Wrestling With Self

First year student reflections on psychological screening

by Rodolfo Galindo, Contributing Editor

As a first year student I have loved my experience at Calvin Seminary so far. The professors are knowledgeable and the environment is generally a culture of spiritual growth. There have been moments of silence where I feel the presence and hear the whisper of God. Yet, from several talks I have had with first, second and third years, there is one question that stirs within us all that causes us to question what we think or feel about anything at all.

As first year students we all take a battery of psychological assessment tests and then schedule two sessions with a psychological counselor. After the initial barrage of questions we come to our final session with our counselor, where we confront the already and the not yet within ourselves. We have our faults highlighted, and certain things we have always considered to be positive character traits are identified as either too positive, or else as a positive that should be more negative. We are told to lessen this character trait because it is too strong or to strengthen that one because it is too weak.

In the aftermath of serving as a psychological punching bag, we are expected to receive our assessments with humility and carry out their accompanying recommendations. I believe that everyone can benefit from group counseling or clinical pastoral education and that it would be a great addition to the Ministry Formation program if one or the other were simply made mandatory. My concern is not with the recommendations themselves but with the process of wrestling with what the psychological evaluation portrays about ourselves as individuals who identify with Christ and as community members of the body of Christ.

I spoke with students in their first, second, and third years, and the frustration is similar, the tension palpable. Who am I in Christ as both a psychological and a spiritual being? What part do I play in the community of believers? The psychological evaluation says we are one way, but our family, friends and peers tell us we are something else, and all the while the Holy Spirit is tugging at our hearts, pulling us onward towards a life of ministry. We meet with the counselor once and we take the test once and on the second session they seem to tell us that in the brief period that they have known us they have seen us for who we truly are. They know you far better than yourself or your friends, family, and peers.

There is a small assumption that if you disagree with some part of the assessment you are simply naive or in denial. At what point, though, do we say that we believe in a sovereign God, being created in His image, and although depraved with sin in some sense still who God has disposed us to be? This is no mere exercise in systematic or practical theology, but an inseparable, intimate theology of relationship and faith.

In class we often struggle with theological concepts that are objective and highly disengaged from our immediate self. We listen to lectures on the differences between infra and supra-lapsarianism. The psychological assessment hits close to home as it surveys us with a superficial glance at some of our most intimate areas, appraising them as if they were just something in the way of our preparation for ministry. We are reduced to a number, just another such-and-such label scribbled on a psychologist’s notepad. I know I am not the only one struggling with this. How have you dealt with this psychological-spiritual tension? Let us know: letters@kerux.org.

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