Where is god in mental illness

Perhaps most interesting, patients responded better to SPIRIT when it was delivered by religiously unaffiliated clinicians. This surprising finding suggests that secular clinicians may be particularly effective in providing spiritual treatment. This is good news because psychiatrists are the least likely of all physicians to be religious. It remains to be seen whether God can solve our mental health crisis. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology?

And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. Gareth, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, is the series editor of Best American Infographics and can be reached at garethideas AT gmail. David H. He received his Ph. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.

See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Recent Articles by David H. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. No matter where clergy find ourselves serving God, we pastorally encounter those who are living with mental illness. Any pastor can live with or develop a mental health condition over the course of their ministry. And every pastor is likely to encounter someone in acute mental health crisis during their ministry.

Despite the sustained stigma surrounding mental health in Christian circles, many people still turn to their local pastor before seeking out care from a mental health provider or physician. This undergirds the importance of clergy and church communities becoming better equipped to be welcoming and affirming spaces for those with mental health conditions.

Matthew Stanford explores the concept of scientists often struggling with the idea of the Spirit, as it can be difficult to study or quantify in scientifically satisfactory ways. Often I find that even the most faithful churchgoers in churches I have served find it challenging to engage their faith and God in their most trying times in life.

As anxiety rises in the midst of health challenges physical or mental , grief, relationship issues, financial hardship, or other life circumstances, many people in the contexts I serve lean on science, secular research, and other secular experts exclusively.

I appreciate Dr. One without the other neglects to address the whole holistic self. This brand of humility is exemplified quite beautifully in the words from a survivor of Auschwitz:. Or anything. We owe our lives to Him. We owe God our lives for the few or many years we live, and we have the duty to worship Him and do all that He commands us. There is something to this. It is hard to swallow, for sure, but there is a deep truth in these words. If our purpose in life is to journey back to God and become fully human along the way, then, yes, we must oppose suffering at every opportunity; but to find ourselves stuck in an existential crisis over the nature of this existence is to miss the boat entirely.

The point, as a Christian, is not to eradicate all suffering or even overcome suffering but to endure it faithfully and ease it in people and places when we are able to do so, as Jesus did.

All of this makes it a little easier for me to swallow the reality of mental illness. What helps the most, however, is the image of Jesus Christ on the cross. During one of my particularly brutal battles with depression and misuse of alcohol, I went away for in-patient rehab in California.

As you can imagine, when I first got there, I was in a very dark place. I had not only hurt a lot of people on my way there, but being there now meant I had left my wife at home to care for our two sons alone while also fielding countless calls from friends and onlookers who were wanting to know what was going on with me.

Why had Ryan suddenly disappeared? The guilt I felt was so overwhelming, I was all but certain it would take me under. I had always wanted to read this book but had never taken the time to do so. Going to rehab has its perks, I suppose. Because the child was so small and light, he did not die immediately when the SS tipped over his chair but instead suffered for more than half an hour.

This is where—hanging here from this gallows. What He does, I believe, is experience them with us. He rides out the panic attack, feeling its uncontrolled bursts of adrenaline, and His hands shake as the suicidal person quakes with fear and hatred and utter despair. He comes alongside the disappointed boy, who only wished to see his father for a few moments before bedtime. How has anxiety, depression, or other suffering affected you or someone you love?

What does it mean to you to know we have a God who knows what it is to suffer? And what is the purpose of suffering? And it was. And it is. He died a short time later. Why is this the world we live in?