“Frum” therapist

With any profession comes the potential to transgress Halacha in some way. Every individual is responsible to conduct themselves in accordance with Halacha and set their own personal safeguards in whatever they choose to do.

I will be dan lekaf zechus, that this question is asked out of curiosity and innocence. If that were not the case, I find it incredibly ignorant.

There is not a career without its nisyonos. Yes, kollel yungerleit who invest themselves in their learning are challenged with many things. Many are pressured to provide their homes and fmailies with more, and their ability to be mistapek bemu’at is limited. They can easily follow temptation to get involved in various ruses to claim entitlements that they should not get. Such gezel can become chilul Hashem. One would think that being machmir on kashrus and shiurim would accompany uncompromising honesty in money matters. I am not accusing anyone. These infractions do occur, and I am drawing attention to the reality of the nisayon.

The entire business world, retail and wholesale is full of huge challenges. Genaivoh, gezailoh, genaivas daas, ono’as mamon, ribis, etc. are immense challenges.

Chinuch is not simple either. Embarrassing a talmid is a huge aveiroh. Even the talmid who requires a disciplinary word must not trash the dignity of the child. Malbin pnei chaveiroh is serious enough to block a person from his otherwise destined olan haboh. The Rambam specifies that this includes a victim who is a child.

Rabbonim can pasken wrongly, they can neglect a congregant, they can address a conflict situation while violating shemo’ah bein acheichem, etc.

Every aspect of our world is frought with nisyonos. Now let’s consider the positives:

There is a desperate need in Klal Yisroel to have professionals able and willing to address personal problems. Having such professionals who can perform these needed services without compromising on Torah value is critical.

The mitzvah of restoring, or helping to restore, the simchas hachaim for an individual or couple is huge. Gedolei Yisroel have addressed this subject in numerous ways. Some refer to a mitzvah of hashovas aveidoh. Others to being a shaliach of Hashem to bring about refuah. The Rambam addresses the matter of cholei nefesh and cholei ruach, and equiates it to cholei haguf.

Every barrel has its rotten apples, including the few fields mentioned above. I sincerely hope the question posed was out of ignorance or curiosity.

the little i know: i loved your response.

I agree with note above that this post is more likely posted out of ignorance than any stupid effort to troll. Every activity a yid engages in during the course of a day, whether in his/her professional life or personal life, carries with it some degree of moral and spiritual risk. We have rabbonim who have used their positions of authority to engage in abusive and predatory behavior. We have recent episodes of a highly respected frum rav placing cameras in a mikvah to photograph women he was assisting in conversion. We have had frum medical professionals engaged in sexual assault. Hopefully, the OP will reflect on the underlying contradiction of his question. Now, more than ever, we need MORE not fewer frum men and women entering the mental health field and offering greater access to mental health services.

Dear Moshe,

I agree with you on that one hundred percent. It seems like the OP does not. People are people. Let them ask what halachah is.

Dear Halevi,

A patient and therapist in a private office in an office building during normal business hours, is generally not Yichud.

You could make the same argument in revere. Many Non-Jews are therapists without having these problems.

It is a dirty job but someone has to do it. We need educated, trained, qualified psychologists in the frum community desperately. Veteranarians less so. Being treated by someone not frum is fraught with pitfalls and very bidieved.

Get yourself books by R Twersky to understand a Jewish psychologist.

Furthermore, R Feinstein at some point paskened that it is ok to use a non-observant psychiatrist – who is prescribving drugs, but not a psychologist, who “fixes” your mind and may propose non-kosher attitudes. This means it is so important to have learned psychologists to address the needs of the community. I don’t know whether a combination of psychology/halakha/hashkafa is taught anywhere, though.

Edited

ym> You dont find alot of Orthodox veterinarians

A good point. You want to select a profession that is helping the world in some way. With all due respect to animals, being a psychologist is way more important.

Syag> who told him he needed to be true to himself

yes, this is type of advice that we need to be careful about. R Feinstein says that non-Torah psychiatrists are preferred to psychologists – they just give you pills and do not mess with the values.

We need a frum psychologist who understands the problems frum people face.

AAQ – “R Feinstein says that non-Torah psychiatrists are preferred to psychologists – they just give you pills and do not mess with the values.”

that doesn’t mean a non frum psychiatrist as opposed to a psychologist, they have two different roles and cannot be interchanged. He meant you should go with a frum psychologist as opposed to not but that a non frum psychiatrist is okay.

