After years of frustration, Larissa Lima typed out a post on X in April. “In Brazil, a psychologist can call themselves left-wing, feminist, decolonial, anything but Christian,” she wrote in Portuguese.
The post reached 2 million views, drawing 1,700 likes and nearly 675 comments. Initially, some questioned how her statement could be true when Brazil is a majority-Christian country. As she added posts detailing specific cases—she and other colleagues facing ethics proceedings for identifying as Christians online, a friend publicly humiliated at a university after being outed as a believer—the commenters’ skepticism turned into hostility.
The turning point came when a commenter screenshotted a comment Lima had made on Instagram responding to a Christian woman who had raised concerns about homosexuality and human rights. Lima wrote that a same-sex attracted Christian who chooses celibacy because of faith deserves to have a therapist respect that choice. Commenters accused her of practicing conversion therapy—a charge she flatly rejects.
“I don’t believe there is religious persecution in Brazil,” Lima said. Yet she does see a clear intolerance for Christianity in the field of psychology.
The Federal Council of Psychology (CFP), the top regulatory body for psychologists in the country, issued a resolution in 2023 establishing the field as secular, which it uses as a legal defense in cases against Christian psychologists. Brazil’s top court is debating the constitutionality of the resolution as some lawmakers seek to monitor professional bodies that prevent religious expression.
Lima has faced the effects of the resolution herself.
Resolution No. 7 bans psychologists from using their professional titles alongside any religious labels, for instance, publicly calling themselves Christian psychologists. They also can’t mention religious beliefs in ads, coerce patients to convert to different religions during counseling sessions, or reinforce prejudice of other religions.
The CFP says the resolution does not prevent psychologists from expressing their faith. “Every psychologist, as a citizen, has full freedom to express their faith, religiosity, or spirituality in their private life and on strictly personal social media as long as such expressions are not associated with the promotion of professional services under the title of psychologist,” the council said in a statement to CT. What the resolution bans, the CFP argues, is not personal belief—it’s professional advertising that links psychology to a religion.
While Lima agrees with parts of the resolution, she believes it goes too far, limiting the visibility of Christians in the profession.
“If we cannot call ourselves Christian, we become less visible. This even makes it more challenging for patients who wish to consult with a Christian psychologist,” Lima said. “Some Christians only feel comfortable with psychologists who respect their faith, and they have the right to seek that.”
Lima noted there are cases when Christian patients felt their values ridiculed in the consulting room even when they were clear with their morals, such as when psychologists advise them to seek sexual partners outside marriage or to masturbate. “Many psychologists think it is okay to push the person beyond their values,” she said.
Lima’s censure came not because of anything she did inside the office but because of her social media. In March 2023, Lima first received a complaint, filed with her Regional Council of Psychology (CRP), for speaking openly about her faith on Instagram. The CRP issued a warning, asking her to delete all religious content from her social media profile. She refused.
“It is a personal profile,” Lima said. “I would have had to delete everything.” Instead, she negotiated: She would create a separate professional Instagram account, keeping her personal one intact. The council accepted.
But then the CFP issued Resolution No. 7. Lima faced a new wave of complaints, and this time the CRP asked her to delete from her personal profile a specific post in which she advised Christian patients on how to choose a psychological approach while remaining faithful to their values.
She refused again, noting that the post was on her personal profile, which she was not using to attract patients and which didn’t include a booking link. “If I delete that post,” she said, “I am telling the CRP it has the power to regulate my personal life, my personal social media. What comes next?”
The CRP considered her argument but still asked her to sign a document stating she would delete the post, Lima said. Again, she did not sign. The next step is a formal ethics proceeding, which could lead to her losing her license. “I am waiting for the email to arrive,” she said. “I know it is coming.”
To tackle this concern, Sen. Magno Malta, an evangelical pastor, wrote a proposal in March to create a nonprofit, multiparty initiative in the Senate to monitor and contest regulations from professional oversight bodies, particularly the CFP, that unduly restrict psychologists from expressing their faith.
Malta argues that while Brazil is a secular state according to its constitution, this doesn’t make it antireligious. He believes telling professionals to fully separate their faith from their work undermines their identity and doesn’t align with human dignity.
In 2023, the Partido Novo and the Brazilian Institute of Law and Religion argued before the Supreme Federal Court that Resolution No. 7 was unconstitutional. The court began hearing the case in a virtual session in March 2026. The only justice out of 11 to vote so far, rapporteur Alexandre de Moraes, sided with the CFP, arguing the resolution protects patients rather than restricts psychologists’ religious freedom. The case then moved to an in-person session, with no date yet set for a final ruling.
Clinical psychologist, theologian, and researcher Aender Borba said in a social media video that he sees a pattern: “What the council is doing isn’t just on scientific grounds. It’s an abuse of power and the construction of a narrative of hatred, especially against Christians.”
