The issue of mental health and Christian faith There are serious questions about how far into the realm of psychology people of faith should go. Clearly there is a problem when so many psychology professionals are now effectively part of the political Left. But so what if they are? What imperative exists that says that people of faith cannot create their own empirical psychology, based on the view that, while this must be studied scientifically, the Holy Spirit exists and ought to be considered in how people function in the real world, AND that Satan exists and is forever interfering in the real world and in the lives of each human being? My view is that this new kind of psychology is very much needed, not only to counter Atheist psychology with its materialist assumptions and values, but to counter "prayer is all you need" religious faith -which, it seems to me, for all of the good it does, which is very much indeed- nonetheless is based on some false premises. Let us focus on just one such premise even though there are others, such as the need to think about life in developmental terms, with faith at age 10 having very different character and needs than faith at age 22 or 50 or later. This is the fact that some people are psychopaths who, no matter what, cannot be reached at all via normal religious approaches. They are literally brain damaged; they have no functioning conscience, and they have zero by way of morality. Some people, moreover, are pathological without always being pathological, or not as pathological as others. In these kinds of cases traditional religion is just about irrelevant and we need to face this fact, head on. Religion, as it is understood by nearly everyone, is good, smart, necessary, etc, for 98% of the population, although maybe the figure is more like 90%, this is unclear. But in any case there is some number, 2% or 10%, for whom clinical intervention is what is most needed and for whom religion is useless. Unless and until they regain (or gain for the first time) psychological normality. Our task is to be able to identify which is which, even though, because we all are imperfect, we cannot always get this right. As Buckminster Fuller once said, "we are all damaged children." This is a literal truth, and some people are severely damaged -to the extent that they are mentally in another realm where pathology rules. This may be hard to face, but it is necessary to do so. The reasons ought to be obvious. Billy ============================== The Guardian _Evangelical Christianity_ (http://www.theguardian.com/world/evangelical-christianity) Christians and mental health: 'This has nothing to with whether I believe in Jesus' Evangelical writer and musician Carlos Whittaker faced a negative response when he went public about his psychological issues, but attitudes are changing
_Amanda Holpuch_ (http://www.theguardian.com/profile/amanda-holpuch) Thursday 13 November 2014 11.50 EST _Carlos Whittaker_ (https://twitter.com/loswhit) , a prominent evangelical writer and musician, was singing worship songs on stage in 2005 when he suddenly felt like he was having a heart attack and that he would soon die. An audience of 2,000 people watched, and the band played on, as Whittaker left the stage, not knowing that _he was having a panic attack_ (http://ragamuffinsoul.com/2011/02/gods-power-prayer-and-paxil/) . Though some people still tell Whittaker that his anxiety could be improved if he would just make his faith stronger and pray more, evangelical leaders and grassroots activists are orchestrating a shift in the way the community approaches mental health issues. “This has nothing to with whether I believe in Jesus,” Whittaker told the Guardian. “This does not have anything to do with whether or not I am reading my Bible or how hard I am praying. I can pray 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I’m still going to have to take that little white pill every single day.” That little white pill is 20mg of Paxil, and Whittaker has taken it every day for the past nine years to treat anxiety. Of all the controversial topics he speaks about in public, he said mental health is the one that elicits the most responses from his fellow evangelicals – and it’s not always positive. Paxil pills, also marketed as Seroxat, have helped Carlos Whittaker deal with his mental health condition. Photograph: Alamy Whittaker started blogging about his mental health struggles in 2007, only to be told by his pastor that he should stop talking about them. In the last two or three years, though, he says he’s noticed the evangelical community becoming more open to mental health discussions. “I am watching more and more people come out of the clinical depression closet and talk about it,” Whittaker said. Part of what mental health campaigners must overcome is the evangelical idea that demons, bad spirits or sin are causing the mental illness and that it can be prayed away. _Lifeway Research, an evangelical research firm based in Nashville, released a study last year that said_ (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/evangelical-christians-prayer-mental-illness) nearly half of evangelical Christians believe that people with serious mental disorders can overcome their illness with “Bible study and prayer alone”. The battle to approach mental healthcare from a more scientific perspective has long been waged by individuals within the community, but now an effort to change this perception is coming from church leaders. Megachurch pastor Rick Warren took up the cause after his son Matthew killed himself in April 2013. In March, Warren _held a day-long conference_ (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/march-web-only/rick-warren-saddleback- mental-health.html) on mental health at the Lake Forest, California, campus of his Saddleback Church, which has an _average attendance of more than 