(I may be in danger of alienating friends who I am not good at keeping in touch with by my Dunbar posts! Maybe you are wondering where you land in my friendship hierarchy! So as a break in the series, here is the first in a shorter series on Mental Health and your Church.)
This book is an introduction to mental health for Christians and churches, by two people experienced at dealing with people with mental illness. It has three sections, addressing “Understanding mental illness”, thinking through “What can we do?” and then showing some worked examples in “Caring in Practice”. Given the growing awareness and incidence of mental illness, this is a useful book for any Christian to read. While at points I would have like more details on particular issues, the book is a reliable guide to be able to care better for those with mental illness connected to our church communities.
Understanding Mental Illness
In this first section the authors help us to understand what mental illness is. One of the helpful features of the Section 1 is highlighting that putting a name to a condition is not the same as understanding it. Diagnosis of mental illness is usually based on having more than a certain number of specific criteria. It’s helpful to have this list and notice how some symptoms are grouped together . But the label does not mean we understand the causes of the experience or indeed necessarily tell us how to treat it
They also highlight the danger of medicalizing all of life and of using diagnostic labels as an excuse for passivity. The danger is that we use the label to avoid thinking about what we can do in this situation.
The authors also helpfully point out that rather than an us and them attitude we need to understand that we all have mental problems. Most symptoms of mental illness are on a spectrum and we will be somewhere on that spectrum as well. That helps us to empathise. E.g. “their anxiety may be off the scale, but we all know what worry is like.”
Helen and Steve want us to recognise the role of professionals and also see that we can help. Our experience will have relevance to other people. And most importantly God’s word will speak into the lives of those with mental health mental illness
In chapter 3 the authors point out that mental illness may have a variety of causes. We are not always able to identify which is the key one. Sometimes it’s circumstances but sometimes it’s faulty perception of circumstances. There are social trends for mental illness. There are biological phenomena. Cautiously, we might add there are spiritual influences. We don’t always have to know the cause but we need a model of mental illness that can take seriously some fantastic spiritually mature Christians suffering from it. Simplistic accounts of mental illness (simple chemical imbalance, lack of faith etc) are dangerous because we can end up wounding those we want to help. Helen and Steve give wise and balanced advice here- and in the rest of the book.
Jots and Scribbles 