Also: Schools Grapple with Sharp Rise in Psychology Students

In Christian graduate schools and seminaries, psychology programs are bursting with students. But while high enrollments are embraced, some administrators are troubled by the possible implications of the rapid growth. “Our program has grown to become one of the largest in the country,” says James D. Guy, Fuller Theological Seminary’s dean of psychology. “I’m not sure if it’s great. We’re probably as large as we’ll ever get, and we may need to downsize over time. Addressing needs won’t necessarily mean graduating large numbers of Christian therapists.”

Fuller’s School of Psychology, in its thirty-first year, was for half a decade the only doctoral program in clinical psychology and theology. Last year, it gave doctoral degrees to 25 students in clinical psychology and to 10 in marital and family therapy. Thirty marital and family therapy students received master’s degrees. Dozens of Christian graduate schools and seminaries now offer psychology or counseling programs, with more on the way.

“There seems to be a rush to do this, especially with the mental-health profession as a whole going through changes,” says Stanton Jones, who last month became provost at Wheaton College, where he had been psychology department chair. In 1993, Jones added a Psy.D. program to Wheaton’s successful M.A. psychology program. The first class will graduate in two years.

“There may be too many psychologists right now,” Jones says. “The danger is that we may send fewer and fewer qualified people into the profession. If a school is going to pay staff, it has to enroll students, and it may go as far down the applicant list as it has to.”

While flooding the field is a strong concern, a more immediate result of the rise in students and programs is the effect on the schools themselves.

“We see it as a positive pressure on us,” says Denver Seminary’s dean of counseling, James Beck. “It means that we don’t direct our efforts simply to professional clergy. We have to teach with the laity in mind and with both genders in mind.” Denver Seminary put an enrollment limit on its counseling program four years ago because it was quickly outpacing the school’s other programs.

While the schools’ administrators agree that they want to equip Christians with skills for psychological healing and mental health, Fuller’s Guy says the biggest challenge for the seminaries now is what profession they are emphasizing.

“Are we training mental-health professionals who are Christians, or are we training ministers with knowledge of mental health?” he asks.

Also at issue is the priority that the schools give to influencing the general mental-health community through writing and research.

The full impact of the growth in the number of psychology and counseling students in Christian higher education remains unknown. “In law schools, you always hear that there are too many lawyers,” says Jones. “But there’s still always a need for those lawyers. If Christian programs can succeed in turning out qualified, caring professionals, it can work.”