This presentation was made on Saturday September 14, 2015 at
the conference on Faith and Mental Health offered by Baptist Medical Center in
Jacksonville, Florida…
I want to dedicate this presentation to a young woman. I will
call her Kathy. I knew her years ago,
when I was a young minister in my very first parish. She was very tall and generally scary
looking. She wore black always. Combat boots. She looked like the kind of
person you didn’t want to cross. She came not just on Sundays but began to drop
by my office during the day. It was a small rural church in South Carolina. We
would sit together in my office. She would perch on my sofa and wring her
hands, unable to speak. She showed me where she had cut herself.
Over the months, Kathy told me what had happened to her
mainly by writing it down on small scraps of paper that she would bring in with
her. I got her to see a therapist quickly,
but she still wanted to come by and talk to me. And this was her story.
Kathy was raped beginning around the age
of four. Her uncle came to live with the
family and he would find many ways to hurt her.
Her mother was working full-time. She was often alone with her uncle.
She didn’t know how to explain what was happening, how to put it into words.
She thought it was her fault.
So she began washing her hands. Over and over again, many
times a day, she would wash her hands until they became chapped and dry and
red. And still she would wash them. Her
mother didn’t understand why. It took her mother four years to discover what
was really happening. Four years.
There are many different kinds of vocabularies that we use
when describing mental illness. What
Kathy did was suffer trauma as a child that resulted in mental health
issues. Voices inside her head told her
she was dirty and unworthy and that she should die. These voices and feelings originally came
from outside her. They were instilled in
her by trauma. They were a normal response to a horrible situation. Kathy was
just trying to make sense of a crazy world.
She was just trying to survive.
Kathy grew up into this tough young woman who carried a knife
in her pocket, took martial arts and was plagued with anger and misery. We
would pray and she worked so hard in therapy.
When I moved away, I was certain she would be OK. But just three weeks
ago, I heard from her mother that she had moved away from her support system
and all alone in a new city, she had taken her own life. She was gone.
Like so many of you who have worked with patients or had
loved ones who suffered, I feel such sadness and inadequacy when I think of
Kathy. I wish I could have helped her more. I wish she had been born into a world
that was fair and kind and treated her like the child of God that she was and
even still is. So I dedicate this presentation
to her and to all those who suffer from mental health issues. To you,
Kathy. I am so sorry.
And as I look back, I wish that I had talked to Kathy about
the value of her therapy. I wish that I
had taught my entire congregation about the value of mental health
professionals. We were on the same team.
I simply referred her to a therapist and then did not mention it again. As a clergy person, I might think of Kathy’s
struggle as a struggle against the evil that happened to her as a child, as the
spiritual battle with demons of self-hatred that were instilled in her when she
was raped. The therapist would have
other words…But why did we not support one another? Could we have done more for Kathy if we had
acknowledged each other?
This is a presentation about a divorce that happened at the
dawn of psychoanalysis. The divorce that
Sigmund Freud initiated when he
brilliantly began to articulate a new discipline called psychoanalysis in order
to understand and heal the human mind.
It is my firm belief that if we are ever to truly help young women like
Kathy or others who suffer from mental illness, we must join the hands of
faith, science and medicine in a multidisciplinary approach to mental health.
This divorce of the psychological from the spiritual has left us inadequately
prepared to hear the sufferings of our fellow human beings. We have tried to
dissect the human mind into psychological issues as opposed to spiritual
issues. This has handicapped us in our
treatment and in our compassion. Jesus made
no such distinction. Nor did the great
teachers of other faith traditions. It is time for us to admit that this
divorce has not done us any good. The segregation of our practices weakens our
work and ministry. It is time for a
reconciliation. Human healing and
wholeness can only be achieved when we join hands, when mental health
professionals teach in churches and clergy come to the rooms of patients. We
need one another.
In 1907, in one of his first books, Obsessive Actions and
Religious Practices, Freud argued that religion was a neurosis created in
an effort to fend off a fear of death.
He called religion a “universal obsessional neurosis.” (The Freud
Reader, p. 435) Those who truly wanted to be mentally healthy must admit that
religion was a crutch created out of a need to answer questions which could not
rationally be answered. If one was to be taken seriously, in Freud’s opinion,
one must say good-bye to any kind of faith in God.
Freud was a genius in many ways. Because he was the pioneer
in a new discipline, his voice still echoes today. All mental health professionals must consider
at some point Freud’s thesis that faith is born of neurosis and is just another
sign of mental fragility. For decades,
mental health professionals were taught in some circles that matters of faith
could only serve to illumine a patient’s mental illness. Religion was a symptom of dysfunction and not
a source of support. This is very much the case in New England, where I am
originally from.
