"Preserving religious freedom in the mental health profession"

[Scott Lloyd]

I wish to highlight my report of this important address given last week by Elder Lance B. Wickman, the Church's general legal counsel and an emeritus General Authority Seventy. He spoke to a seminar involving workers in LDS Family Services gathered in Salt Lake City from several nations.

While there has been much said by Church leaders about current threats to religious freedom lately, this is the first discourse I've heard specifically pertaining to such threats in the field of mental health.

Two days earlier, Elder Holland spoke to the same group and commended them for their empathy in serving the needs of the "poor in spirit" and "lifting up the hands that hang down and strengthening the feeble knees." If that is true, it would be tragic indeed to curtail the effectiveness of those in the mental health profession by too much genuflecting to political correctness and special interest groups.

Here are some noteworthy excerpts from my report:

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“These threats are emerging threats,” he noted “They have not yet fully occupied the field, but they are real and they require men and women of faith to confront them squarely and to confront them now.”

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Generally speaking, he said, the biggest current threat to religion in the United States is the use of government powers to enforce secular values in every area that the government regulates or funds.

“Often the flashpoint is conflicting secular and religious beliefs regarding marriage, family, gender and sexuality,” he added. “Because government increasingly regulates or funds almost everything, this trend is deeply troubling. Sooner or later it will affect every person, profession and institution.

“That includes you as LDS mental health professionals who seek to help patients by drawing from the highest and best of both secular learning and revealed religion.”

 

 

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The first threat he mentioned was “the ongoing campaign to roll back or outright repeal existing legal protections for the religious conscience of medical professionals, including mental-health professionals.”

“Conscience clauses” passed by states in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion protected the rights of professionals not to participate in abortions or sterilizations that violated their religious beliefs.

“But these vital protections and the important principles they embody are increasingly under attack,” Elder Wickman warned. “In 2008, the United Nations body wrote that it was ‘deeply concerned about the insufficient regulation of the exercise of conscientious objection by health professionals.’ It went on to recommend that nations take measures to limit or remove conscience clauses. It was not long before this call was heeded.”

For example, in 2011 the U.S Department of Health and Human Services rescinded a conscience clause that permitted medical professionals to refuse to provide contraceptive and other services that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs, Elder Wickman said. “It was replaced with a regulation that limits conscientious objections to abortion and sterilization.”

Last year, the state of Illinois substantially curtailed the state’s conscience-clause law, even for elective abortions, he added.

 

 

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For LDS professionals, handling client situations in a manner consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ without running afoul of the law will likely become more difficult, he said.

 

 

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The second threat Elder Wickman highlighted was new laws and regulations that require health-care professionals to provide services that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.

For example, Catholic foster care and adoption services have been forced out of several major U.S. markets by laws that require all family-services agencies to place children with single parents and unmarried or same-sex couples, Elder Wickman said.

“A third and analogous threat arises from state licensing boards, ethics bodies and other professional gatekeepers that impose standards and practices that create powerful barriers to religious people entering various health-care professions,” he said. Some force existing practitioners to choose between continuing in their profession and living their religion.

“Government has a valid interest in reasonable regulations that protect patients from harm, but harm does not mean any therapy that contradicts secular ideologies about gender and sexuality,” Elder Wickman said.

 

 

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Some threats just emerging, although not imminent, warrant mention, he said. One is the notion that religious counselors and family-services professionals should be included in non-discrimination laws as “places of public accommodation,” as are travel, dining and lodging establishments. That would mean faith-based counselors would lose the ability to be selective in the clientele they accept.

“If too broad, such … legislation could even jeopardize LDS Family Services’ ability to require a bishop’s referral before providing services,” he said.

 

 

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He cited instances of professionals being punished for private speech unrelated to their professional practice. A highly qualified physician who happened to be a lay preacher in a Seventh Day Adventist congregation was fired from his position as a district health director for the state of Georgia for statements he made while preaching from a pulpit at his church. State officials had reviewed YouTube recordings of his sermon, which included statements supporting Biblical teachings on sexual morality.

