Salus Forum December 3, 2025

Jeremy

Let me provoke a thought here and see what people think is because a lot of where I think we’re delving into is this. There is a growing certification-based professionalization of people. You know, there’s a lot of pushback against college. Saying that college is a waste of money. You shouldn’t spend one hundred and two hundred three hundred thousand dollars to get a college. Just get a certification in this A.I. thing and you’ll be off and running. And I feel like there’s so there’s this motivation underneath for people to get specialized training. And I know pastors do that. They get certification in like spiritual direction and they’re not ordained clergy. They’re lay people, but they can do certain levels of engagement around spiritual challenges.

And so, here’s a concept. What would it be like if a subset of clergy could provide CBT for depression? Or anxiety to conditions we all know are out there all over the place, you know, going to the ER a ton, you know, they’re getting you know, they’re not getting CBT in the ER, they can’t get into primary care. Well, how would we feel about that if clergy got trained in CBT? And I guess I’m asking Bill Bergquist a little bit since he’s on that.

Bill B

CBT is a very common tool that is used to train in schools of theology. I didn’t know that the CBT would be the most common tool, because it is something that people can engage without getting into depth-oriented psychology. So, the use of CBT is not unusual. The problem is that you have many pastors who’ve got no training at all, in any form of psychotherapy, who are there doing extensive work with parishioners. The issue of dual relationships is also important. One of the pastors I was working with in the Methodist Church study was dealing on Tuesdays with a parishioner who had major anger management problems. On Thursday evening, this man was a member of his board. He would blow up at the meetings. And he wanted to strangle that bastard. But then on Tuesday, he was the accepting counselor.

Jack

Dual relationships, of course, are huge issues all over the place. However, I would say that the matter of dual relationships is a professionalism problem, not a reality problem. I saw this growing up, and I’ve seen it in my siblings who do have dual relationships. And I’ve seen it in my own clinical care, where I have patients who are also on the softball team. And, I know something about them that no one else does. So, I think the matter of dual relationships is a professionalism issue. But I’m not sure it’s actually a problem.