According to your (Syag) explanation I don’t understand Rav Moshe’s ztz’l pesak as I indicated above.

AAQ:

I am somewhat familiar with the psak from Reb Moshe ZT”L. We should take note of the date. For quite a few decades, schools of psychology and social work, and I presume other mental health fields) were adamant that the beliefs of the clients/patients be left alone. These school teach that delving into them is a violation of one’s personal rights, and that this would constitute a violation of professional ethics. At the time of the shailoh and teshuvah with Reb Moshe, this was not the accepted position. Reb Moshe was correct in directing that one should not allow a professional to tinker with one’s emunoh. The fear of the “min” or “kofer” was the tendency they have of seeking to push their agenda, and there would be a need to create boundaries to prevent that.

RebE, thanks for the text. It looks like Rav Moshe would approve of Jewish psychologists!
YM, I think you can read this that expertise matters, which is a usual attitude in medical matters: shomer Torah is preferred, but if the only one available mumhe … I imagine if Rav Moshe would advocate going to a non-expert may be an option, he would say that.

And both of you, could you do me a favor. As Syag noticed, I don’t like loaded terms like “frum” that everyone interprets as he wants, usually to exclusion of others. Rav Moshe says simply “shomer Torah”.

I disagree with the poster above who said that rav moshe’s psak would not apply to “heintegeh” therapists. While it’s true that therapists were more patriarchal and directive in previous decades, and would impose their beliefs on their patients, the issues aren’t limited to such extreme problems. As rav moshe wrote, they will advise *sometimes* to violate something – anything – in torah. Even if the therapist is very supportive of the personal beliefs of their patients, there are a ton of pitfalls in which a therapist who means well can damage a client. Imagine a client is beset with guilt over aveiros, and says he wants to give up and just keep doing them, the therapist will feel it’s healthy to encourage them to engage in aveiros that the psychology field would consider healthy. The therapist might suggest watching a movie to destress. He might validate hashkofa problems a client has and encourage them to “find their own way”. These are but a few examples.

**that should have said “paternal”, not patriarchal; indirect exposure to wokeness got into my head apparently

n0m: Why not?

Therapy is warranted for those who have experienced abuse, lived through a terror attack, etc. Therapy is not warranted for every bump we go through in life, yes even those who divorced, grew up in divorced homes, etc. Everyone has issues deal with it. 3/4 of people’s problems are created during therapy. If only the people who really need therapy would go to therapists the world would be better off. Look at the secular society’s suicide rate, the divorce rate, the depression rate, the acceptance of LGTBQ behavior and trans surgeries and therapies courtesy of the work of “therapists”. Even in lehavdil the frum world people are dependent on therapists and indulging in non-stop kvetching and it has had a seriously negative impact on our communities. We have simps instead of strong men and women.

I’m not saying to throw the baby out with the bathwater, certainly for some people therapy is needed and some therapists are really good. But those are in the minority, for the majority of therapists and therapy goers it’s not only utter non-sense, it is part of the problems we face nowadays.

Syag > I said you don’t like frum. I didn’t say you don’t like the terminology.

I usually avoid personal remarks, but this one required clarification. My perception may be wrong, but I often see people using this term usually do it to – arbitrarily – exclude large swaths of Torah observant Jews from their notion of “amecha”. This may not be true for native Yiddish speakers, but often looks so for those who throw the term into English discussion. Especially here, we now have a full text of the teshuva, thanks RebE, and Rav Moshe, a Yiddish speaker, is clearly NOT using this term, yet everyone mis-quotes him. I may be oversensitive here.

Even Chofetz Chaim, in more “frum” times, when community was besieged by haskalah, had reservations, saying: people say: in our times, you need to be “frum, frum, and klug”, I say, you have to be “klug, klug, and frum”. So, I am pro-klugkeit.

Again, not sure what you are responding to. My point? Please don’t reference me to make points since I don’t appreciate being misreferenced.

> It has everything to do with the patient’s lack of ability to help themself.

As a first step, having a trusted friend or an older person can help anyone to have an independent look at themselves. Therapist is better, of course: you are paying serious money so it is not that easy to reject what he is saying, and he is also an expert at making himself heard. Try paying your friend $20 for the advice to appreciate it more.

Dear Always,

Great idea! In Kelm they would say their peers to give them personal mussar. But it would not help everyone. Not even the greatest professionals can help everyone.