Jean-Claude Larchet's Mental Disorders and Spiritual Healing, takes a patristic look at mental illness. He is a patristics scholar, not a psychologist.
First of all the Fathers were quick to recognize that some forms of mental illness had organic causes. For these they recommended such appropriate medical therapy as was available in their days. Larchet maintains that there is a difference between the mental and the spiritual and if the question is whether a psychologist can heal spiritual maladies, then the answer is no.
There is danger, he says, in recalling our old passions in detail. The Church Fathers advise us to confess our passions, to recount before God the sins we have committed – not just be aware of them – and of course to be able to confess all of our difficulties, as well. But the Fathers advise us against and discourage living in detail whatever in our past didn’t end well, whatever bears a connection with our sins. Larchet says, "That’s precisely because confession is not a recollection with which the patient is subsequently stuck, but something that we confess before God in order to receive His forgiveness."
And forgiveness, he says, "means exactly the elimination of all pathological effects, even of the very source of the illness or disorders connected – when there is a connection – with sin; in other words, God’s forgiveness really offers a therapy that secular “psychotherapy” essentially doesn’t."
Secular psychology, he notes, will treat emotion and emotional energy as if they could be dealt with without reference to morality or the basic disposition of the will, and certainly without reference to the Spirit.
He says, mental illness is from three sources: the somatic (body), the psychic (soul), and the spiritual. The somatic level is related to our familiar idea of that mental illness is caused by imbalances in brain chemistry and physiology, if not by actual physical trauma.
On the psychic level, mental illness is caused primarily by demonic influence, though it is pointed out that demons are attracted to pre-existing psychic dispositions.
The deformation of our will disposes us toward non-being and the disintegration of our personhood.
Prayer and fasting forms us toward integration with God and life.
Mental illness resulting from the spiritual level is based on the perversion of human free will—sin, in other words—though he makes it clear that the misuse of free will affects the other two levels as well.
In addition to a reorientation of the will through prayer and fasting, which the Fathers recommend, Larchet speaks of the spiritual intervention of the saints as a powerful form of treatment
According to the early Fathers, some (but not all) mental illnesses actually derive from the spiritual level, though their effects nonetheless appear on the level of the psyche per se:
“Mental illnesses of spiritual origin should not be confused with the spiritual illnesses themselves. Spiritual illnesses are formed by a disorder or perversion of nature (more precisely of nature’s mode of existence) in the personal relationship of the individual to God.
According to the Fathers, the passions take control of our will and force us to passively act according to their agendas instead of being true to ourselves.
Thus the cure is action in its truest sense. Pure act is to center in God —who is Himself “Pure Act.”
The essence of pure action is prayer which reorients the will to the source of life, God.
The body and soul are one for the Fathers, therefore what we do with our bodies will affect our soul. Each and every act of the human being is at one and the same time an act and movement of both the soul and the body, therefore the food we eat, ht memories we concentrate on, and our experiences all affect us.
The activities of the soul develop in correlation with the formation and perfection of the body which is its instrument.
Other than organic causes, the main cause of mental disorders is a deformation of the will, for which prayer is the best remedy, and the demonic, which can be healed with the help of the partaking of the mysteries.
As concerns the demonic, Larchet says, “the Fathers considered the possessed not to be accomplices of the devil, but rather victims, and as such entitled to special attention and solicitude.”
The third etiology for mental illness from spiritual problems, is “generally defined as one or another of the passions developed to an extreme.”
The Fathers had intimate knowledge of the passions, and dissected them in minute detail. We’ll look at two. Sadness is a direct and conscious feeling of loss, while acedia is more like a general deadening of all life; one has “lost the taste for life.”
SADNESS
The treatment of sadness, more than of other passions, “presupposes the awareness that one is ill and that one wishes to be cured.”
The first possible cause of sadness “is the frustration of an existing or anticipated pleasure, and more to the point the loss of some sensible good, the frustration of some desire, or disappointment over some worldly hope”; a second case of sadness is anger, “whether it follows from it or is the consequence of some offense suffered, frequently taking in such a case the form of spite.” Treating acedia is even more difficult, as “it has the peculiarity of seizing all the faculties of the soul and inflaming nearly all the passions.”
Treatment, Larchet says, comes through through resistance, patience, hope, grief and tears, the remembrance of death, manual labor and, above all, prayer.
ACEDIA
Acedia has the peculiarity of seizing all the faculties of the soul and inflaming nearly all the passions. St John Climacus tells us that 'acedia is a kind of total death."
Resistance to this passion never provides immediate results. Almost always victory over acedia supposes a long and diligent struggle.' Above all treatment demands that one give proof of patience and perseverance.
Hope is another fundamental remedy and it should be joined to patience." The hopeful man, as St John Climacus teaches, 'slays acedia, kills it with his sword."
A third essential remedy is repentance, sorrow and compunction. One of the ancients taught that if the individual 'keeps his sins in mind, God will be his help in everything and he will not suffer from acedia.
Manual labor is also among the remedies prescribed by the Fathers. It helps the individual avoid the boredom, instability, torpor, and sleepiness that together form one aspect of this passion. It can contribute to establishing and maintaining diligence, the continual presence of mind, effort, and attention implied by the spiritual life and which acedia seeks to disrupt.
Finally, Larchet tells us:
“God, in effect, does not grant healing unless it is asked of him, for he has granted man free will and in all the cases respects his will and will not act against it. However, the will of the individual is not always fully at his disposal. . .Those who are disturbed in a significant way cannot even ask for their own healing or give evidence of their faith. . . And yet it is possible for such individuals to be delivered and healed thanks to the faith and the prayers of those around them or accompanying them, as well as to those of the saint to whom they are entrusted.”
For my own opinion on mental illness see my blog post "Is God Enough? Probably Not" HERE and my post on Anguish HERE
For more on Larchet, check out these podcasts:
Can Suffering Bring You Closer to Christ? w/Jean-Claude Larchet & Nicole Roccas (Hank Unplugged
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk-LgQHaA90
Hank Hanegraaff interviews Professor Jean-Claude Larchet on his book book, The Theology of Illness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grOTUt2skCk
The human composite and spiritual healing - Jean-Claude Larchet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wh6AtmPL7Q
Readings: Therapy of Spiritual Illnesses (sadness)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W1kBOuONeo
Illness, Mortality and Counsel in the Liturgy
https://anglican.audio/2019/11/09/fh35-illness-mortality-and-counsel-in-the-liturgy/
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