Biting off more than I can chew is an area of life in which I've unfortunately become extremely talented. In this particular season of life, I am working full-time at American National Insurance, taking eighteen hours of classes at Ecclesia College, attending church a minimum of three times a week, and attempting to keep up with all of my friends (an area in which I have admittedly failed over the past few years). The strain that is inflicted on my mind throughout the week is pretty taxing, however, it's not anything that I can't handle. I'm finding that the insomnia I suffer from is becoming a useful tool rather than a loathsome curse. I do not enjoy going days without sleep, but it definitely helps me maintain the level of productivity that I've come to expect from myself. During these times when my weary body cannot find rest; I've read books, watched sermons, and written things that I would have never had time for if I kept a regular sleep schedule. I may yet learn to master this lack of sleep.
My lack of sleep has planted, in my mind, a new-found desire to study psychology. Specifically, the way our minds work with memory retention is something that fascinates me. I would love to go to graduate school to study how the brain interacts psychologically with its physical conditions, and specifically, how it reacts to sleep deprivation. However, that's not why I brought up the topic of psychology in this post. The reason I brought up my new favorite subject is because I noticed something this week that in some ways bothered me, but mostly just got me thinking.
On two separate occasions, over the past couple of weeks, I have run into the same psychological debate where I apparently do not see eye to eye with the majority of Psych (Christian Counseling) majors at my school. I'll preface this by saying that I am not assuming that I am right at all, and I am going to post both sides of the argument so that my readers (if there are any) can think for themselves and come to their own conclusions.
The dichotomy of thought begins on the point of authenticity in a human's upbringing. One side would say nature, and the other side, nurture. For the record, I believe a healthy dose of both must be observed when deciphering how a person became the way they are presently. An issue I have begun to noticed is that the majority of people I have talked to believe that nurture is the only source to consider. The problem I personally have with that is if an individual only considers how another individual was raised by their parents/guardians, they allow themselves to ignore any outside influences that may have directly/indirectly had an effect on the person. However, Nature vs. Nurture is not the argument I've been running into this past week.; it just happens to be the foundation.
The debate that I ran into this week was about to which extent the spiritual aspect of psychology should be observed when analyzing a patient's disorder(s). Most people that I talked to believe that the spiritual condition of a person should be the main focus when trying to find out why a patient has the condition/disorder that they suffer from. Their argument is, and I'll try to reiterate it as best as I can, that since the Bible is God's infallible Word and is subsequently the Truth because of God's sovereignty and perfect nature; The Bible should be the measuring rod and/or the scale by which a person's life is measured. I've heard this argument go as far as to say that it really doesn't matter where a person was raised or how they were raised when you consider what God is doing in their lives to cause their ailment. My stance on this is that I believe it absolutely matters where a person came from and how they were raised. The physical environment that a person was raised in is very important to consider when dealing with psychological conditions/disorders. I understand that our spiritual authenticity (where we came from) is in Christ and it is where we need to ultimately get back too. However, ignoring the physical authenticity of a person could be detrimental to the final diagnosis of conditions/disorders. So, while I agree that the spiritual aspect of psychology is something to be considered, I also believe that God is not someone that can be predicted since His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. For this reason, I believe that the physical authenticity of a person must be considered before the spiritual authenticity, in order to build an understanding of with whom you're dealing.
That's just my take on this topic. What do you think?
-Matt
My lack of sleep has planted, in my mind, a new-found desire to study psychology. Specifically, the way our minds work with memory retention is something that fascinates me. I would love to go to graduate school to study how the brain interacts psychologically with its physical conditions, and specifically, how it reacts to sleep deprivation. However, that's not why I brought up the topic of psychology in this post. The reason I brought up my new favorite subject is because I noticed something this week that in some ways bothered me, but mostly just got me thinking.
On two separate occasions, over the past couple of weeks, I have run into the same psychological debate where I apparently do not see eye to eye with the majority of Psych (Christian Counseling) majors at my school. I'll preface this by saying that I am not assuming that I am right at all, and I am going to post both sides of the argument so that my readers (if there are any) can think for themselves and come to their own conclusions.
The dichotomy of thought begins on the point of authenticity in a human's upbringing. One side would say nature, and the other side, nurture. For the record, I believe a healthy dose of both must be observed when deciphering how a person became the way they are presently. An issue I have begun to noticed is that the majority of people I have talked to believe that nurture is the only source to consider. The problem I personally have with that is if an individual only considers how another individual was raised by their parents/guardians, they allow themselves to ignore any outside influences that may have directly/indirectly had an effect on the person. However, Nature vs. Nurture is not the argument I've been running into this past week.; it just happens to be the foundation.
The debate that I ran into this week was about to which extent the spiritual aspect of psychology should be observed when analyzing a patient's disorder(s). Most people that I talked to believe that the spiritual condition of a person should be the main focus when trying to find out why a patient has the condition/disorder that they suffer from. Their argument is, and I'll try to reiterate it as best as I can, that since the Bible is God's infallible Word and is subsequently the Truth because of God's sovereignty and perfect nature; The Bible should be the measuring rod and/or the scale by which a person's life is measured. I've heard this argument go as far as to say that it really doesn't matter where a person was raised or how they were raised when you consider what God is doing in their lives to cause their ailment. My stance on this is that I believe it absolutely matters where a person came from and how they were raised. The physical environment that a person was raised in is very important to consider when dealing with psychological conditions/disorders. I understand that our spiritual authenticity (where we came from) is in Christ and it is where we need to ultimately get back too. However, ignoring the physical authenticity of a person could be detrimental to the final diagnosis of conditions/disorders. So, while I agree that the spiritual aspect of psychology is something to be considered, I also believe that God is not someone that can be predicted since His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. For this reason, I believe that the physical authenticity of a person must be considered before the spiritual authenticity, in order to build an understanding of with whom you're dealing.
That's just my take on this topic. What do you think?
-Matt
