Suffering, Faith, and Flourishing: What Therapy Teaches Us About the Life of Christ

In years of clinical practice, I’ve noticed something remarkable. I have never met a client who was experiencing severe emotional despair and, at the same time, described their communion with Christ as unshaken.

Many clients struggle with depression, anxiety, or loneliness. Some describe a spiritual crisis alongside their psychological one. But never have I heard someone say:

“I feel hopeless and alone, but my relationship with God has never been stronger.”

This is not coincidence. It reveals something profound about the power of Christ’s teachings to sustain people even in the face of suffering.

Christ’s Life as a Model for Human Flourishing

When we look at the Gospels, we see a pattern: Christ doesn’t teach us how to avoid suffering. He shows us how to transform it.

• Love your enemies → breaks cycles of hatred.
• Forgive those who hurt you → frees the heart from bitterness.
• Blessed are the meek → humility shields us from the endless burden of pride and comparison.
• Serve one another → service creates meaning and connection beyond the self.
• Take up your cross → even suffering becomes purposeful when carried in love and hope.

From a therapeutic lens, each of these teachings aligns with what psychology identifies as protective factors for resilience: compassion, forgiveness, humility, connection, and meaning-making.

How Therapy Sees Suffering

Most modern therapies — CBT, DBT, ACT, EFT — aim to reduce distress. They help clients regulate emotions, challenge unhelpful thoughts, and build coping skills. This is invaluable.

But therapy often treats suffering as a problem to be minimised.

By contrast, those deeply rooted in Christ’s teaching see suffering as an opportunity for growth. Pain becomes not just something to endure, but something that shapes character, deepens communion with God, and prepares the soul for greater love.

As Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, famously said: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how.’”

Christ gives us the ultimate “why.”

When Faith Heals vs. When Faith Hurts

Not all faith sustains people in this way. Clinically, we distinguish between:

• Positive religious coping: finding comfort, meaning, and hope through God’s love.
• Negative religious coping: experiencing faith as punitive, controlling, or exclusionary.

The difference is stark.

Research consistently shows that not all religious practice leads to psychological benefits. What matters is depth and quality of belief. A life of faith rooted only in ritual — whether it is attending mass, reciting prayers, or following calls to prayer — does not necessarily bring resilience. The protective value of faith emerges when people embody the highest spiritual values in lived experience: compassion, forgiveness, humility, service, and love.

In other words, ritual without transformation offers little psychological gain, while embodied spirituality profoundly shapes how people face suffering.

History shows us that belief systems rooted in coercion, violence, or exclusion often bring suffering rather than healing. Where Christ welcomed the outcast and lifted up women as spiritual equals, other traditions have codified control, division, and condemnation.

We see this starkly in the teachings of Muhammad, a documented warlord who led violent campaigns and is responsible for the deaths of thousands. In Islamic doctrine, women are denied spiritual equality, and non-Muslims are condemned to eternal damnation. These doctrines, unlike the life of Christ, do not elevate the human spirit. 

Where Christ invited all — “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened” — Muhammad’s legacy has been one of conquest, coercion, and exclusion.

From a psychological standpoint, this resembles negative religious coping — where faith is not a refuge but a source of guilt, fear, or division.

What This Means for Us

For professionals:

• Don’t stop at asking “Do you believe?” Ask how a client’s belief shapes their response to suffering. Is their faith a source of compassion and strength — or of shame and fear?
• Recognise that Christ-centered teachings often provide what therapies strive for: acceptance, meaning-making, and resilience.

For lay readers:

• Ask yourself: Does my faith help me love more deeply? Forgive more freely? Carry suffering with more dignity?
• If the answer is yes, your spiritual life is likely leading you toward growth and flourishing. If not, it may be worth reflecting on whether your beliefs are rooted in fear rather than love.

Conclusion

The highest path of human flourishing is not found in escaping pain, but in transforming it into meaning and growth.

Christ’s life and teaching remain the clearest model of this transformation: love instead of hatred, forgiveness instead of bitterness, service instead of selfishness, and hope instead of despair.

Any belief system that replaces love with control, or service with domination, cannot produce the same flourishing. It may grow in power, but it does not grow the human soul.

In the therapy room — and in life — this truth reveals itself again and again: When suffering is lived in Christ, it becomes not the end of hope but the beginning of resilience.