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Christian Universities And Such


JenellYB

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psychsteph22 wrote: I'll never forget in my college senior psychology course where the students (most of who planned on being counselors at some point) came to the conclusion that people with mental disorders were demon-possessed, and that homosexuality is a choice and therefore, wrong. :blink: They didn't want to know anymore than what they were comfortable with.

 

Oh my gosh, where did you go to college? A private fundamentalist affiliated one? Throughout my way to my BS, psychology, such a thing would not have even been an acceptable suggestion in the Sophomore level first "Into to Psych" course, totally unimaginable in something like a Senior course! That something like that could be being acceptable at any 'accredited' U, private or otherwise, is scary! To think any such had plans of counseling?? Oh, their poor clients!

 

By senior level, psych courses are pretty specifically targeted, to pretty specialized field within the broader discipline, and getting pretty seriously professional, with several prerequisites behind the student..may I ask what the course focus was where such a thing happened?

Jenell

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It was our senior capstone class. It's purpose was basically to sum up what we had learned in our previous psych classes. We took it right before graduation. It was a private Pentecostal university in the Southeast. When asked what they would do when they had a patient with a mental illness, or who was gay and didn't see a problem with it - they couldn't come up with an answer. The only thing they could think of to do was "refer them to someone else". I remember our professor even asking if they really thought they should be counselors. Some of them weren't like that, but several were.

 

The university wasn't all bad, I did meet some truly wonderful people there who are still my friends today, but I also had some bad experiences like that one. Some of the students really did believe depression is a result of sinning or being separated from G_d, psychosis is demon possession, and homosexuality is wrong. I liked and respected most of my professors... Even if they weren't progressives a lot of them at least tried to get students to start to think about why they believed what they believed, but that didn't always happen. It was a weird environment. I have a lot of interesting stories.

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Oh my, that's awfull I am going to assume then, this is NOT an accredited University Pscyh curriculum that would qualify these graduates for admission into any formal acceditited post-grad program toward actually pursuing a Psy-D or PhD in psychology or professional liscensing. I think its sad you and other students put in the class time and work for a degree, and got something like that instead of a professional quality education you deserved. I've heard horror stories about that about those private fundamentalist U's, Oral Roberts in particular in several cases.

 

Where I went, we didn't have any kind of a 'capstone' course like that...if you wanted to go any further, apply for grad school, that was all covered in the Graduate Record Exam that was required to do so. We did have to do an internship, something hand-on using what we learned, I did mine with Texas Young Autism project, as a therapy assistant doing intensiive behavior therapy on young children with autism, and put in 16 hrs a week hands-on therapy plus a weekly evaluation meeting where we showed the child's progress to the senior psychologist that wrote that child's detailed therapy plan.

 

I'm all for separation of church and state, but I think religious affiliated U's should be required to meet standards equal/comprable to non-religious affiliated. Students and their parents should be able expect that for the money and time they are spending.

 

Not all religious affiliated U's are like that, such one's as Baylor Bapstist and Texas Christian University have excellent credentials and repuations. But to hear this kind of thing in senior psychology classes, something that that deals with and affects very vulnerable people, is scary indeed.

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Unfortunately, the university is accredited. It even has a masters program for "Christian" counseling, with a concentration is cross-cultural counseling. I struggled a lot with fairly severe depression in college and always felt guilty for it. I thought it was my fault and was a result of my not having enough faith in G_d to make it go away. I would go to alter calls hoping to be healed miraculously and be discouraged when it didn't happen.

 

PC has done a lot to free me from those old feelings of guilt and fear and allows me to learn about other perspectives and belief systems without the fear of angering G_d or becoming "of the world". I feel like I can relate to people who believe differently than me a thousand times better, and I hope I'm more relatable. I think it has made me a more compassionate, open-minded, and overall better person.

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re my last 2 posts made after 1:30 am...this is embarrassing, but for they might contain anything offensive or hurtful to psychsteph, and that they are just plain incoherent and don't make sense, I'm requesting Joseph remove them, and to psychosteph. my apology if it in any way does hurt or iffend, and be was of what explanation I can give, lame as it sounds, upon reading them this morning, I was too far gone to sleep when I wrote those to have been trying to communicate with anyone. That has happened to me on a few occasions, not just here, but I don't realize until the next morning, if made aware of it, that I'd done it. :o

Jenell

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Oh, you're good Jenell. :) The school was really weird. I am happy to say I am currently studying for my masters in research psychology at a state university. I have studied under one of the leading psychology of religion experts in the world, and this has opened me up to a whole new world. I have friends who are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic, Buddhist and Atheist. I am thankful for every one of them and the experiences that knowing them has given me.

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Fantastic! I think you were very blessed to have encountered someone like that, in psychology of religion...that was among some of the kind of 'cross-ever' courses I took in conection my my doing a Psych major and a Religious Studies minor as I did. At the start, my thought was, I want to understand people, and you can't understand people without also understanding something of their religion and fatih traditions. I've felt the importance of religion, faith, and spirituality has been traditionally neglected in cross and multicultural studies, sociology, etc, even avoided, lol, like the plague! Fear of stirring up controversy I think.

 

But I soon realized psychology and religious/faith/spirituality are actually quite complmenatary each to understanding the other, and how they apply to people. And, gone in at the start, expecting somewhat, for all I'd been taught and told all my life, that the psychology was all going to be so completely secular, even atheistic, I was definitely delighted to find that not so, that many 'greats thinkers' in the field of psychology, as well as those engaged in preactice and teaching at U level, are actually passionally people of faith and spiritualitty, if not a 'brand' of religion in particular. I'm sure with your relgious background you have experienced, some Christian tradtions reallly do belittle, even demonize and promote fear of such as psychology, philosophy, and psychiatry (tho I'm more than a bit wary of the latter, myself, lol, as I've found many in the field of psychology are)

 

Jenell

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