Healed

I have spent over half of my life as an “Evangelical” Christian. As such, I attended Wheaton College graduate school to obtain my Master’s degree. Wheaton, while not as rigorous in it's rules and expectations as say Oral Roberts or some of the other far right colleges out there, held it’s own in the arena of conservative. There was a pledge (which included no dancing etc) that we had to sign and an expectation that we take certain Bible classes to round out our education. I complied with the latter, but must confess now that I probably broke every rule in “the Pledge” during my 2 year tenure at Wheaton.

The curriculum was surprisingly broad and well rounded. It included all the major areas of psychology – Behavioral, Rogerian, and Psychodynamic. All of us had to attend these classes.

Dr. Stan Jones, a solid and likeable teacher, was saddled with teaching us a variety of courses…including sex therapy, a course offered during the hot and torrid summer days. We fondly referred to the class as “sex with Stan”. He took it well.

The first year Dr. Jones taught the Behavioral Psychology course. It covered all the behavioral related areas including Skinner’s behavior modification methods and Ellis’ cognitive behavioral techniques.

One day Dr. Jones was speaking of the various ways that behavior modification has been used to address psychological problems. He was expounding on the fact that it has been used to try and correct behavior that we no longer categorize as an “illness” including homosexuality and of course masturbation.

“There was a time” he said, “that masturbation was acquainted with all kinds of ailments. People use to believe it would grow hair on your palms or make you blind. Now”, he continued, “we know this to be untrue”.

At this I took my glasses off, threw them to the front of the class, and shouted “I’M HEALED!”