The American Association of Christian Counselors bills itself as a professional association, but it is more like an online infomercial for various educational, health, and mental health products. The creators of the products pay a premium to get before the AACC audience as sponsors and endorsers of the organization. Owner Tim Clinton reaps the benefits.
A new participant in this marketplace is Christian Healthcare Ministries. As I have pointed out previously, CHM is an odd partner for AACC since CHM as a rival to health insurance doesn’t reimburse participants for costs of counseling or psychotherapy. AACC owner Tim Clinton advocates his members buy healthcare coverage which doesn’t cover the services they provide professionally. Why would a licensed counselor who values professional mental health treatment purchase health coverage which doesn’t cover professional mental health treatment?
The mission of CHM and mental health advocacy is actually more at odds than I have previously reported. Not only does CHM not cover mental health treatment, the group significantly minimizes the need for treatment and the reality of psychological disorder.
In an article on the CHM website, CHM board member and OB/GYN Carol Peters-Tanksley encourages CHM members to avoid negative people and soak in the Bible to prevent mental health challenges. After noting that the prevalence of mental health problems is significance, she offers her answers:
When facing challenges like fear, bitterness, poor self-image, lust, money troubles, grief, worry, marriage conflict or any other issue, delving into what the Bible has to say about a specific struggle will change you. Soak in God’s word. Spend time reading and contemplating it. Let the power of Scripture penetrate your soul, wash out the junk and fill you to overflowing with God’s truth and grace.
If your mind needs transformation, pay attention to the media, the people and the Scripture you take in. You’ll experience a different kind of GI-GO: God in, God out.
That’s it. CHM is getting access to 50,000 (at least that’s what Tim Clinton says) Christian counselors to sell programs without mental health treatment as a benefit. Couldn’t CHM at least suggest members go see a counselor?
However, a search of the website for counselor turns up no such recommendation. A search for depression yields a couple of articles on stopping SSRIs. The fact is that CHM isn’t friendly to Christians in mental health or mental health treatment generally speaking. Thanks to AACC, as CHM’s subscriber/members increase, the potential clients of AACC licensed mental health professionals decrease. Why is AACC recommending this to members? Whose interests are being considered first via the promotion of CHM?
Ha! That was my first thought too – I assumed money scam involving expensive powdered scriptures.
Snake Eats Tail
I’m curious if Madge the Manicurist isn’t involved here.
https://youtu.be/H7BvEldVEHU
OT: Dr. Throckmorton, you may want to consider reviewing the incels movement and incels.co sometime. Their forum is fascinating – and deeply disturbing – reading. The completely uninhibited stream of consciousness you can get from there gives you an amazing sample of them. I think your take on it would also be respected by media outlets currently interested in the phenomenon.
They conduct self-surveys frequently as well giving you chronological racial, age, physical stats and even medical (including psychological diagnoses) data, often individualized. It’s basically a raw data sample ready to have a paper written about it.
One of the strangest aspects to me is that it’s majority-minority according to its own surveys, yet it’s the most racist place on the internet in some respects, including compared to Nazi sites like Stormfront. It’s almost as if their incel identity overcomes all.
The most recent surveys there said that 78% had never been diagnosed with a personality disorder (which isn’t terribly interesting) while 7% admitted BPD alone.
Since this fits squarely in your sexuality portfolio I thought I’d mention it. I’m having a hard time putting the site down right now, I keep learning more about them with every page I read.
“…CHM board member and OB/GYN Carol Peters-Tanksley encourages CHM members to avoid negative people and soak in the Bible to prevent mental health challenges.”
In what possible way is woman trained in reproductive health qualified to give advice on mental health? I wonder how she would respond to a clinical psychologist giving advice to a patient on the treatment of endometriosis…
She’s also an “expert” on grieving. “Remember to feel.”
I’m interested in the treatment value of bible soaking for schizotypal and paranoid individuals, but I think the experiment would be unethical.