To write this review, it might be helpful to share a personal experience.

Several years ago, I had a knee replacement, and at the time, it was an overnight in the hospital ordeal, and in my case, it was two nights. Perhaps it was related to my age, I do not know.

During my hospital stay, I was visited by either a staff psychologist or psychiatrist, and quite a few nurses were concerned about my “mental health.”

Since I was on pain meds, I was literally feeling no pain, so I guess my mental health was just fine.

I had to see the surgeon multiple times, and before each visit I had to answer a questionnaire similar to these.

Are you depressed?

Are you anxious?

Do you feel threatened at home?

What is your stress level?

Are you having trouble sleeping? (A question that usually relates to depression or anxiety.)

The questions are well-meaning, since how you feel mentally can affect the healing process.

Had I answered that I had trouble sleeping, was cranky a lot, or stressed out, I most likely would have received a prescription to deal with depression or anxiety.

Now, to be honest, I was discouraged and sad during a long recovery since the knee did not heal quickly and therapy was excruciating, but that is different than being depressed or requiring a psychotropic for anxiety.

When medical people ask if you are depressed, they tend to equate “feeling blue” with clinical depression.  In other words, if you exhibit or confess to “x” number of symptoms, you are awarded a depression type label.

No one was lying to me since they really believed that I could be on the verge of a mental disorder and that something in my brain was not quite right. The solution would have been here: take this pill, it will adjust your brain chemistry, and you no longer feel anxious or depressed.

My personal experience is an example of what Greg Gifford is getting at in Lies My Therapist Told Me..

The modern psychological psychiatric community conflates mind with brain, as if they are the same thing.

The basic presupposition is that If you feel depressed, then the brain is sick, and so a prescription is necessary, and perhaps therapy is what you need to cope with the sickness.

Gifford’s primary argument against the presupposition is based on the Bible. The brain is an organ, the material part of what we are. There is such a thing as a genuine brain disease, but it can be tested and verified.

Gifford argues, based on Scripture, that the mind is immaterial and part of what biblical counselors call the heart or soul.

Gifford’s view is called a dichotomous view of man and woman, meaning that it sees man and woman as having an outer, physical, material part and an inner, immaterial person. Giffford’s view is based on Scripture.

The result is that the biblical view takes us in an entirely different direction than assuming we have a mental disorder and our brains are sick.

The title of Gifford’s book, Lies My Therapist Told Me, is based on his personal experience that involved his son and his son’s school. 

In the introduction to the book, Gifford writes that his son had difficulty paying attention at times and learning at the same pace as the other children. This is what Gifford writes about his  and his wife’s experience with the school psychologist:

As I sat across from the school psychologist with my wife and sixth-grade son, I knew the system was broken. “We want him to be tested,” she said. But it sounded like she really meant “We are looking to diagnose him.” Gifford, Greg E.. Lies My Therapist Told Me: Why Christians Should Aim for More Than Just Treating Symptoms (p. 12). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Like my experience, the school psychologist was assuming that something was wrong with the brain, and Gifford’s son probably had ADHD or a learning disability. The psychologist was not lying per se because she really believed what she was saying, but in reality, it was a lie because the brain and mind are not the same. If you get the presumption wrong in the first place, you get the diagnosis of a problem wrong in the second place.

Gifford says we live in a therapeutic culture, and he is right. 

Gifford will argue persuasively that a Christian changes through the transformation of the mind (Rom. 12:1-2), which is related to the brain, and is not the same thing. Scripture says we are to have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), and that is the clue as to how we should view our problems.

I am a certified biblical counselor, so the information in the book was not new to me. But as a counselor, I think it’s a valuable resource to help Christians think differently about their diagnosis or what diagnoses they may get when reporting symptoms. 

The book is well done, even a little humorous in places, and directed at evangelical Christians who look to the Bible for answers.

For others, it is still a good read because it challenges the therapeutic culture we live in and promotes a gospel-centered worldview.

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