Mission to the Mentally Ill

Jesus christ was concerned about persons with a variety of special needs, including the mentally ill (Matt. 4:23, 24). So was Paul. Commenting on 1 Thessalonians 5:14 (RSV), The Interpreter’s Bible suggests that which is basic to the Church’s ministry to the mentally ill: “To help was to attach oneself to, and to sustain, by giving one’s strength to support another.… Encouragement must be given to those who have lost their courage.” The lack of courage in the form of self-confidence is a common symptom of the mentally ill and the emotionally disturbed. A prominent European psychiatrist, Dr. André Liengme, claims that lack of self-confidence afflicts the mentally ill more than anything else.

According to Dr. Gerald I. Gingrich, Associate Secretary of the Division of Institutional Ministries of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, “more than thirty million Americans spend time in some institution each year.… No single group of people receives such inadequate ministry from the Church. True, some service is rendered by parish clergymen. The great responsibility, however, is with the institutional chaplains. But there are only 1200 full-time chaplaincy appointees to serve 24 million Protestants. This means one chaplain for every twenty thousand! Quite a parish for any minister! The standards of the American Psychiatric Association and the Association of Mental Hospital Chaplains call for a chaplain for every five hundred patients. The need for more qualified men and women is thus apparent and urgent, if these standards are to be met. However, specialized training—clinical training, beyond that required for the parish ministry—is necessary’ ” (“The Challenge of the Institutional Chaplaincy,” Concern, Jan.-Feb., 1962, pp. 4–5). Mrs. Fern Babcock Grant in Ministries of Mercy notes that “the contribution that churches make to the treatment of the mentally ill is in sharp contrast to that which they make to persons who are physically sick” (New York: Friendship Press, 1962, p. 91).

A number of recent events may be considered as aids to a more effective mission by the Church to the mentally ill. In 1961 the American Medical Association established a new Department of Medicine and Religion. Its head, Dr. Paul B. McCleave, a clergyman, says that its chief concern is “to provide better health care for ‘the whole man.’ ” The department will encourage closer relations between pastors and physician members of their churches to discuss health and spiritual programs and the preparation of articles and editorials for the medical and religious press. Establishment of the section on Psychiatry and Religion by the American Psychiatric Association and organization of the Academy of Religion and Mental Health have also facilitated access by the Church to the mentally ill. In addition, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association promote research in the area of religion.

Leaders in psychiatry, psychology, and theology seem to agree that healthy religion is ultimately an aid, not a hindrance, in the treatment of the mentally ill. There is new awareness, moreover, of the healing quality of interpersonal relationships rooted in love.

Specifically, the Church must help the mentally ill cope with their aloneness. The Christian community must eliminate antiquated notions of mental illness with attendant consequences of stigma, isolation, rejection, and fear.

Essential to an effective Christian ministry of witness to the mentally ill is the integration of sound psychological and psychiatric findings with our native rootedness in the Word of God. We would do well, however, to heed the caution spoken by Dr. Reuel L. Howe: “Christian theological thinking needs to beware of abdicating to the disciplines and authority of psychology. There is much that we can learn from the psychological sciences, and we need their contribution to our thought and practice. But we must remember that they have only begun to scratch the surface of the truth about man that is there to be uncovered, and that they subject what they have discovered to many confused and contradictory interpretations” (“The Psychological Sciences,” New Frontiers of Christianity, Ralph C. Raughley, Jr., Editor, New York: Association Press, 1962, p. 44).

The Church has various open avenues to a more effective ministry to the mentally ill. More clergymen need to enter the ministry of institutional chaplaincy. This requires a positive recruitment policy in which the institutional chaplain’s image within the church fellowship is not inferior to that of the parish minister. The Church ought to provide scholarships for clinical pastoral training of theological students and clergymen seeking to qualify as institutional chaplains. The Church should educate its constituency with accurate information on mental health and mental illness. The Church could break down barriers of ignorance, suspicion, fear, and isolation which prevent the mentally ill from receiving the healing ministry of the Church.

By careful research the Church discovers the inner dynamics of personal religion which promote mental health. By vocational guidance the Church can encourage youth to consider vocations needful of a Christian witness. The work of psychiatrist, psychologist, psychiatric social worker, and psychiatric nurse, as well as chaplain, all deals with troubled persons, and thus may be considered church-related. The Christian influence of therapists who deal with the inner core of human personality is paramount.

The Church should establish church-related hospitals which treat persons suffering from mental diseases and emotional disorders. In view of increasing recognition of the significance of healthy religion as a therapeutic agent, the Church should establish half-way houses and other counseling units for the convalescent in order to promote rehabilitation. Those churches which operate general hospitals can assist the mentally ill by establishing psychiatric wards for the treatment of the acutely emotionally disturbed. Churches which sponsor rest homes and nursing homes for the aged ought to improve their facilities so that they can more adequately care for the senile and arteriosclerotic among their aged.—Chaplain WILLIAM L. HIEMSTRA, Pine Rest Christian Hospital, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

TOGETHERNESS THAT LASTS—Families that fish together, stay together.—Congressman MIKE KIRWAN (Dem.-Ohio), in remarks in support of a bill authorizing a $10 million aquarium for the District of Columbia.

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