[wing-_-nuts]

You could be seeing correlation and not causation. People with psych issues want to get better. Those that are intellectually curious tend to read up on underlying causes and possible solutions.

I will say, that while I've read a lot of these sorts of books, they've mainly helped me identify my predispositions in temperament, my blind spots, etc. If you really press a therapist on the question, they will tell you that the only real way to 'treat' this is having loving and stable friends and romantic partners. I imagine being religious can help as it grants you easy access to a welcoming community, and frankly 'god' is the ultimate parental figure for those that believe.

[astrange]

Religion and psychiatry hardly seem opposed to me. It's popular to see Buddhism as actually a kind of therapy, although certainly not 100% correct, and that's sort of what prayer is meant to do too.

[wing-_-nuts]

I prefer to keep them separate. The christian councilor I saw was very big into 'everything happens for a reason' and 'god has a plan' and given my background it turned my stomach. If what i went through was 'part of a plan' I have some very pointed questions for god when I meet him.

[prewett]

I hope the reason given was something like "people have free will and sometimes they use it to do evil" (which is why forgiveness is a thing), and that "God has a plan" includes a plan to heal and restore (for instance, Jesus saying "I came that [my sheep] may have abundant life" or "I came to destroy the works of the evil one"). If it's just "everything happens for a reason" but nothing more, that's basically saying "I don't know how to help you".

Possibly off-topic rant: If the reason is "it was God's will, because God is sovereign and therefore everything is his will", I think that is bordering on function heresy. Christianity (and life) has all these tensions: God is one, but God is three; Jesus is a man, but Jesus is God; God is sovereign, but he gave us free will. The temptation is to resolve the tension by cutting off one of the ends of the tension. The original heretics chopped off one of the ends of the tension about Jesus: Jesus was only man and not God (for example, Adoptionism, Arianism) and Jesus was only divine and not man (for example, Docetism, Apollinarianism). The view that evil is God's will is similarly chopping off our responsibility, so it is doing the same thing that the original heretics did. In my view, the biblical view is that people doing evil is NOT God's will, but what he wants to achieve requires that he give us free will (and his plan of resolving our choice to do evil is to put his spirit in our hearts).

[Spooky23]

Some clergy are well educated, others are not. Likewise, therapists vary a lot. I’ve been fortunate to have known some priests very well who are nothing short of amazing, wise people.

Someone leaning on the “everything happens for a reason” in a counseling context is gross - I almost took a swing at someone bleating that when my wife died.

[01HNNWZ0MV43FF]

It's hard to reconcile needing friends and romance with advice like "you should work on yourself before dating" and feeling like I'm often subjecting others to myself