? I don’t think so. A book entitled Self-Talk, Imagery, and Prayer in
Counseling makes several observations about how the mind processes thoughts with images. I
agree with some of the statements about the effect of one’s thought life upon behavior and
emotions. For instance, the author says:
In this type of counseling, we encourage the individual to engage in self-observation, to
become sensitive to what he or she is saying inwardly. Scripture teaches this. “Search me, O
God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in
me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23, 24).9
I do not disagree with the writer’s conclusions about the importance of the thought life.
Note, however, that the passage he quotes asks God to search the heart. Self-observation can
lead to self-deception unless done under the intense spotlight of the Scripture. This is because
man’s nature is so wicked that “every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all
the time” (Genesis 6:5). We are warned that “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not
submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:7). Paul warned the Colossians that an
“unspiritual mind puffs [a person] up with idle notions” (Colossians 2:18). He told Titus that
“the minds and consciences” of impure people “are corrupted” (Titus 1:15).
The author of Self-Talk explains his concept of the healing of memories:
Through the use of imagination, the counselee endeavors to recreate the painful memory
and actually visualize it as it once took place. Then he prays, asking God for the kind of help he
needed in that situation. A child or teenager might ask God to heal her of a terrifying or
damaging experience that has emotionally crippled her.
In our minds we can walk back in time with Christ in order to minister to the hurting
person. This does not change the event that occurred, but God can release the hurt and the
damage.10
An Unproven Theory
There are at least three weaknesses with the increasingly popular healing-of-memories
theory. First, the theory itself is unproven. Not only is there no solid scientific evidence that
mentally repeating an event aids in healing, but there is also no scriptural warrant for the
practice. Instead of looking backward in time, we are encouraged to look forward. Paul said,
“One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on
toward the goal” (Philippians 3:13). I am not implying that memories must be repressed, but
grace, forgiveness, and the power of God are sufficient to heal memories without deliberately
ripping old scars open.
Often, returning to past suffering, failure, and pain can reignite the hatred and bitterness
that God has already dealt with and can reopen the wounds that Christ has already healed. One
woman told me that she went to a supposedly Christian counselor who insisted that she return
to her past for healing. Instead of experiencing freedom and joy, she felt violated and defiled.
“Pastor,” she said, “at the end of the counseling, I felt so dirty all over again. Does a person
really have to go through all of her pain over and over?” Her forehead was creased with anxiety
and concern. When I shared some biblical concepts of God’s forgiveness and healing, peace
began to appear in her face once again.
Inaccurate and Selective Memories
A second weakness to the healing-of-memories theory is the fact that memories are
inaccurate and selective. Psychologists and psychiatrists who lead their clients back into the
past can actually create memories of events that never took place. Memories can become
distorted with time so that the recollection of an event may bear only a hazy resemblance to
reality.
Growing Doubts About the Accuracy of Memories
One of a series of articles by journalist Bill Scanlon was headlined “Incompetent Therapists
Are Turning Patients’ Fantasies into Repressed Reality, Some Experts Are Saying.” The article
questions the validity of delving back into the past for repressed memories. “Increasingly…a
vocal number of psychologists and researchers question whether repressed memories are
memories at all. Instead, some experts believe, they often are fantasies coming from overactive
imaginations fired by incompetent therapists.”11
The potential harm is incalculable. “Twenty-eight percent of the cases of reported incest
are based on repressed memory, according to a survey by the Kempe National Center for the
Prevention and Treatment of Substance Abuse. Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist and memory
expert at the University of Washington, says there is no way of knowing how many of those
accusations are true.”12 Who knows how many innocent people are accused of abuse on the
basis of questionable memories? It seems that there are many. “It’s very painful, these stories I
hear,” Loftus said. “Everywhere I go, it’s amazing. I’ll give a talk about memories, and two or
three people independently will come up to me and tell me a story about someone in their
family who thinks they’ve been wrongly accused—a repressed-memory story.”13
How are suppressed memories resurrected? “The commonality seems to be the therapist,
not the person. They go to therapists who believe that a huge amount of women have been
sexually abused and a lot of them don’t remember it.”14 According to Scanlon’s article,
therapists often suggest the existence of hidden memories: “The line of questioning goes this
way, Wakefield said: ‘Have you ever been abused? No. Are you sure? Let’s talk about it, let’s
explore it…maybe you were. Let’s help you get the memories back.’ ”15 The theory is, if you
can’t remember any specific sexual abuse, but have a vague feeling or suspicion that it might
have happened, it probably did.
The media and publishing industries have helped to foster the concept of repressed
memories. According to the article, one can find more than 200 books on incest, recovery, and
repressed memories at The Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver. Incest-recovery books are hot
sellers, but their scientific reliability is doubtful.
“ ‘It’s probably possible you can repress something,’ Loftus said. ‘But whether whatever
comes back 20 or 30 years later is an authentic version of reality—there is no proof of that.’
Memories, she believes, are unreliable.”16
Dr. Martin Orne, a psychiatrist at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, also disputes the
concept that painful memories are frequently repressed:
“Typically, memories of horrible things are not forgotten,” Orne said. “People who were in
concentration camps, who were treated horribly and saw people die before them—they know
exactly what happened.”
Orne and the other skeptics say there is a crucial difference between people who have
always remembered the abuse they suffered as children and those who “remember” it decades
later, usually after reading a book or going to a therapist.17
Others share Orne’s skepticism:
The idea that the brain can store traumatic memories, then produce them in exquisite
detail in a flashback, is simply wrong, argues Dr. George K. Ganaway of the Ridgeview Center for
Dissociative Disorders in Atlanta.
“Reconstructed memories may incorporate fantasy, distortion, displacement,
condensation, symbolism, and other mental mechanisms,” Ganaway said. “Their sum factual
reliability is highly questionable.”18
The article reports the story of a woman who was convinced by a therapist that she had
been abused by her father:
It took a prying therapist, bizarre psychological techniques and several types of medication
to convince her that her father, her mother and her grandfather sexually abused her, too.
Today, after three years of therapy hell, Lynn believes she was abused by a hysteria run
amok, not by her parents.19
Many therapists have come to believe that virtually everyone is a victim of sexual abuse,
and the lack of memories is cited as proof. Sometimes, however, the abuse is perpetrated by
incompetent therapists.
The therapists kept working on her memories, [Lynn] said. “The therapist insinuated and
interpreted more to my relationship with my father than I remembered.”
She recalled to her therapist that she walked in once on her mother and father making
love. And she felt bad about it.
“My therapist’s theory was that I felt bad because I’d caught my lover with another
woman.”
On Dec. 3, 1986, she wrote a letter to her parents, accusing her father of abuse.
“After I got away from therapy, my memories began coming back to me,” she said. “Within
six months, I knew my dad did not abuse me, nor my mother or grandfather.”
Happily, “My dad never held me accountable for those accusations. He accepted me back
wholeheartedly.”20
