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A Christian Approach to Mental Health, Part 2: Faith, Stigma, and Mental Illness

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ Leave a comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Marcel Strauß (freely available via Unsplash)

In part 1 of this series, I discussed how the mind and body are inextricably connected, each one affecting the other, and how the mind is the battleground for our great mental and spiritual battles. I concluded by arguing that a proper approach to mental health must be comprehensive (i.e., must acknowledge this reality) and by hinting that a failure to do so, accompanied by a misunderstanding of what faith is, is a likely cause for at least some the stigma surrounding mental health in the Christian community.

In this second part of the series, I’ll lay out a very basic theology of mental illness that addresses the role of faith in healing and the purpose that our struggles serve. I won’t go into a theology of why it happens (perhaps in another post), but long story short, it’s because we live in a broken world.

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A Christian Approach to Mental Health, Part 1: The Mind and Mental Health

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ Leave a comment

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Marcel Strauß (freely available via Unsplash)

Since May is mental health awareness month, it seems like a good time to talk about a faith-based approach to mental health. This is an important topic not only because mental health is vitally important to our well-being as individuals and as a society as a whole, but also because mental illness is arguably more stigmatized within the Christian community than it is within the broader community. And that stigma seems to be based on misguided views of how mental health works and of what the Bible actually says about mental health practices.

There is a contingent within the broader Christian community that views mental health issues as a sign of a lack of faith and that considers mindfulness and other psychotherapeutic techniques as unnecessary at best and as heretical at worst  My goal is to show that the exact opposite is true: mental health issues are a sign of a broken world and are no more to be stigmatized than are physical health issues (i.e., not stigmatized at all; just a brokenness that needs to be fixed, a hurt that needs healing); and not only are mindfulness and psychotherapeutic practices necessary for a healthy life, but they are actually supported—no, more than that, mandated—by Scripture.

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