A new study from Baylor University reveals that church congregations need to do more to help families struggling with mental illness:
Mental illness of a family member can destroy the family’s connection with the religious community, a new study by Baylor University psychologists has found, leading many affected families to leave the church and their faith behind.
The study shows that while families with a member who has mental illness have less involvement in faith practices, they would like their congregation to provide assistance with those issues. However, the rest of the church community seemed to overlook their need entirely. In fact, the study found that while help from the church with depression and mental illness was the second priority of families with mental illness, it ranked 42nd on the list of requests from families that did not have a family member with mental illness.
“The difference in response is staggering, especially given the picture of distress painted by the data: families with mental illness reported twice as many problems and tended to ask for assistance with more immediate or crisis needs compared to other families,” said study co-author Dr. Matthew Stanford, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, who is an expert in mental illness and the church. “The data give the impression that mental illness, while prevalent within a congregation, is also nearly invisible.”
June 23rd, 2011 | 9:42 am
I don’t have enough evidence to venture a guess as to how widespread this problem is, but I’ve spoken with quite a few (evangelical) Christians who deny that there is a such a thing as mental illness (except for those caused by physical trauma or developmental problems). They’re skeptical of using medicine to treat emotional and mental problems and say that they’re really just “spiritual problems” that the ill can overcome through prayer and personal holiness.
That denial needs to stop.
June 23rd, 2011 | 10:41 am
You’re right, Stephen P., that there is denial among some evangelicals about mental illness. But I wonder if some of the inaction is due to plain ignorance too. A person with bipolar disorder may not look very different to fellow churchgoers on a Sunday morning. And someone with clinical depression may be very good at hiding his or her problems, thus making people think that things are okay. (Frankly, I’d think most Christians, like most other people, still think that something like Schizophrenia is all about multiple personalities, which it isn’t.)
Christians, like the rest of the country, need to educate themselves more on mental illness. Frankly, a good start would be to have churches invite Christian psychologists and psychiatrists in to discuss the topic and ways to reach out to such suffering people.
June 23rd, 2011 | 11:14 am
[...] Joe Carter Posted by Stuart [...]
June 23rd, 2011 | 11:30 am
There’s probably some ignorance at work, but one mustn’t forget the modern tendency to define “mental illness” promiscuously. There are many borderline cases where a psych professor might see mental pathology, and a reasonable layman or experienced pastor/priest might see sin.
Mental illness is real, and churches would be foolish to deny it. But churches do well not to stretch its definitions as far as modern journalists and psych. researchers commonly do. Might these congregations’ “blindness to mental illness” partly be disagreement over its boundaries, and a wise reluctance to clinicalize the human heart?
June 23rd, 2011 | 11:31 am
Christians, like the rest of the country, need to educate themselves more on mental illness.
I don’t think this is an issue that will be fixed by individuals “educating themselves”.
I think that a real solution involves higher church structures developing and promoting the ideas re: what needs to happen.
The question of what a congregation can or should do for member families in times of stress – especially when the family has not actually asked for assistance, or has asked in ways that may be hard to decipher – is the sort of issue that can be too much to expect of an individual.
June 23rd, 2011 | 3:22 pm
I agree with S.L. The study mentions that 27% of families polled deal with mental illness. I’m assuming that means dealing with a member of it suffering from it, but that’s a tremendous rate of pathology overall.
Either there’s some blurring of the lines here, or there’ something systemic that makes 1 in 4 people suffer from mental illness.
June 23rd, 2011 | 4:37 pm
@Blake
“I don’t think this is an issue that will be fixed by individuals “educating themselves”.”
Which is why I suggested something like having Christian psychologists and psychiatrists do the educating. (Bad phrasing on my part in that sentence, but I think the rest of my post fleshed out my opinion.)
But you make a good point, Blake. This is something that shouldn’t be left to individual Christians, but should be church-wide, or denomination-wide.
June 23rd, 2011 | 9:28 pm
Unsure which church congregations have been studied but there have been studies on how good confession is one of the best preventive for mental illness !
‘Do not let the sun set on your anger and give the devil a foothold ‘ – there is possibly a lot in that verse that psychology and psychiatry has not fathomed yet !
This , esp. in how deep seated parental anger and hatred affects the little ones with resultant consequences !
Even serious mental illnesses possibly has a nucleus of fear and anger related to anger from an authority figure experienced at an early stage that then manifests in various ways !
There is the whole spectrum of personality disorders for which there is no known cure , yet , in Kibeho , Bl.Mother offered a way – by meditation on her sorrows – which possibly brings in the needed compassion to face deep seated hatreds which then can be washed away , in her presence !
Interestingly , she even mentions the futility of sharing such with others, instead , to take it up to her !
Thus , one of the best ways churches help participants would be by helping persons to have trust in God !
June 24th, 2011 | 3:11 am
Either there’s some blurring of the lines here, or there’ something systemic that makes 1 in 4 people suffer from mental illness.
I don’t know. Would it be so surprising to find out that 1 in 4 people (at any given time) was suffering from a physical illness?
June 24th, 2011 | 10:52 am
Wait, 1 in 4 families dealing with mental illness isn’t 1 in 4 people with mental illness, though. Only 27% of families deal with it, and of all the people in those families, presumably not all of them have mental illness. Since we have no idea how “family” is defined in this study (Nuclear? Household? Extended? In-laws?) we can’t even guess at average family size to further refine the number.
June 24th, 2011 | 1:56 pm
“I don’t think this is an issue that will be fixed by individuals “educating themselves”.”
Which is why I suggested
Sorry, my goal was not to sound like I was criticizing you, my goal was simply to point out that people are going to need help – I can barely figure out when it’s appropriate to give someone a card, let alone when it’s appropriate to actually stick my nose into someone elses business, however well-meaning I might think I am
:-x
June 25th, 2011 | 9:46 am
I’m with Blake. While churches definitely should promote understanding and church leadership should learn how to deal wisely and responsibly with all manner of issues that they encounter, the church is made up of people at all levels of maturity, intelligence, experience, etc., and always will be — as long as churches continue to grow, they will continue to contain people who still have a lot to learn. We should all seek to grow in wisdom in dealing with our brothers and sisters, but people will be at all different places at all times, and it’s the leadership that needs to be responsible for trying to get it right, not every individual in the pew.
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