If faith and the spiritual life are in themselves symptoms of
deep insecurity, then they can never be part of a treatment plan for mental
health. Even if you go to therapy, you must not admit to prayer or any such
nonsense, lest that become another symptom of your neurosis.
At the same time, the religious community has reacted to the
rise of the mental health profession with skepticism. Mental health practices have often been criticized,
even as seen in direct competition with faith communities. If you want to be well, all you need to do is
pray. Jesus said clearly that your faith made you
well so if you are struggling with mental health issues, then you must not be
praying right. Don’t go to a therapist, simply put your trust in God and God
will heal you. And if you do go to a therapist, it means that you are being
unfaithful. You are not putting your trust in God.
In addition, Christianity has piled on guilt and even spoken
of damnation when addressing the
mentally ill. Talk of sin and demons and
evil itself has made those who suffer from mental health issues afraid to admit
that they need help. Look at this
cartoon…Mocking the mentally ill…
Without realizing it, the Church has accused children of God
of succumbing to temptation, wallowing in sin or simply making bad
choices. The formula of prayer alone as
a remedy for mental health has led to shame and in many cases suicide for those
who cannot find relief simply by praying. The Church has abandoned them to
judgement and loneliness. St Paul taught us that all illness is community
illness-that we are the body of Christ, but we have abandoned our brothers and
sisters who suffer from mental health issues.
Our fear of that which we do not understand has caused us to shun them,
label them and force them into hiding. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, those
who struggle from mental health issues find themselves running away from God
and hiding for fear of showing their vulnerability in a church that has no
words of comfort, nothing to wrap around their shoulders. Instead of embracing
the mentally ill, we have treated them like the lepers of our day. We have
treated them as if they are weak at best and evil at worst. We in the faith
community have much to confess in how we have maligned and treated those who
suffer from mental illness.
The mental health professionals and the faith communities
have existed too long in separate silos. Both sides of this divorce have
limited their resources by insisting that the mentally ill need only one
disciple to find health and wellness. We have crippled ourselves in our
arrogance. The shame is on us. All of
us. Has not God given us the mental
health profession to help us understand the human mind? And has not God given us faith communities as
sources of support and strength? We make
a grave error when we think that any one of us can do this alone.
Strangely, this divorce between the psychological and the
spiritual did not seem to happen as deeply in the field of medicine. Other than Christian Scientists, most
Americans have sought out medical care for over one hundred years. We believe
in prayer, but Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus will all show up in the ER
if they are bleeding. And many will
articulate the belief that God works through the hands of surgeons and doctors
and nurses. In almost every hospital
parking lot, there is a space reserved for clergy. So why is the physical body fixable by
doctors and clergy together while the mind must choose between a therapist and
priest? Why is it that, in the mental health field, we somehow feel that we are
competing for the same territory?
In order to begin the process of reconciliation between faith
communities and mental health professionals, we have to begin with the concept
of SHAME. We must destroy the shame that has been
associated with mental illness. In the
recent JCCI report entitled Unlocking the Pieces: Community Mental Health in
Northeast Florida, JCCI reports that one of the greatest reasons individuals
don’t seek treatment is because of the stigma that is still associated with
mental health issues. “The stigma of mental illness is both pervasive and
firmly entrenched in our society,” they write.
This stigma leads to a lack of hope, despair and alienation. This stigma
is very real and present here in Jacksonville.
How do we combat shame? We combat shame with by inviting Adam
and Eve to come out of hiding. We combat
shame by showing our own failings, our vulnerability. We combat shame with
honesty. We combat shame with
integrity. We combat shame with courage.
Clergy, we must be willing to talk
freely and openly about our own battles with mental health issues and the
battles of our loved ones. We must,
without shame or fear, show the world that even those who pray can suffer from
mental health issues. Mental illness is
a disease and just like a cancer patient, those who suffer from mental illness
deserve our full support.
So let me begin with my
own story.
This is a picture of my dad on his 70th birthday. My
dad suffered from debilitating clinical depression when I was growing up. The mental health care of our day was not
sufficient. He would go to bed for
months, months. When I started therapy at the end of college, I thought that he
had been in bed for three years, but he clarified that it was three
months. That was the longest
stretch. He would lie in bed with tears
streaming down his face. And he would
tell much, when I was far too young to hear this, that the only reason he
didn’t kill himself was because he believed in God. And he believed that it was a sin to take his
own life.
