Mark Linker
Opinion Editor
With being a psychology major, one would think that I’m biased towards defending the practice. In many ways I am, the advent of psychotherapy and psychopharmacology emphasizes some of the strongest aspects of modernity. However, there was a time not too long ago when individuals had other avenues of consoling their consciousness with no material cost.
Organized religion inculcated an environment of meditation of one’s thoughts and a higher ethic to strive towards. I suspect that this submission to a higher cause and a set of moral and ethical codes helped many individuals cope with the struggle and suffering that life can often bring. Added to this was the relationship between the religious leader and the individual. In many senses, these religious leaders acted as modern-day psychotherapists that individuals could go to for guidance in their personal lives. Along with giving guidance surrounding their individual lives, they specialized in helping console feelings of nihilism and struggle for meaning.
A lot of these aspects have since been lost in our culture due to a sharp decline in religious practice throughout the West. This also may be a contributing factor to a noticeable decline in the mental health of young people. For many of the flaws that religion impressed upon so many, it did give the common person ethical and moral guidance to abide by throughout life. The goal of giving oneself to something greater imbues life with a sense of purpose that no material possessions can fill. This may be what our generation is currently struggling with; the problem of oversaturation with objects that temporarily fill our fixation for immediate pleasure.
We have partially alleviated this crisis of mental health by giving thousands to paid professionals, however, these professionals don’t offer the same ontological saving grace and community that religion once did. To avoid sounding too much like a religious apologist, I should point out that there are a lot of problems with organized religion (and the church specifically). However, many of the scandals the church has faced in the past two decades point to a problem of corruption which is a uniquely human problem, not a religious one. We have yet to fill the hole that religion has left us with and the materialist trappings of modern society are likely not the solution. This along with the for-profit business that therapy has created where you have to pay for soul searching, doesn’t seem like a great long-term solution either.