22,000 people_ (http://hirr.hartsem.edu/cgi-bin/mega/db.pl?db=default&uid=default&view_records=1&ID=*&sb=4&State=CA) . Saddleback is partnering with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention _on 22 November to host an event_ (http://mentalhealthandthechurch.com/) for people who have lost someone to suicide and who would like to learn more about how to prevent it. Frank Page, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, in 2013 published a book about his daughter’s suicide in an effort to raise awareness about how churches could better work with people who have mental health issues. To some, this would seem to be a turn from the conservative values often associated with evangelicals. “The picture of evangelicals as being judgmental, harsh and living in a bubble community – while that might be true of some, the landscape has changed dramatically towards inclusion, dialogue and care,” said _said Marcia Pally_ (http://marciapally.com/) , a New York University professor and author of The New Evangelicals. She said the evangelical movement was once progressive and at times “quite radical” until it took a turn to the right in the late 1960s. But the political landscape of evangelicalism has shifted since George W Bush’s second term as president, with more members engaging in a broad spectrum of activism about things which would be considered progressive. Pally said that because leaders like Warren have more of the spotlight, it gives them more influence on the movement. But for social change to occur, that has to be balanced with local and grassroots efforts, particularly among evangelicals. “Nobody will take on a position or cause just because someone said they should; people have their own beliefs, consciences and community sensibilities,” she said. These evangelical grassroots efforts are gaining traction as community churches build mental health ministries. The Ankeny First United Methodist Church, just outside Des Moines, Iowa, _started a mental health ministry_ (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2014/09/06/church-expands-ministry-f ocus-mental-health/15182525/) three years ago after congregants told church leaders that they were not doing enough to support mental health concerns. “Nearly everybody has a family member that is having mental health issues and nobody wants to talk about it,” said Jaque Coulson, the church’s director of care and connection. “It can be freeing, in a sense, to have a safe place to talk about it.” _The National Alliance on Mental Illness_ (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/07/states-mental-health/1805023/) gave Iowa, and 20 other states, its second-to-worst rating for mental health care. Ankeny Methodist’s mental health ministry also works with secular community groups to improve services across the region. Coulson said the group’s top request for 2015 is to have people come in and educate them on how to be involved in the legislative process. Mental health professionals are also working to better understand how religion can be a part of their care. _Researchers conducted a review of this relationship,_ (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23775218) concluding that the mental health professionals and religious groups are “moving from a period of ‘antagonism’ to ‘mutual understanding’”. The Department of Veterans Affairs is researching this relationship to see how it could improve veteran mental healthcare, especially as the concept of “_moral injury_ (http://www.wbur.org/series/moral-injury) ” becomes more accepted in the psychology world. Jeffrey Pyne, a psychiatrist at the VA and the University of Arkansas who worked on the review, said that in a pilot study, veterans explained how they feel like they have nowhere to turn. “Some of them will say: ‘I know what I need, I need forgiveness, but I don’t think my mental health provider is going to provide that for me. And I don’t even feel worthy to go to a chaplain to ask for forgiveness,’ so they are stuck,” said Pyne. He said that addressing the issues of guilt and shame-based fear does not have to be constrained to evangelical approaches and that researchers are examining how other religions deal with these issues. _Dr Keith Meador_ (https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/psychiatry/faculty/primary/meadork1) works in the intersection of theology and mental health at Vanderbilt University and the department of Veterans Affairs. One reason he thinks religion should be considered more frequently by mental health advocates is because it can be a part of the social element of a person’s wellbeing. “I can’t explain how many times have I yearned, though the worst of the patient’s depression might be over, what I really wanted to do is write a prescription for a community, a place to belong,” said Meador. The American Psychiatric Association in July _participated in a meeting of more than 40 prominent_ (http://www.abc-usa.org/2014/07/14/abhms-participates-in-meeting-of-psychiatry-faith-leaders-to-launch-collaboration/) researchers and representatives of multiple religions to discuss how mental health professionals and religious groups could work together. Dr Paul Summergrad, president of the American Psychiatric Association and psychiatrist-in-chief at Tufts medical center, said it is important for the mental health side to be open to working with clergy because when people in the US are experiencing mental illness, many first turn to their religious community for help. “We are in general moving to be being more open to talk about these conditions,” Summergrad said. “And the more they become visible, and the more there is sunlight on them, the less there will be stigma and people will recognize that these are things lots of people suffer with and that lots of people can get better.” -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
