Graham A. Cole, in Do Christians Have a Worldview?, writes:
Frank Furedi, a sociology professor at the University of Kent, wrote a witty piece entitled “The Seven Deadly Ills” for The Spectator. In it he makes a stunning admission for a secularist. Perhaps we need the Christian category of “sin” after all.
Once upon a time, there were seven deadly sins. They were called deadly because they lead to spiritual death and therefore damnation. The seven sins were (and are): lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride. Now, all of them, with the exception of pride, have become medical conditions. Pride has become a virtue.
The trouble is, according to Furedi, that to medicalize a moral problem prevents its remedy [emphasis mine]. He concludes:
To be honest, as a humanist, I don’t much like the idea of sin. But given the choice of being powerless in the face of God or an impotent client of a therapist, I side with the church. Therapeutic definitions of addiction elevate the sense of human powerlessness to a level unimaginable in medieval times. . . . Addicts are told that they will never be completely cured. We have recovering sex addicts, recovering religious addicts and recovering alcoholics. No one ever really changes.
Furedi is not opposed to therapy per se. Rather he is alarmed by the way we avoid moral responsibility with a linguistic sleight of hand.