Allie Beth Stuckey

But the concept of an emotional or spiritual existence of an internal version of ourselves at six or eight or 12 years old does not exist.

And I actually believe speaking to ourselves in this way can actually arrest our growth as adults and as Christians rather than develop it.

So hang with me.

You might completely disagree with me and that is okay.

There was a lot of agreement on my post when I talked about this.

There was a lot of respectful disagreement, which I welcome.

Totally fine with that.

But there was also a lot of angry protestation in the comments and stitched together responses by Instagram therapists.

And some, some, not all, but some went far beyond disagreeing with me and into the realm of ad hominem.

and downright temper tantrums about my statement, which doesn't surprise me at this point, but sometimes I'm like, do you not see the irony here that there is, you know, childish behavior kind of being played out in some of these responses by people who claim that fostering their inner child has actually made them

healthier and more mature and developed.

But this kind of backlash really reminded me of how pervasive therapy culture and therapy language is, not just in our society today, but in the church today.

And I believe that it hurts our theology.

And if our theology is infected, the rest of our lives are going to be affected too.

So today I want to go through not only this inner child concept, but two other concepts or practices in therapy

that I see Christian women involved in today that I think at the very least are not neutral.

They're not neutral.

They are probably not healthy.

And I think in some ways, okay, in some ways, listen to all of the nuances and the clarity that I am taking pains to give, go against scripture.

And we need to be really, really careful when something is outside the bounds of scripture to ask ourselves, is there a biblical basis in this?