HOW DOES FAITH HELP US SURVIVE? – from Harold G. Koenig, M.D.

Many, many persons today must live with recurrent persistent emotional or mental illness. What about these people? Are they doomed to a life of senseless pain and suffering? Certainly they should hope for, and seek, information about new treatments that may relieve their symptoms. Every effort should be made to stay alert for such future developments. However, what does the mentally ill person do in the meantime?

in order to survive and maximize quality of life it may help to adopt a religious view that sees mental illness as having a special meaning or purpose—that something good may someday result from the illness. Religious faith makes it possible for people to see their illnesses as serving a higher purpose.

Religious faith may help to transform a person’s view of his or her illness. Although not easy, it is possible to view mental illness as a gift that not only helps to deepen and sensitize the person who has it, but also can serve a key role in the “formation” of our faith communities.

From this perspective mental illness can have at least three purposes. It can:

    1. Sensitize the emotionally or mentally ill person to the pain and suffering of others uniquely equipping them with the insight and ability to help.
    2. Draw the sufferer closer to God or deepen their spirituality. and
    3. Challenge those in the faith community to support and include him or her as an integral part of the congregation.

We will examine “1. The insight and ability to help” next time.

I thank Dr. Koenig for allowing me to share these excerpts from his book, Faith & Mental Illness. The book allows us to go back twenty years and read what was true then, and still is now.