 

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“At the end of the day, the biggest risk may not be governmental or legal at all, but social,” Elder Wickman observed. “Powerful coastal forces seek to characterize those with traditional beliefs as bigots. But bigotry is a two-way street.

“The risk is that traditional believers, including within the mental-health professions, could be penalized for their faith by cultural bigots seeking to shout down their traditional beliefs.”

He said the ultimate question is “whether you and others within your profession who share our values will stand up and speak up in response to such challenges when they come.”

 

 

[Gray]

Personally I'd rather not have to worry that my doctor will deny me a needed blood transfusion just because blood transfusions go against his or her religious beliefs. The principle is easy to understand.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

Personally I'd rather not have to worry that my doctor will deny me a needed blood transfusion just because blood transfusions go against his or her religious beliefs. The principle is easy to understand.

But there are people who would prefer doctors who will not use blood transfusions because it aligns with their own faith and they do not want to be forced into receiving treatment they don't want if by chance they become unable to direct their own treatment.

Then there is the experience of being treated like idiots with a condescending doctor telling you what you 'really want' like the doctor who told me to go tell my husband to stop pressuring me to get pregnant because I wanted to know about how treatment had improved for postpartum depression as I wanted a second child and felt we had waited long enough. In his view, there was no reason for me wanting another child, so of course I didn't want one.  I can imagine if contradictory desires are tied to religious beliefs of patients of a number of doctors in my experience who would be very dismissive.  It took the internet and massive amounts of time researching to get most doctors to actually listen to me and even then, there are still some that treat me like I have no right to question them.

As long as a certain standard of skill is obtained and doctors are open with their patients up front, why not allow the client/patient to have a choice?

Edited June 19, 2017 by Calm

[Hamba Tuhan]

'The risk is that traditional believers, including within the mental-health professions, could be penalized for their faith by cultural bigots seeking to shout down their traditional beliefs'.

Nice to see the situation so clearly and accurately defined.

[Danzo]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

Personally I'd rather not have to worry that my doctor will deny me a needed blood transfusion just because blood transfusions go against his or her religious beliefs. The principle is easy to understand.

Apparently not for you. You need to actually have deep seated religious convictions before you can understand the issue. If you don't have any, it will be difficult to relate.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Danzo

[california boy]

I can tell this thread is going to go well.  One poster calling anyone who has a different view on this subject "cultural bigots" and the next accusing the poster of not having deep seated religious convictions.  I think I will just watch from the balcony.

[CV75]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

Personally I'd rather not have to worry that my doctor will deny me a needed blood transfusion just because blood transfusions go against his or her religious beliefs. The principle is easy to understand.

I believe the emergency transfusion is covered by current regulation, so I's like to see you come up with a corresponding mental health emergency that would require the state to protect the patient from the practitioner’s religiously based intentions and practices.

The article goes beyond emergencies and addresses ongoing and elective treatment. Payors can often require practitioners to follow a particular protocol, and the practitioner decides whether to participate in that payor arrangement. Aside from that, where do you see the state making room for practitioners to accommodate religious sexual morality in the treatment of mental health, whether working with the patient's belief system or his own?

[Gray]

1 hour ago, Danzo said:

Apparently not for you. You need to actually have deep seated religious convictions before you can understand the issue. If you don't have any, it will be difficult to relate.

I do have deep seated religious convictions, but none of them drive me towards advocating for medical quackery. IE crystal therapies, conversion therapies, and the like.

[Calm]

Is anyone suggesting quackery be allowed to be practiced?

[Gray]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

But there are people who would prefer doctors who will not use blood transfusions because it aligns with their own faith and they do not want to be forced into receiving treatment they don't want if by chance they become unable to direct their own treatment.

Then there is the experience of being treated like idiots with a condescending doctor telling you what you 'really want' like the doctor who told me to go tell my husband to stop pressuring me to get pregnant because I wanted to know about how treatment had improved for postpartum depression as I wanted a second child and felt we had waited long enough. In his view, there was no reason for me wanting another child, so of course I didn't want one.  I can imagine if contradictory desires are tied to religious beliefs of patients of a number of doctors in my experience who would be very dismissive.  It took the internet and massive amounts of time researching to get most doctors to actually listen to me and even then, there are still some that treat me like I have no right to question them.

