Citizen Columns
Citizen Columns >> Answer (September 19, 2008)
Question
What is the proper role of spirituality in the treatment of mental health problems?
Answer
How spiritual and mental health are intertwined is a highly complex issue. But both are part of the human makeup, so a mental health professional who dismisses the spiritual dimension is as much to be avoided as a pastor who dismisses mental health issues.
From an Orthodox Christian perspective, a whole human being is one who is in communion with God, since that was the ultimate purpose of our creation. We are designed to share communion with him, and through him with each other and all creation. Where that spiritual communion is missing, there is an incomplete human being. Thus we can be mentally healthy and still not be whole. But because spirituality today is so varied and fragmented, while I would want to know a therapist is aware of spirituality, I would be very suspicious of any attempt to bring their own view of what that means into treatment of mental health issues.
Therapists and pastors need to be aware of how spirituality can interfere with one’s mental health. What if the way I have learned and practiced my faith has turned me into a bundle of fears, shame and guilt? What if I use religion/spirituality as a way to avoid the realities of my life? Religious practices are often used as a drug in this way, not for communion with God and for a deeper way into truth about ourselves and ultimate reality, but precisely to escape this. When religion is used in this way it becomes a drug.
Therapists and pastors should both be concerned with grounding their people in reality. That may take time and gentleness, because we build up defenses to protect ourselves from realities that right now are just too painful to bear. But sometimes it takes prophetic sharpness to shake us out of our mental and spiritual delusions.
Father John Jillions
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