So I began to pray. As
a very little girl, the first memory that I have of prayer is of trying to
write a letter to God in my head. It was
a simple letter. It read, “Dear God,
Thank you for life, love Kate.” I thought that you had to write to God in your
head to pray so I would lie in my bed at night, look at the birch tree outside
my window and say that prayer.
And I became a priest. Freud would have a field day. It was God who kept my father alive, even if
it was purely through the fear of damnation. So I dedicate my life to God. And even as a child, when I entered the
church, it felt safe. I felt my worry and
anxiety melt away. There was a kind of
solidity, of trust-worthiness there.
There were grown-ups who seemed solid and stable and who seemed to love
me even when I didn’t show up for months.
I found my home.
My father has tried everything: medical, therapeutic,
spiritual. In his effort to find relief, I was exposed to all kinds of methods
as a child. My dad took medications, all
kinds of them. He had electroshock therapy, back when it was a bit rougher and
caused memory loss. And we prayed. I
still pray for him daily.
Why would I ever consider that my dad should only pray and
not receive treatment for his depression?
Does not God work in all things? Are we not called to be Christ’s hands
and feet in the world? God works through
the love and support of a community. God works through the gifts of mental
health professionals. We are all on the
same team.
Take a moment. There
is a piece of paper at your table. Write
down someone in your life who has suffered from mental illness. Let’s take a moment for you each to ponder
who in your life has been touched by suffering in this way…
Now, turn to your table.
Share a story. Model
honesty. This is the only way that we
can combat shame. Have courage. Talk to one another.
Give me your feedback…You impression of what it is like to
talk openly to one another…
Here is JK Rowling
on depression…
It is time for a change. This conference marks one step in a
movement to rectify our mistakes. It is time for us to learn from one another
and to seek strength in the insights of each other. Our disciplines are not at odds with one
another. We are all on the same team!
We must agree with the fact that mental health is a continuum. The mind is like a garden. It must be tilled and cultivated. There is no such thing as a simply healthy
mind.
Jesus often used images from nature when
trying to explain our relationship to God and to each other. One image that he used over and over again
was the image of the wheat and the weeds.
Just yesterday, I was pulling weeds in my overgrown Florida
yard. They grow up so fast, especially when conditions are right. Our minds are full of wheat and weeds. All you need to do is sit down in silence for
ten minutes and you can hear them. We
have thoughts that are life-giving and thoughts that are destructive. Our job is to identify the wheat from the
weeds. And notice that Jesus tells us that only God can rid us of our weeds. We can’t pull the weeds from our own minds,
we cannot strip ourselves of destructive thinking or feelings of despair. But
we can identify them and learn to live with them. I don’t have to listen when I
tell myself that I am fat or stupid or a bad mother. I can realize that that though is a weed,
planted there sometime when someone said something hurtful to me, and I can
just let it be there. Worry, obsession, even addiction…weeds of the mind. Weeds can choke and even destroy a mind if
left unchecked.
Doesn’t the world of therapy agree with this notion that we
are to identify the weeds and get to know them?
That we cannot get rid of them? And do we really think that there is a
human mind out there that has no weeds?
And would not we call this process of self-realization a holy
process? Is not the Holy Spirit present
when one human being truly listens to another?
One thing that I know about weeds is that they tend to look
alike. The same weeds come up again and
again and again. I pull one and another
grows in its place. It is a constant
battle. A healthy mind takes upkeep and
analysis. We can’t just let it go. Just like the physical body needs exercise,
so the mind needs observance, listening and careful cultivation.
The Bible talks clearly about the fact that we all have
unclean thoughts and feelings. Even
Jesus himself was tempted. It is part of
what it means to be human, to be tempted.
And we notice that it was Jesus who mastered his temptation before he
set out to help anyone else. For we all
know that you cannot truly help others if you don’t know how temptation works
in your own mind.
If we could only understand that to be human is to suffer,
and to be human is to grapple with mental health issues. To follow God is a process of continual
discernment, constant self-reflection.
Just like we care for the body, so we must care for the mind.
For the person of Jesus’ day, soul, spirit, breath were all
one. There was just one word for them. In our effort to understand and dissect
the human mind, we have tried to pry apart those things that coexist in a dance
of mutuality. We have tried to dissect
and segregate those things which are in fact one.
It is time for us to understand that we all are approaching a great mystery together and that
mystery is the human mind and spirit. We
come at this mystery like blind men feeling an elephant. Faith communities can
help in one way. Mental health
professionals in another way. We treat the same mystery from a variety of
perspectives, none of us fully understanding that which only God can fully
comprehend.
So I dedicate this conference to Kathy. Let her not have died in vain. Let us come together in this battle for the
human spirit to be free, as God intended for us to be.
