MENTAL HEALTH AND THE CHURCH

It’s wonderful how much work is being done to raise mental health awareness in the Church today. At the beginning of this century there was so much ignorance that individuals with mental health issues were leaving their churches because of the hurt inflicted on them by fellow Christians who told them that there must be something wrong in their relationship with God. That, thank God, is happening a lot less today.

Christians and their churches have been learning about mental health—the various illnesses and how they present themselves in those who live with them. They learn to accept and support the individuals in their church who live with such challenges. They learn how to respond to their needs.

But have we asked such people about their needs? Have they had opportunities to tell us how the pain of stigma has affected them? Do they have people with similar problems with whom they can share their pain, so that they don’t feel so alone with it?

There is something important left out of the teachings the Church has been receiving. And that is an understanding of what people with mental health challenges can do for each other—the support they can offer their peers. There is no support as effective as the kind of support people can give to those who share similar needs—those who understand what it’s like to live with the problems they face in trying to live in this world. Those who need Jesus as he is shown in the gospel stories.

(Note the work done by researcher Phyllis Solomon, PhD, below.)

The most important way in which people with mental health challenges can support each other—better than anyone else can—is by helping each other find assurance in the great love God has for them and how he values them, despite the way the world treats them. Those who don’t know what it is to have lives like they do could never understand that message in the same way.

Those who live with mental health challenges, need spiritual support that differs from messages most frequently delivered in churches. More than anything, they need to hear how a radical Jesus tried to change the status quo by showing the love of God to those the world was rejecting.

This is the picture of Jesus that people with mental health issues most need to see and hear. Knowing such a Jesus is their unique spiritual need. And this is the kind of need that Christians who want to be supportive need to address. When that understanding of the love of Jesus is taught—and shown as well by fellow Christians—healing will occur. This is what Jesus meant when he called us to follow him.

And yet, such an understanding of Jesus can be hard to fathom by those who are emotionally healthy—those who don’t face rejection in the way people with mental health issues do. This picture of Jesus who was accepting, kind, and showed the love of God to the outcasts is best shared by those who, like us, are rejected by the world today.

I speak from a different perspective than what is usually heard. I speak as one who has needed support in her life with a major mental illness. I was—and still am—one who has, at the same time, spent more than 25 years of her life giving spiritual support to those living with such illnesses. I’m also one who was rejected in ways that would be unimaginable to those who have good mental health.

In other words, I understand the needs of people with mental health issues from three perspectives—as a giver and receiver of support, and as one who has suffered. I understand in a way few people do.

As founder of the faith-based Living Room support ministry which began in  2006, I have always believed in the importance of the support people with mental health issues can give each other. Unfortunately the Living Room ministry that at one time had 16 groups stretching across Canada, was disbanded in 2018. Only two or three small groups remain. It has been a great loss to those who need to know about God and his love for them.

In 2015, I spent a couple of weeks in hospital on a mental health ward, suffering deeply while alone in my room. But the moment I went into the lounge and started talking with fellow patients, the pain lifted as we talked about what had brought them into hospital. “What’s your name? How are you doing?” I must have come across as someone who cared, because before long we were talking about spiritual things. And I don’t believe I initiated it.

While in hospital I journaled the following:

“Lord, this continues to be the most amazing place to meet people and see you at work. Your name so often comes up. Spirituality is a big topic of conversation here. People who have faith. People who wonder what God has to offer. People with strange beliefs—foggy beliefs—nothing certain.”

Through my experiences as a patient in psychiatric facilities and my support of individuals in crisis, I have learned how great the hunger for God is. I recognize this in a way healthier supporters might not.

Although I was undergoing one of the most painful periods in my life, I experienced joy in the midst of it when I talked with others about God.

Why the joy?

It was because I was with others who had needs that were similar to mine. It was because we could explore what God might have to offer to fill those needs. It was the best kind of support we could have asked for—support from our peers. Doctors and nurses could not help us as much as we—through God—helped each other.

Being with others who share our needs is not always possible out in the community. The only place where such peer support could take place and our faith expressed, would be within a group of people where everyone has such needs. Together it becomes possible to discuss our needs with others who can relate. Such a place offers opportunities for us to explore Scripture and learn what it says to us in terms of living a life with mental health difficulties.

This shows the importance of groups designed specifically for the support of people with mental health challenges. Nothing can compare to individuals sharing the pain they all understand and expressing the kind of need for Jesus they all long for. And no Bible study compares to such people joining together in finding that need met in Scripture.

Faith based groups are vitally important. There are few other places where individuals with mental illness can gather to talk about both: their emotional struggles and their trust in God. Those who don’t have lived experience can’t hope to empathize in the way peers can.

 

Studies by researchers like Phyllis Solomon, have shown that peer support is more effective than support given by people who have never experienced such issues.

From Psychiatric Quarterly (2022)

Phyllis Solomon, PhD is Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice and Professor of Social Work in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research has been on the forefront of consumer rights and capabilities, having conducted one of the first and most influential studies on consumer provided mental health services in the 1990s. (“consumer” was the term once used to describe a person with mental health challenges.)

Although rigorous empirical research was limited, she shows the following outcomes as promising. “They include increased self esteem, sense of control, empowerment, hope. belief in bringing about change in their lives,  sense of belonging, social support, engagement in self management services, treatment, and community, and improved social functioning, quality of life and life satisfaction. Further, peer support also resulted in decreases in hospitalizations, self stigma, psychotic symptoms, depression, substance abuse, and fewer feelings of social isolation.”

marja