Borba says there are three issues with the CFP’s actions. First, the government shouldn’t dictate a psychologist’s personal identity: “The constitution protects belief and expression. The ethics code bans forcing beliefs on patients, which is correct, but it doesn’t ban psychologists from having faith or being believers outside work.” Second, the resolution creates a negative stereotype of Christians: “Instead of only judging those who break ethics [codes], the discourse makes every Christian suspect.” Third, the resolution uses science as an excuse for its actions: “Real science needs data and debate. The system goes wrong when it tries to control beliefs, not just actions.”
The CFP rejected the charge of institutional religious persecution. “The Psychology Council system does not carry out any monitoring, ideological persecution, or selective surveillance of beliefs,” the council told CT. It added that complaints move forward only when there is substantial evidence of ethical violations in professional practice—such as using psychological techniques without scientific basis, proselytizing patients, or advertising services linked to religious precepts: “The existence of a complaint does not, by itself, imply an ethical violation.”
Because psychologists are not allowed to list their faith in professional settings, Christians may have a harder time finding therapists who share their faith, thus preventing them from getting the help they need.
Laís Cristina, a 33-year-old filmmaker, has experienced firsthand the support a Christian therapist can provide. Raised in an evangelical home, Cristina struggled to admit she needed help when she experienced anxiety attacks at a young age.
“Until I understood that I [was facing] emotional problems, it was a challenge. How could my faith not be sufficient?” she recalled thinking. “Failure was not acceptable. When choosing a course, a college, or a husband, there was pressure to be perfect. Therapy brought me the perspective that this expectation differed from my faith.”
Her therapy, which she calls “slow and steady work,” didn’t replace her faith but worked alongside it. When faced with anxiety attacks, Laís turns to a three-part support system: therapy for her thoughts, devotionals for hope, and exercise for her body. “I drove to college reciting verses taped in my car. I would not have overcome [my anxiety] without faith. Without it, therapy alone wasn’t enough.”
Laís’s psychologist is also a Christian and used her faith as a compass. “She didn’t come in with the answers, but she brought out what I believed in. She would say, ‘Let’s link your decisions to your faith.’”
Lima agrees it is vital for patients to have psychologists who align with their faith: “With the Christian patient, we have the freedom to work with their values, and that has a much higher chance of success in the process.”
Yet Christian psychologists also face critiques from within the evangelical community, Lima said. She noted some evangelicals have even claimed the Bible is God’s counsel while psychology is Satan’s.
Studies show that evangelical Christians are more likely to resist formal psychiatric help, and surveys of Christians who have experienced mental distress find that roughly a third received teaching that framed emotional suffering as exclusively spiritual. No major Brazilian denomination has issued a formal statement against psychology, but the resistance tends to be pastoral and cultural rather than doctrinal.
Alexandre Sacha, a pastor and board member of the Brazilian Association of Biblical Counselors, noted his issue is not with the science of psychology itself but with the philosophical authority psychology claims in defining human beings, suffering, and its cure.
While psychology analyzes human suffering through its biological, psychological, and environmental causes, biblical counseling asserts a spiritual dimension, he said. For example, he notes that “depression and anxiety are not merely biological entities. You experience them in the body, but these experiences have a dimension of meaning in relation to God, of response to suffering, of hope. These are dimensions that science, devoid of the Creator’s perspective, cannot address with its own resources.”
Psychology has a different view not only of what a human is but also of a person’s purpose, or telos. The phrase “I’m getting better,” a common refrain in therapeutic speak, reveals a limited horizon for him: It takes yesterday’s self, not who a person is called to be, as a reference. “Every therapeutic system has an implicit vision of what human flourishing, health, and a good life are. The Word of God sets a different goal: the glory of God.”
He also disagrees with what psychologists believe is the agent of change. In biblical counseling, transformation comes not from an insight or a cognitive mechanism but from the action of the Holy Spirit through the Word.
Lima said she understands the fear and criticism against modern psychology. Yet she thinks common grace within the field can help “us deal with the effects of the fall in the world. Psychology has useful tools that, used wisely, can help. It’s too simplistic to throw everything away.”
As she continues her practice, Lima has no plans to stop speaking out about her faith. She said even as a grad student, she “was already willing to pay that price.” She acknowledged losing her license would be a significant blow to her livelihood, yet “I believe God is sovereign and will provide.”
For Lima, the fight is ultimately not about her. It is about the Christian patients who cannot find psychologists who share their worldview and who end up either not getting care or meeting with therapists who dismiss their values.
“If the concern in Brazil is mental health, I should be supported, not persecuted,” she said. “Our country has high rates of depression and anxiety. And it also has a very large number of Christians. Something tells me this population is not being reached.”
The post Christian Psychologists in Brazil Fight to Express Their Faith appeared first on Christianity Today.