4/13/2026 Monday
Allie Beth Stuckey's take on the Therapy Culture:
With the help of Gemini, this is my response:
Here's the summary from Stuckey's perspective: Stuckey breaks it into 3 parts: Inner Child Theory (comfort the inner child in you) which is against 1 Corinthians 13:11 - put away childish ways, Shadow Work (integrating with the dark side of you) which is against Colossians 3:5 - mortification of sin, Somatic Therapy (the body keeps the score so medicalize the mind - Stuckey claims that body doesn't make you sin nor heal you from sin, the soul does). This is an example two extremes, Stuckey brings the extreme examples against Biblical values out to judge from her own extreme takes. So there's some strawman, some shallow take on psychology.
One can refute Stuckey (and also the opposite extremes that she's attacking, of course) by refocusing the "inner child theory" as a metaphor for processing wounded memories, finding Christ's rule in these memories, rather than self-re-parenting.
On Shadow Work: Stuckey is not wrong but shallow here that the heart is desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9). So instead of integrating dark shadow, repentance and killing of sin are key. However, since this is counseling, Stuckey fail to go deeper into dark faults. Christians should focus on bringing hidden works of darkness into the light (Ephesians 5:11-13), this is an important deep self-reflection to identify hidden idols or sins to be mortified in God's grace.
On Somatic Therapy: This is a kind of paradox I would say that Stuckey fail at. The body can become a stumbling block to the soul and emotion, rather than just "providing the context for our struggles". Our body is cursed, hence it needs to be put to death, this is where Stuckey and I think many Christian Fundamentalists today don't get, that we are cursed due to the FALL. Though finding physical relieve is not the solution to sin, having a cursed body can certainly influence us, already fallen (that means Christ is an exception), to sin.
When it comes to counseling, or Christian counseling, you don't want Stuckey as your counselor. However, that the people whom Stuckey finds to interview, could be a different story, because Stuckey definitely has shown to have an eye for interviewing the right guests for the job.
A informative chart showing that Strait of Malacca is the busiest Strait, not Strait of Hormuz. Though they are pretty close together as the world largest transits in Million Barrels per day (Mn B/D).