As long as a certain standard of skill is obtained and doctors are open with their patients up front, why not allow the client/patient to have a choice?

As long as the treatments offered are based on valid clinical research, I'mfine with whatever is offered. Faith-based treatments should be squarely outside of any licensed clinical or hospital setting, when it comes to health practitioners acting in that role.

 

Did you have any specific treatments in mind?

[Gray]

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

Is anyone suggesting quackery be allowed to be practiced?

I don't know! I'd love to see some examples

[HappyJackWagon]

22 minutes ago, Calm said:

Is anyone suggesting quackery be allowed to be practiced?

I think quackery is in the eye of the beholder. What may be held by a health care provider as a faith based prescription, may be viewed by others as quackery. I think of the "counselor" who lived in my area a few years ago who did "energy healing". There were a couple of bishops who referred people to her for counseling. She would do extensive interviews, wherein she would link her fingers together (in circles like Olympic rings) and pull. If the link broke on a particular question she was provided an answer by the spirit that the person had an ailment caused by an evil spirit in a specific body part. She would then make a list of all the evil spirits afflicting the person and then give it to her husband to perform a priesthood blessing, casting those spirits out.

To me, this is spiritual quackery and I made a huge issue of it with our SP when I learned of it. There were members in the area who couldn't fathom why I would have a problem with this kind of emotional and physical healing. They viewed it as perfectly reasonable treatment and an extension of their faith. This is clearly a crazy/extreme example, but there are many types of energy healings and other quackery which could be a part of a person's "practice". This particular person was a licensed counselor though it seems her quackery took precedence over her training.

 

 

[BlueDreams]

24 minutes ago, Gray said:

I don't know! I'd love to see some examples

Well, considering the audience was LDSFS where you have to have state-recognized certification, that seems extremely unlikely that's what was even remotely being talked about. 

 

With luv,

BD

[HappyJackWagon]

This is a tough issue and I don't know the answer of how to balance personal beliefs with public service. There is surely some discrimination that goes on, most likely out of fear of the absolutely crazy (like I mentioned above) occurring.

I watched Hacksaw Ridge over the weekend about Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who enlisted in world war II as a medic. The first half of the film is about the ways he was discriminated against, beaten, imprisoned because of his religious beliefs and the rest was about his heroism. Discrimination happens but the drum is beat so often that I think we become desensitized to the potential for how it can move from the realm of fear to reality.

[Danzo]

39 minutes ago, Gray said:

I do have deep seated religious convictions, but none of them drive me towards advocating for medical quackery. IE crystal therapies, conversion therapies, and the like.

If you don't have any deep seated religious convictions about ":medical Quackery" then you really can't understand can you.

[Scott Lloyd]

5 hours ago, Gray said:

Personally I'd rather not have to worry that my doctor will deny me a needed blood transfusion just because blood transfusions go against his or her religious beliefs. The principle is easy to understand.

How nice it is to live in a locale where the above fear is unrealistic due to the broad availability and selection of health care and the extremely high likelihood of finding providers whose ethical values are consistent with one's own.

By the way, what part of the Third World do you live in?

Edited June 19, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, california boy said:

I can tell this thread is going to go well.  One poster calling anyone who has a different view on this subject "cultural bigots" and the next accusing the poster of not having deep seated religious convictions.  I think I will just watch from the balcony.

Which poster here called anyone a cultural bigot?

I reported on a speech in which the speaker warned of a risk that "that traditional believers, including within the mental-health professions, could be penalized for their faith by cultural bigots seeking to shout down their traditional beliefs.” And he made the observation that "bigotry is a two-way street."

I think that's a reasonable warning and a reasonable observation.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[Duncan]

I wouldn't want a Dr or any professional to be forced to do anything that goes against their own personal convictions. I went to a anxiety disorder group therapy for 10 weeks last year. I wasn't reffered there by my Bishop, it wasn't managed from a church or anything but there wasn't anything said or done there that went against my religious beliefs or they didn't engage in any inappropriate behaviour. They did say that you shouldn't sue drugs or alcohol but they never asked us directly if we use those things or followed up with us to see if any were on them. I would recommend any member with anxiety to go there, they wouldn't run up against anything that would be dentrimental to their faith.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Is anyone suggesting quackery be allowed to be practiced?

