Should We Forget About Healing Our Memories?

In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here’s this week’s question: I have some friends who are going through a church sponsored program which seems to be focused on the healing of memories.From what they tell me it sound more like some psychological encounter group than something biblically based.Are you aware of such a program and if so, can you give me some insights that I can share with my friends.

Tom:

Dave, this has created lots and lots of problems not only in the church, but outside the church.This is really a dangerous endeavor.

Dave:

It sounds like a broken record, Tom to some of our listeners, but let’s get back to the Bible. Where does the Bible talk about healing of memories?This is a Freudian idea that the memories that we have from our childhood are still haunting us and making us do what we—

Tom:

Right, psychic determinism.

Dave:

Right, I don’t find that in the Bible.Paul says for example, “Forgetting those things which are behind…reaching forth unto that which is before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”The Scripture tells us that when we are born again of the Holy Spirit into God’s family and that’s where our unity comes from.All other human beings who have been born again of the spirit of God through faith in Christ, through the gospel are brothers and sisters in Christ and we are united in Him.This says old things have passed away, all things have become new.I am no longer haunted by memories of the past.If there was someone who (for example) I had a grudge against someone who I believe harmed me or wronged me in the past, as a Christian Jesus for example in Mark 11 says:when you stand praying, if you have aught against anyone forgive.Now I don’t need to go back into a hypnotic state and probe back there to find out if I have resentment against someone.I know whether I have or whether I haven’t.

Tom:

And even if we’ve forgotten about it, but it comes to mind someday, it is very simple to confess that before the Lord.

Dave:

We forgive.Now another one of the problems with the healing of memories obviously is and I have talked to people who have had this experience and they came out of it and they felt that they had a great spiritual release and a new outlook on life and so forth—

Tom:

A catharsis of some kind…

Dave:

A catharsis, yes, but then a few months later they sink back into depression or some problem—ah well, there must be another memory back there that we didn’t uncover, so now you are trapped in a delusion.Well there must be another memory, so for the rest of your life you’ve got to go back and probe other memories because every time a problem comes up or you sink into depression or whatever—well it’s got to be that memory back there because you have identified that these memories from the past are the source of your problem.

Tom:

And the memories don’t just necessarily go back to when you were a young child.They take you back into the womb, so-called, some would even take you back into memories of prior lives, I mean this is really horrendous.

Dave:

The Christian supposedly wouldn’t do that, but the psychotherapist would.

Tom:

Well, remember last week we talked about Agnes Sanford.She would say these memories are part of our—

Dave:

Our collective unconscious actually and they go back to a pre-existent state.Yes, she did teach that Tom, you are right.She was founder of the inner-healing movement.The “healing of memories” movement.

Tom:

Right.Dave there is another aspect that comes out of this.I am not specifically sure what this guy had in mind—well he just wants information in regard to what we know about these programs, but the healing of the inner child—I remember when we reviewed Karen Mains book and she had this idea of the inner child of which she was a disciple of Agnes Sanford.She went to a school of pastoral counseling and she promoted these ideas.One of the ideas was that we have an “inner child.”The idea that everybody has a personality within them and this is a very fragile personality and it has to do with the hurts—that you’ve hurt this child.

Dave:

Yes, so I can escape accountability for my actions.It wasn’t really I who did it, but it was my inner child.

Tom:

Or, I did something, for example when you are not forgiving yourself, when you are abusing yourself emotionally, you are speaking bad things about yourself, you are hurting this inner child and the process in some cases, particularly among Christian inner healers is to visualize Jesus walking along with this little child.

Dave:

Again, it is not a biblical concept.Paul says when I was a child, I spake as a child; I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.There is not a hint that there is still some child still living in there.It comes from psychology.It doesn’t come from the Bible.

Tom:

So our encouragement is to avoid these programs like the plague.Some are minor, but some are promoted in major ways by large organizations.For example, “Cleansing Streams,” that’s one that’s very popular.It began at Church on the Way in Van Nuys, Jack Hayford’s church.It’s currently popular among Four-Square Churches, we have it right here in Bend, Oregon, but these things are psycho-spiritual programs that involve everything from positive confession, to deliverance ministries, to things that are either fringe or heavily occult.

Dave:

And they are not based upon the Word of God and that’s the problem and the Bible is the Manufacturer’s handbook and we’ve quoted many times “he’s given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.”Let’s get back to it, not to these new techniques, but Tom, do we have something that we could recommend on this?

Tom:

Dave, we do in particular with regard to inner healing.We have a book called Abusing Memory which was written by Dr. Jane Gumprecht.That’s Dr. Jane M.D. and she has a fascinating background.She came up through the religious sciences; is a medical doctor, came to Christ and she knows and understands these things and from her background as well as from the Word of God, so I would recommend that.