Competent, ethical counseling is a force for good. Yet new scrutiny of the practice has arisen in recent years. For instance, Abigail Shrier drew attention in 2024 to the consequences of “poorly executed” therapy focused on children. And earlier this year, therapist Jonathan Alpert argued that a proliferation of therapy has left America “more anxious and divided.”
These concerns have brought renewed attention to what renowned psychologist Allen Bergin, 40 years ago, called the “deterioration effect” or “therapist-caused deterioration.” Despite 30 studies documenting the possibility of worsening in counseling, Bergin lamented how overlooked these incidents were, “no matter how serious the consequences may be for the patients involved.”
We draw attention here to seven signs of potential deterioration in one’s faith and spirituality during counseling — something that shouldn’t happen in high-quality therapy that respects different worldviews.
Signs to watch for
1. A therapist claiming to be ‘neutral’ or ‘value-free’
For years, scholars like Brent Slife warned counselors that they cannot put their values “on the shelf” since their own deeply held convictions are “inescapable.”
Yet most mental health professionals today still signal to clients that they are largely impartial on major life questions — perhaps only influenced by what “research” and “good mental health practice” tells them.
Such a counselor can act, Slife warned, as a kind of “crypto-missionary” — where one worldview gets supplanted by another during therapeutic work. Scholar Ed Gantt told the Deseret News that in some cases, clients are “pronounced healthy and psychologically well to the degree that their values and their worldview come to match the therapist’s.”
This may impact religious clients especially, given that roughly half of therapists identify as atheist or agnostic and as many as 80% receive little to no training in religious issues.
Although she was initially trained to deflect when a client asked about her own faith, therapist Carrie Skarda described becoming “more self-disclosing in that over time.”
“I don’t try and pretend to be neutral around my own faith practice anymore,” Skarda told Deseret News. “If the therapist can’t be transparent about that, that would be a warning sign to me.”
Even counselors who identify as religious can undermine a client’s faith — sometimes unknowingly pressing their clients away from a God-centered view of life. Therapists who cite their own experience with “faith crisis” or “faith transition” as part of their expertise also won’t necessarily be impartial in their treatment of the same.
2. Encouraging putting oneself above all else: ‘Stay true to yourself’
Instead of a duty-first mentality of “I have responsibilities,” clients can be gradually encouraged over the course of therapeutic work toward an identity-first posture that prioritizes themselves: “I must protect my authentic self.”
Replacing “What does God ask of me?” with “What do I want?” can subtly erode covenant ethics, identity and higher purpose. This emphasis on pursuing the “so-called authentic self … can become one’s God,” therapist Rebecca Taylor told the Deseret News. “You’re either going to follow God, something higher than yourself, or you’re going to follow yourself.”
While feelings deserve attention, “they are not always the wise, final or sovereign word,” added therapist Ty Mansfield. “Good therapy helps clients relate to their emotions with curiosity and compassion, while still discerning how to live according to their deepest values and commitments.”
3. Portraying spiritual authority as intrinsically oppressive: ‘Stop letting someone else tell you how to live’
Mansfield told the Deseret News that once we assume that the “true self is found by looking inward, identifying one’s strongest feelings, and expressing them outwardly,” it’s more likely that any external authority — God, family, religious community, moral values — will end up being “interpreted as oppressive.”
If a mental health professional speaks of clergy, commandments, tradition and religious community as intrinsically problematic, this should be another sign to watch — especially since many believers attest that God knows the self better than the self does.
4. Treating strong faith commitments as pathological: ‘Beware high-demand religion’
Strong religious commitments can be spoken of within therapy as unhealthy — reinterpreting prayer, fasting, chastity, repentance and obedience as symptoms of repression or dysfunction.
“If a therapist reduces religion or faith, generally speaking, to being about fear, repression, parental or social conditioning, internalized shame, or social control — then that should be a red flag,” Mansfield said.
Notice if a therapist is “pathologizing” faith, he said, “as opposed to seeing faith as a potential resource for meaning, identity, resilience and moral formation.”
While more overt hostility to faith is less common, therapist Jeff Bennion noted that more subtle body language signals — a skeptical frown, leaning back or leading questions — often do more harm because they are less obvious.
A client may begin to “narrative-shift under the therapist’s guidance,” Gantt said, “labeling their church community, upbringing or beliefs as the core problem or the source of their trauma — and something that needs to be thought through and examined and reconsidered.”
5. Hyper-focusing on guilt and shame: ‘Maybe this isn’t so good for your mental health?’
When therapists focus exclusively on experiences where religion may have prompted stress, shame or guilt, said therapist Samuel Major, they can slowly convince clients that faith is inherently toxic.
Yet not all guilt is toxic. And not all shame is something to eradicate. Sometimes conscience is functioning exactly as intended. And a therapist who reflexively tries to eliminate all guilt may accidentally numb the very signal that points toward repentance. In turn, this may derail character formation that spiritual transformation can yield.
6. Using ‘trauma’ language to describe faith struggles
The growth of trauma-oriented treatment is a positive development for the many who have endured overwhelmingly disturbing events, like child abuse and sexual assault. Yet in recent years, trauma has become a “creeping concept” broadly inclusive of a wide range of experiences and sources of discomfort and distress.
That can include being taught about the consequences of sin, what is entailed in repentance and forgiveness, and the demands of obedience and sacrifice — all of which involve some degree of soul-stretching discomfort. Yet such challenging moments, Taylor noted, may be interpreted by mental health professionals as, “Oh, something is wrong. We need to remove a religious belief … or our community needs to be changed.”
If sin is treated merely as pathology, spiritual transformation and repentance become irrelevant.
“Your therapist needs to be able to differentiate religious struggle from religious harm,” Mansfield emphasized. “Somebody can be in a struggle with their faith without that struggle being harmful or toxic to them. Any real growth is going to induce some kind of struggle.”
Bennion cautioned that inadvertently therapists can “subtly undermine transcendent goals by saying, ‘I don’t know if this is good for your mental health right now,’”
“A good therapist will help you really get to the bottom of what your intrinsically motivated goals are,” he added, “and then encourage and support you in achieving them, even if that results in some short-term anguish, difficulty or suffering.”
7. When conflict arises in families, suggesting, ‘Maybe you need to cut them off’
In cases of abuse, endangerment or exploitation, it’s critical that physical boundaries are put in place and legally enforced.
But when such threats are not present, counselors may still encourage clients to put boundaries on others that can be experienced as cruel and excessive — for instance, cutting off loving grandparents from grandchildren.
Boundary language is “often used in such unsophisticated ways that it really just gives people permission to avoid or cut off people,” Mansfield said. “Everyone becomes ‘toxic’ or ‘unsafe’ or ‘abusive,’ and those words become meaningless.”
If a counselor is encouraging you to cut off a relationship that could still be preserved, deepened and healed, remember the reconciliation, endurance and peacemaking at the heart of many faith traditions.
A better approach is not to foist boundaries on others but to apply them to yourself — determining what is right for you to do when a discussion gets difficult.
The value of good counseling
Far from dismissing the value of good therapy, this is about raising awareness about when counseling or coaching risks veering off the rails to become something else. Let’s remember:
- Good therapists can deepen faith.
- Trauma-informed care matters.
- Some religious environments are abusive.
- Boundaries can also be righteous.
After counseling, ask yourself: Do you feel more capable of love, sacrifice, repentance, forgiveness and covenant-keeping — or more centered on self-protection, self-definition and self-gratification?