 

1 hour ago, Gray said:

I don't know! I'd love to see some examples

How about you deal with the real issues and examples in the speech I reported on instead of dreaming up extreme hypotheticals of your own?

Do you approve of the eminently qualified physician being fired from his position because someone posted a YouTube video of him giving a sermon in his role as a Seventh Day Adventist lay preacher championing traditional morality?

Do you approve of Catholics being forced to provide abortions or contraception services in contravention of their own religious convictions?

Do you approve of Catholic foster care and adoption agencies being forced to place children in situations that conflict with Catholic religious convictions?

Do you approve of forbidding mental health care providers from being selective in whom they will serve as clients (which could mean that LDS Family Services could no longer require a bishop's referral before providing services)?

Do you approve of barring people of faith from entering mental health care professions?

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Is anyone suggesting quackery be allowed to be practiced?

 

1 hour ago, Gray said:

I don't know! I'd love to see some examples

From my news story:

Quote

“Government has a valid interest in reasonable regulations that protect patients from harm, but harm does not mean any therapy that contradicts secular ideologies about gender and sexuality,” Elder Wickman said.

 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

As long as the treatments offered are based on valid clinical research, I'mfine with whatever is offered. Faith-based treatments should be squarely outside of any licensed clinical or hospital setting, when it comes to health practitioners acting in that role.

 

Did you have any specific treatments in mind?

The subject originally is mental health.  I have had friends in psychology programs be told they will not be accepted because they are religious and religion should have no part in therapy.  The view of these advisers is secular practitioners can effectively deal with those clients with religious beliefs, but religious practitioners will not be able to distance themselves enough and instead allow their personal views to interfere.

If someone wants to discuss their perspectives of the world from a faith based approach, why should they not be able to find a qualified therapist who is also religious and hopefully close in belief so communication and understanding comes easily?

Edited June 19, 2017 by Calm

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, Gray said:

Personally I'd rather not have to worry that my doctor will deny me a needed blood transfusion just because blood transfusions go against his or her religious beliefs. The principle is easy to understand.

If I understand the worries there are two.

First people who, to use your analogy, behave objectively untied to their religion in their practice but express personal positions they don't push on people in their practice. That appears to be the concern of the Seventh Day Adventist who was fired for preaching fairly mainstream sexual norms in church.

Second people who would be forthright about the approach they take to social work, are upfront about it, but are forced out because the perception is there's only a one size fits all legitimate approach to social work - a kind of secularism. To give an example it's hard to imagine a therapist getting in trouble for telling someone they should relax about premarital sex. But that's as much as position as the idea it's wrong. I think that particularly religions would like to offer therapists who accept the tenants of the religion and work accordingly. Whereas more or less there's a view that only the mainstream secular view and its changing values are legitimate.

[thesometimesaint]

As a mental health professional it is against our Code of Ethics to refuse treatment, or force my religious beliefs, on my clients.

[Scott Lloyd]

14 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

If I understand the worries there are two.

First people who, to use your analogy, behave objectively untied to their religion in their practice but express personal positions they don't push on people in their practice. That appears to be the concern of the Seventh Day Adventist who was fired for preaching fairly mainstream sexual norms in church.

Second people who would be forthright about the approach they take to social work, are upfront about it, but are forced out because the perception is there's only a one size fits all legitimate approach to social work - a kind of secularism. To give an example it's hard to imagine a therapist getting in trouble for telling someone they should relax about premarital sex. But that's as much as position as the idea it's wrong. I think that particularly religions would like to offer therapists who accept the tenants of the religion and work accordingly. Whereas more or less there's a view that only the mainstream secular view and its changing values are legitimate.

The first worry you identify is just now emerging, although it is real, according to Elder Wickman.

The second worry is more imminent.

[Gray]

1 hour ago, Danzo said:

If you don't have any deep seated religious convictions about ":medical Quackery" then you really can't understand can you.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're trying to say here.