Recovering From My Stinking Thinking

For as long as I can remember I was addicted to Stinking Thinking. That is until I learned I could be healed and set free from the ravages of those Irrational and Self Destructive Thinking Habits. Here is a short history of my getting healed.

I developed a very important but destructive way of motivating myself to achieve more and better results in life especially when dealing with failures. Each time I messed up I would beat myself mentally and emotionally until I was enraged at me for failing. It "worked" to motivate me to do better but it left me an intellectual and emotional and relational cripple.

A couple of years after I finished a Doctorate in Counselor Education at University of Cincinnati I was called the the Holy Spirit through the Elders at College Hill Presbyterian Church to establish an "Equipping Center at the Church. Our focus was to be on Family Life, Small Groups, The Healing Service, Training Lay Helpers and Christian Discipleship. It was a grand vision.

We started by implementing a program to train our members in Genuineness, Respect, Empathy and Warmth, or what researchers call, "The Core Conditions of healthy relationships". On my dissertation I also discovered that they are highly correlated with what scripture calls, "The fruit of the Holy Spirit". We used the newly discovered ideas to produce my first student manual, "Apples of Gold". I still meet people who say they use the "Apples of Gold" skills in daily life.

Alice Petersen came to us from Fuller Seminary as an Intern and Margaret Josephson was a volunteer for us because I was on her Doctoral Committee at UC. They both attended a seminar led by Dr. Maxie Maultsby on Cognitive Therapy. Upon their return, both exclaimed how wonderful it was and how it fit perfectly with scripture.

I read their books and notes and agreed. I immediately saw how the principles of Dr. Maultsby were very close to what the Bible teaches about controlling our moods, feelings and behavior by "Taking every thought captive to Christ".

As I studied those books and studied the Bible I asked Alice and Meg to write up a simple way to bring the two together. Meg was too busy so Alice and Dorothy Geverdt teamed up with me to write a manual that later became Rational Christian Thinking. As I studied scripture and Cognitive Therapy I saw I needed to renew my own mind first.

I am still working on breaking those life long habits of Stinking Thinking but I am much better now than I was in 1982 when we began. Thanks Alice and Meg.