Beyond Ritual: Mental Health Advocacy in Indonesian Churches

In this episode of God on the Move, Totok Wiryasaputra shares how he helped start and now leads the Indonesian Association of Psycho-Spiritual Counselors (IAPC) to raise mental-health awareness and develop psycho-spiritual caregiving within Indonesian churches across denominations.

He describes Indonesia’s complex religious and political tensions across regions, the stigma and spiritual framing of mental illness, and the church’s tendency toward ritual and numerical growth rather than holistic, incarnational care. Totok explains IAPC’s grassroots approach—training pastors and church members, traveling to provinces for annual meetings, and integrating psychology and faith amid skepticism from both secular clinicians and conservative Christians—while noting challenges in practical follow-through after training. He outlines his “Hexagonal Church” dream centered on caring as a biblical, historical, ecclesiological, spiritual, operational, and cultural framework, recounts his upbringing in a remote village shaped by missionaries, and shares his ongoing grief-counseling and online ministry at age 75. He closes with a call for unity in a “post-apologetical” posture and a request for international partners to come to Indonesia and share experiences at IAPC gatherings.

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Guests in This Episode

Totok Wiryasaputra

Totok Soemartho Wiryasaputra is an Indonesian theologian, pastoral counselor, and psychospiritual care leader, born in Kulon Progo, Yogyakarta. With decades of ministry experience as a local pastor, hospital chaplain, psychosocial practitioner, and professor of pastoral care and counseling, Totok has become a leading voice in grief care and psychospiritual counseling in Indonesia. He is the co-founder of the Indonesian Association of Psychospiritual Counselors (IAPC), served as its National Board Chairperson (2017–2022), and currently serves as Executive Director. He has also authored more than 35 published books in Indonesian, many focused on grief psychotherapy, counseling, and church-based mental health ministry.