Psychology

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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A SMART Way to Smash Your Goals

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

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As cliché as it might be to write about goals in January, it’s also an appropriate time: with New Year’s resolutions on everyone’s minds, I might as well write about how to be more effective—that is, how to be SMARTer—about making those goals and with sticking to them. Among other tricks and techniques, one simple way to be more effective in your resolutions is to make them into SMART goals.

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Happiness through Mindlessness

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 3 Comments

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Following up on my last post’s discussion about happiness and mindfulness, I want to talk a little bit about something that’s similar, yet almost the inverse: flow. The experience of flow is still very much an experience of being in the present, but it involves being so fully absorbed by and engaged with what you’re working on that the associated feeling of well-being derives less from an active practice of mindfulness and almost more from a present mindlessness.

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Mindfulness for Mind Fullness

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 6 Comments

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Keegan Houser (freely available via Unsplash)

Mindfulness. It’s a word that’s been thrown out a lot in recent years. But what exactly is it? What does it entail? What does it do? Why is it so popular? Is it just another fad, popular now, only to fall off when we realize there’s actually nothing to it. If you just want quick, to-the-point answers, here you go, in order: a practice that can be trained; potentially many different things; great things for mental and physical health; likely due to the fact that it works; and no. If you want more detailed answers, read on.

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Great Expectations: The Fact and the Fiction (But Not the Fictional Novel, Sorry)

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 4 Comments

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Thomas Edison. One of the world’s most recognized and renowned inventors. Also, supposedly, addled as a child. While tales of the incident have been exaggerated, as Snopes reports, as a boy, Edison had overheard a teacher describe him as addled and not worth keeping in school. Upon hearing of the incident, his mother (and apparently his greatest champion) angrily told off the teacher, telling him that her son had more brains than he did. Young Edison’s response was a resolved determination to “be worthy of her and show her that her confidence was not misplaced.”

That’s the power of positive expectations.

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Free Will: Is It Real Life? Is It Just Fantasy?

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 5 Comments

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Jr Korpa (freely available via Unsplash)

It’s been in the back of my mind to write this post for a while, but I had been putting it off. But as I was walking out of the gym the other day thinking about my class choreography, I realized how relevant this topic is to so many things, so it’s time for it. I was thinking about the strength training class I teach and how much I love the section where we work back (deadlifts, rows, flyes, etc.). It has become my favorite section of that class, in large part because I always play a Journey song. Then I began to realize how that has helped me—no, caused me—to enjoy Journey more (not that I didn’t enjoy them before, but I’ve been getting into them much more since I started teaching this format), and also how I really started to enjoy the back section more once I began to make a big deal about making it my thing to always use a Journey song. In short, I had a profound yet mundane epiphany: did I choose to start liking that section of class (or Journey) more? Or was this increased fondness somehow destined by my previous actions and decisions?

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Physical Fitness for Psychical Fitness: The Mental Benefits of Exercise

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 2 Comments

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Age-related cognitive decline is pretty much inevitable, especially now that people are generally living longer. While this decline in fluid intelligence (reasoning abilities) is complemented by an increase in crystallized intelligence (factual knowledge; see figure below), fluid intelligence helps us deal with many aspects of our daily lives (such as processing new information and solving problems), so it’s worth preventing its decline as much as possible. Thankfully, there are ways to do this. Continual learning and mental engagement (i.e., effortful mental engagement, not simple passive learning) are excellent ways to keep one’s mind sharp. But, perhaps one of the best ways is by doing something that also benefits us in other ways: exercise.

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Easy Come, Easy Go: The Surprising Paradox of Task-Switching

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 2 Comments

Header image credit: me // Featured image credit: Jonathan Farber (freely available via Unsplash)

What do pit orchestra and my dissertation have in common? Well, aside from the fact that I maybe read some relevant articles during the occasional rehearsal and/or show (or, more often the case, discovered that articles weren’t as relevant as I thought they might be), almost nothing…aside from one thing: task-switching. As a reed player, I have doubled for most of the shows I’ve done, meaning I play multiple instruments, usually in the clarinet and/or saxophone families, though I have done some flute (not my forte—but not my piano either). Though still playing music, when switching between instruments, I’m essentially switching between tasks (at least as psychologists would define task-switching), because I’m alternatingly applying different sets of rules (i.e., fingerings). When doing this, rules will inevitably be misapplied (i.e., I play the wrong note).

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Shower Power: Demystifying the Experience of Shower Thoughts

~ D. R. Meriwether, Ph.D. ~ 4 Comments

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Ironically, I did not think of the idea for this post in the shower. Instead, it happened during a conversation I had. I was talking with a woman, and near the end of the conversation, I mentioned how I process and think through things really well in the shower. She mentioned that she was the same way, and I think we were both delighted to hear that we weren’t alone in that. And, more than that, I’d wager that it’s actually a pretty common—and, let’s be honest, a pretty delightful—experience. And I think there are some valid psychological reasons for why. Here goes.

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