I have a honest question to those who are willing to think and reason.
I feel that there is a serious need for individuals who are strong/ stead-fast in their faith that understand, in our communities we have persons who are indeed "possessed". Can we seriously consider that the so-called 'science' of psychiatry work in conjunction with a biblical foundation?
Mental Illness Causes
The causes of Mental Illness:
Sin: fornication, guilt, selfishness, anger, unforgiveness, grudges, rebellion, pride
Being without purpose or hope
Elohim אלהים will strike sinners with mental illness: Daniel 4 + Deuteronomy 28:27-29; Jeremiah 25:16
Mental illness is caused by violating the conscience. (bizarre behavior caused from cognitive dissonance)
When the conscious is "seared" are not mentally ill, but psychopathic
This has been a concern on my mind... and here is someone else's 'understanding' on the connection:
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ AND MENTAL ILLNESS
When
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ encountered the demon possessed man in Gadara (Mark 5 and parallels), he faced and dealt with an obvious case of multiple personality psychosis. He cast out a "legion of demons" and brought sanity, healing and wholeness to the man, who instantly became a missionary to the Gentiles.
The life of
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) brings
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ into contact with a variety of types of mental illness in troubled people, including his own disciples. (I save the Gospel of John to a later study, because the emphasis there is more highly developed into spiritual and symbolic issues, though the visit of Nicodemus in John 3, the woman at the well in John 4, and events surrounding the "beloved disciple" all demonstrate the ministry to
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ to troubled and emotionally disturbed people.)
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ both lived the human situation and ministered to human need in many instances of emotional and mental illnesses.
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ himself had to deal with his own anger (See Mark 3) and faced daily the mental and emotional problems that he encountered in his own disciples and in people to whom he ministered and healed.
TYPES OF RELATING
Each individual develops a personal "style of relating" to other people, which becomes exaggerated under various levels of stress. These "Types of Relatedness" and levels of stress are defined and discussed by Dr. Karl Menninger in his classic study of "The Vital Balance," which was used as a basic text in a clinical pastoral education at the mental hospital near Louisville, KY, which was led by Dr. Wayne E. Oates, Dr. Swan Hayworth and Chaplain Clarence Y. Barton.
Here are six basic types of relating to others when one is under pressure:
Hostility and Anger; 2. Suspicion and Fear; 3. Dependency; 4. Despairing and Depression; 5. Erotic; and 6. Manipulative/ extractive. Everyone has certain coping devices that are developed to deal with stress. One may drink or smoke or sleep it off or laugh it off or work it off in excessive energy and exercise or pray or meditate or go out with friends. Sometimes these everyday coping devices work and the stress is relieved.
Sometimes they don't work, and the individual goes into a more anxious and exaggerated mode of coping. Frequently we develop self-destructive modes of coping with pressure. When the coping devices become more controlling and more difficult to handle, they can become more destructive than the pressure that they were intended to relieve.
When coping devices create more pressure than they relieve, the result is neurotic behavior that costs more than it is worth. If your coping devises become extreme enough, they can become psychotic and require professional help and possible hospitalization. I hope you have been able to cope before the hospitalization phases sets in!
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ SHOWED THE WAY
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ related to people with love and acceptance. No matter how troubled people were,
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ took time to listen and learn about each person as an individual before he ministered his healing touch and his helpful counsel of hope and encouragement.
Leslie Weatherhead said that
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ was more like a modern surgeon than a modern "faith healer". Like a surgeon,
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ listened to each individual and asked questions and made an intelligent diagnosis before he offered a treatment that fit the person. Modern faith healers treat everybody alike with a prayer and a slap to the head. The approach of
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ to emotionally ill people was quite varied depending on what he learned by observing and listening.
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ took human need seriously.
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ demonstrated his belief that every individual has equal value to
Elohim אלהים. Listening and accepting others as they are is a way of following
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ in his work of following
Elohim אלהים.
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ never condemned people for the trouble they were having.
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ demonstrated the basic environment for helping troubled people by creating an accepting and nonjudgmental atmosphere for effective psychotherapy. The encounter of
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ with the woman at the well in John 4 illustrates the dynamics of modern psychotherapy in great detail.
DEPRESSION AND SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR
Many people, however, do suffer from mental and emotional problems caused by the treatment and rejection that they have received from their own families and religious teachers. You cannot walk on water or turn water to wine, but you can love and accept people that everybody else misunderstands and rejects and that need a friend. You can do what
Yahushua יְהוֹשֻׁעַ did in seeing great potential in troubled people that they could not see for themselves.
( Excerpt taken from: ) Rembert Truluck
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Scientific relevance and purpose
This approach may be of relevance for psychiatry and psychology, because the Bible offers perspectives on human anguish, anger, suffering and interpersonal relationships which differ from contemporary psycho(patho)logical approaches to mental health problems. Rather than viewing these approaches as totally distinct, it is tempting to investigate the possible intertwinement of the psychological/psychopathological and the existential in emotions and in various forms of psychopathology (especially anxiety disorder and mood disorder).
For theology, such an interdisciplinary project might prove to be illuminating, in so far as it contributes to a deepened psychological understanding of biblical concepts and persons. This, in its turn, might provide clues for an enriched self-understanding of theology and of the way theology could be brought into practice in the contemporary context.
Theology could, on the other hand, criticize and open-up psychological and psychiatric (reductionist) explanations of human behavior. On the other hand, non-reductionist use of psychological and psychiatric insights could contribute to the full picture of a biblical concept and/or person.
So... I guess my question is:
Can we Help persons biblically in conjunction with the 'science' of Psychiatry? Or are they two opposites of the spectrum?