Christianity and amateur psychologists.

Some Christians are embracing the idea of recovered memories – which is both puzzling and alarming. Recently in America, a support group has been formed to help people who have been involved with counselling practices at Paradise Springs Community Church (PSCC). From the support group's website:

...The use of a mixture of amateur psychology and the Bible in churches during the past 15 to 20 years has resulted in a dramatic shift in American Christianity... Though PSCC is registered with the CBA as a Conservative Baptist Church, and initially appears to hold to the basic tenets of the Christian faith, we are very concerned about what is going on there...

This is not just an American trend. Here in Australia, a Christian group on the Gold Coast called Anazao appears to running a program along similar lines. From its FAQ page:

...The Theophostic method of ministry was pioneered by Dr Ed Smith and, in a nutshell, allows Jesus to bring the 'light' of his truth into the 'darkness' of memories from the past that contain misbeliefs or lies...
Dissociation occurs when a trauma overwhelms us and another part of our brain takes over and remains present during the trauma, absorbing all that happens to us. When the trauma is complete, this other part of our mind recedes to the back of our brain and our normal 'self' returns having no memory whatsoever of what has just happened...
SRA (Satanic Ritualistic Abuse) is simply a sophisticated form of DID. The satanic kingdom is aware of how dissociation operates and knowingly inflicts trauma to establish a 'trauma part' of the mind. Once formed, the kingdom of darkness will programme the trauma part to respond to specific cues thus enabling total control of the person without their knowledge....

There are people who have been ringing alarm bells about Theophostic Ministry for quite some time. According to Jan Fletcher at www.lyingspirits.com:

...Theophostic is the most dangerous of all the inner healing methods seen until now. I say this because it's cloaked so well, in such biblical terminology, and its mystical methods are so streamlined and simple, it will undoubtedly fool even mature Christians...Theophostic Prayer Ministry is a form of Recovered Memory Therapy...

And no-one should assume that conservative Christian fringe groups are the only ones dabbling in recovered memory techniques. People associated with mainstream churches have shown an interest as well. In Sydney, Stasia Very, a Catholic musician, even offers Theophostic counselling sessions for free:

...Stasia's great interest in the healing ministry both through music and also psychology has led her to complete a Theophostic Ministry Course. This has led to confidence in facilitating this process with different individuals already who have experienced unburdening of lie based memory (by Jesus Himself) through special prayer...This is a free service and is wonderful for emotional healing and some addictive practices....

These are dangerous ideas that just seem to keep re-surfacing in different forms.
A few years ago, the Anglican Counselling Centre in Sydney got itself into hot water with the use of 'memory recovery' techniques.
Now, with the increasing popularity of so-called 'healing' ministry – who knows for sure what is being practiced by Christian counsellors?
Church leaders should be doing their best to find out.