When an entire industy loses touch with reality it makes for a very dangerous situation. Especially when that industry involves itself in manipulating the human mind and our personal relationships.

If everything goes well, the outcome would be happier people, grounded in reality, who have strengthened family relationships. Unfortunately, this is not what one sees in our "therapy-happy" culture.

To become aware of this fact, one must look beneath the surface veneer of a public infatuated with the idea of therapy due to effective industry propaganda. Seeing a shrink, after years of being reserved to the rich and the cultural elite, is suddenly "in" for everyone.

Everybody has a friend who supposedly went to a therapist and found new meaning and fulfillment in their life. But does the result really live up to the promise? Is the reality as advertised?

Since one of the primary results of any psychotherapy is adulation for the therapist, one must cut through this common effect of mesmerism to arrive at the facts of the matter.

We all like strokes for our ego and therapist flattery puffs up our self-esteem even as it lays a snare for our feet. As Benjamin Franlin said, "One cannot both your friend and your flatterer be." Many people are mistaking therapist flattery for true friendship.

Making matters worse, they are mistaking therapist flattery for "unconditional love" because the therapists call it that and because flattery does feel good. The question one needs to ask is "Will it still feel good in the morning?" Will it still feel good when reality sets in and the damage to the client's psyche and soul and to others becomes apparent.

If counsel is to be good and have a valid purpose, its result must be not only benefit for the client but "do no harm" to the close family members of that client. Our world is selfish enough at present without an army of therapists making it their mission to tell everyone they see that they need to just take care of "self."

As we have seen in the recent school shootings at Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado and in other tragedies around our nation and in Canada, focus upon self as taught by today's therapists and counselors is adding fuel to the fire of rebellious youths who already have too little empathy for others and too high regard and pride of self.

Because therapists basically see all humans as being inately good, their belief is that education will solve their clients problems, along with flattery, affirmations, and lots of therapist hugs.

Unfortunately, due to man's true condition, as described by our Creator, education only makes one a more educated sinner. Man is not basically good, but basically depraved, no matter that we ignore or laugh at this fact.

If education were all that the matter required, there would be less date rape at universities. Education of the boys at Columbine High would only allow them to build a better bomb or find a more efficient means of killing or terrorizing their fellow classmates.

What is the solution then to such tragedies which have become all too common on our children's schoolgrounds? Only one. The problem is one of the heart. The boys at Columbine needed a heart transplant. Self rather than needing more self-esteem needs to die to its selfish addiction and constantly increasing need for more esteem.

We all need a heart transplant through the supernatural power of Jesus Christ. When self then wants its way, or vengeance rears its ugly head, there is a higher love to respond to as one lays down that rancor in the breast at the feet of the one who took all that upon himself on Calvary's bitter cross.

That is our only way out of our problem of being human. To die to self as Jesus informed his disciples, "Deny self, pick up your cross, and follow me." As one can readily see, this is a sharp contrast with therapists who tell their clients to focus on self and just go with their feelings. No one who relies upon feelings alone would ever willingly allow himself to be put on a cross.

The Pandoras Box of Recovered Memory