When people all around us are falling ill, being hospitalized and dying in droves, it is not very difficult to recognize that we are in the midst of a pandemic. Sometimes, however, the ravages of a pandemic are not so easy to discern. No one is on a respirator. No one is dying in a hospital. But behind closed doors, hearts are breaking, and families are being destroyed, often beyond repair.
Pandemics are devastating afflictions that strike far and wide, afflictions for whose causes there are no ready defenses and for whose effects there are no ready remedies. During the recent corona pandemic, microorganisms caused horrendous physical damage without any means of treatment.
During the silent epidemic that has been ravaging our community for many years, the damaging effects are social and emotional. Families and relationships are being shattered by estrangement and alienation more than ever before in our history. Parents and children are becoming estranged, and young children are being alienated from their parents and grandparents with increasing frequency.
There is no doubt that this is a pandemic, but it is a silent epidemic. The victims are too afraid and too ashamed to make a public outcry. They are afraid that if they speak out they will further reduce the already slim chances of reconciliation. They are also reluctant to reveal their humiliating situations, because they may have to pay a high social price when it comes to schools and shidduchim.
There is little mystery about the causes of this silent epidemic and the identity of the microorganisms. Our media has shone a bright light on this epidemic over the last several years. Numerous articles and letters to the
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editor have identified the cause as the explosion of psychotherapy. Everyone is blaming the therapists.
Based on everything I have seen and heard, I believe this is indeed the case, but it is not my purpose in this article to rail against the therapists. On the contrary, I think therapy is a wonderful thing. I myself have a availed myself of its services in times of grief and extreme stress, and I’ve benefited greatly. But I do agree that some therapists, albeit well-intentioned, can cause more harm than good, and I would like to describe a path going forward that can enhance the benefits of therapy and eliminate the harm.
As faithful Jews, we believe that true happiness and fulfillment can only be found by adhering to the guidelines of the Torah. Violation of those guidelines may sometimes result in momentary physical or emotional gratification, but the spiritual damage that results will ultimately erode any short-lived benefits. Unfortunately, the psychotherapy community uses guidelines that are often in conflict with the Torah’s guidelines and will often result in yaaztnu ra.
For instance, a religious woman tells her therapist that her mother is constantly giving her unsolicited advice about how to bring up her children and that she is also having as negative impact on these children. The therapist and the client discuss the situation at length, and in the end, the therapist advises the client that if her mother is toxic she should break off relations with her. This is the course of action psychotherapy mandates. “You go where the client is.” It disregards the effect on the mother, and it also disregards the ultimate damage to the client, who in effect no longer has a mother. It is only concerned with immediate relief for the client.
From a Torah perspective, however, there are important other considerations, such as obligations that come under the heading of honoring parents and the unilateral denial of the grandmother’s rights to have a relationship with her grandchildren.
Sometimes, the client also seeks daas Torah by consulting a specious rabbi who endorses the therapist’s advice without ever hearing from the
mother, something absolutely forbidden by Halachah. The rabbi will say, “I didn’t issue a psak. I just said that if what you say is true then you should break with your mother.” A rabbi that makes such a statement is not legitimate; his views are not daas Torah. He is being disingenuous and knows perfectly well that the client will take his response as a psak and go no further. If such an argument were valid, the law forbidding a rabbi from hearing one side without the other present would become meaningless.
I believe there is only one solution. The therapeutic services provided to our communities must be brought into compliance with the requirements of the Torah. This can be accomplished/ I know a number of excellent therapists, men and women, who have introduced a synthesis of Torah values and psychology to their practices with great success. It can and should be done.
Here is what I would suggest as a community-wide program.
A) A manual of instructions for frum therapists should be produced. Each therapist should be required to study and learn the manual.
B) One designated beis din in every major population center should test the therapists on their understanding of their obligations and restrictions according to the Torah. The therapists would then be issued certificates of approval, a kind of semichah for therapists, which they would be required to display on their walls. It would be assur gamur for anyone to engage a therapist who does not display such a certificate.
C) Before advising a client to estrange or alienate, the therapist would be required to present the case to the regional beis din, who would invite all affected parties to be present at the hearing, as the Halachah requires.
D) The names of people who estrange and alienate without the permission of beis din would be posted publicly in community publications. They would not be given aliyos in shul, and other such honors would be withheld. Furthermore, they would be socially
shunned and would find it difficult to get shidduchim. This pandemic feeds on silence.
This is just a rough outline of what needs to be done. I am sure that if major organizations, such as Agudas Yisrael, Nefesh and others, got involved, they could develop a very effective program.
I was once invited to address divrei chizuk to a meeting of Broken Ties, an association of alienated parents and grandparents. It was an eerie experience. Pain blanketed that room from wall to wall. It was palpable in the very air. Speaking to the people afterward, I discovered that in almost all the cases, therapists had sanctioned the rifts.
If the therapists had followed these guidelines, good resolutions could have been found and so much unnecessary pain could have been avoided. Moreover, the clients themselves would have benefitted from a genuine Torah-based therapy and the spiritual and emotional rewards of compliance with the mitzvos of the Torah.