Mental Health for Spiritual People

By Keith Tower and Marcy Verduin

The mental health book you've been looking for! Co-written by an experienced pastor with decades of private practice counseling experience and a renowned psychiatrist with over a decade of local church leadership experience, Mental Health for Spiritual People is sure to help followers of Jesus experience mental and emotional wholeness in a biblically and clinically faithful manner. Mental Health for Spiritual People seamlessly addresses mental health from an integrated biblical, medical, and counseling perspective. Deep truths and years of clinical and biblical expertise are brought together in a uniquely readable and accessible format. You won't have to abandon your faith to find mental health. And you won't have to abandon science to hold onto your faith. Instead, you will get Mental Health for Spiritual People.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988789024

Book preview

Prologue

Luke 6:47-48 (NIV)

As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.

Theology and psychology are often seen as being at odds. It seems as though the two disciplines view each other with inward suspicion at best and outward hostility at worst. This tension first arrived in the early 1900’s, and has been exacerbated greatly since. Prior to that time, psychology and theology were viewed together in an integrated manner. Christianity readily accepted that humanity had minds and emotions (the soul) that could benefit from being better understood. Psychology, which literally means the study of the soul, recognized humans as spiritual beings made in God’s image. Since the early 1900’s, much of psychology has become more secularized, and pockets of Christianity turned to faith alone as the means of satisfying issues of the soul.

As both mental health practitioners on one hand, and ministers of the Gospel, we understand the tension of a book called Mental Health for Spiritual People. We also understand the importance of a book called Mental Health for Spiritual People. And we believe that Jesus enlightens us how to provide mental health for spiritual people.

In the verse above, Jesus describes to us two essential elements of a well built life: hearing His Word and putting it into practice. Mental agreement with the infallible wisdom of Jesus’ teaching, without knowing how to apply it properly to one’s life, can lead to frustrating faith. You know truth, but that truth does not seem transformative. On the other hand, applying great life principles that are not anchored in the enduring truth of God’s Word leads to disappointment. You may know how to make life change work, but the foundation upon which it is built cannot produce lasting life and wisdom.

Jesus tells us that the wise person is the one who both hears the Word and puts it into practice. God’s Word is essential. In it are contained the words of life and God’s divine revelation to humanity. It lacks nothing and is sufficient. It does not need modern psychological theories to make it more true. But many adherents to these sacred truths do not know how to apply them to their daily lives. Counseling, psychology, and psychiatry are needed not because God’s Word is somehow insufficient, but because we as people often are. We often don’t know how to put the Word into practice, as Jesus instructed. Many Christians hear the Word. Many ministers proclaim the Word so it can be heard. But in many instances, the Word is heard without an understanding of how to put it into practice.

The mental health profession is a practice, focused on human behavior, emotions, relationships, and patterns of thinking. The profession has techniques that help promote change and growth in these areas of the human condition. With its focus on understanding people, psychology can show us how to apply and respond to new truths and behaviors. As leaders in the local church, we fully ascribe to the Bible and follow it wholeheartedly. As mental health practitioners, we have developed the skills to help people apply the Bible’s truths to their daily lives.

Our hope for you, as you read and apply this book, is that you would thrive in body, soul, and spirit. We hope that you would see the relevance of God’s Word to every facet of your life. We hope that you would see the important role that mental health plays in your thriving. And we hope that the clinical skills we have developed over the past decades, in harmony with God’s grace, would lead many spiritual people to greater levels of mental health.

1.

Spiritual People Discussing Mental Health

While the Christian church has long been an instrument of good in the earth and a place of healing and well-being for generations, several high profile incidents over the last few years have brought the church’s response to mental health crises into public discourse. In recent years, some very prominent pastors have tragically committed suicide. In the aftermath, mental health was catapulted to the forefront of the conversation for churches.

There was one pastor in particular, a man named Jarrid Wilson. He was pastoring in California—a 30 year old, effective, influential minister of the Gospel. As an advocate for mental health, Jarrid had been open and transparent about his own personal struggle. He co-founded Anthem of Hope,¹ offering resources about mental health and suicide prevention that were incredibly helpful for Christians and churches. He earned a prominent voice in the area of mental health for Christians, offering hope and healing to so many people.

In September of 2019, Jarrid Wilson, one of American Christianity’s leading voices on suicide prevention and mental health, tragically committed suicide. Jarrid officiated the funeral of a friend on that fateful day. After the funeral, ironically on Suicide Awareness Day, Jarrid took his own life.²

The church in America was forced to address an issue that it seemingly hadn’t talked about much, and to all appearances, it didn’t have solid answers. In the immediate aftermath of Jarrid Wilson’s suicide, there were three types of accusations that were being levied against the church, along with three myths that emerged about mental health and the church. Before addressing mental health for spiritual people, we hope to dispel these three myths.

3 Myths About the Church and Mental Health

The first myth is If you haven’t been through a mental health struggle, then you can’t be helpful. If you have not personally been through a mental health struggle, the myth implies, then you have nothing to say on the issue. This myth discounts the helpfulness of one who has never directly struggled with their own mental health. This may initially sound true, but for the follower of Jesus, it is inconsistent with Scripture. Think about it. Jesus was never personally a parent, and yet He has some pretty profound insights to offer about parenting. The apostle Paul was never married. Despite not having firsthand experience, he could bring out the wisdom of God for those of us who may find marriage difficult or challenging. The truth is, one can be helpful in areas of mental health, even without the firsthand experience of having gone though a mental health struggle.

The second myth is the other side of the same coin and states, If you have been through your own mental health struggle, then you’re automatically qualified to help others with theirs. Whereas the first myth disqualifies as a helper anyone who has not struggled with their mental health, this second myth immediately qualifies as a helper anyone who has struggled with mental health. This should raise some obvious concerns. Let me explain.

A couple years ago I (Keith) had my appendix removed. I was driving my youngest daughter to college with the intent of moving her into her first apartment. Halfway through the drive, my side started hurting. For a former professional athlete, let me tell you, that was very humbling. I thought, I’m so pathetic I’m catching a cramp from driving. I had this terrible pain in my side and I could not shake it. I finished the drive and I helped my daughter move into her apartment. But by the end of the night, after a phone conversation with Dr. Marcy, I was in the hospital. The doctors told me that I needed my appendix removed immediately!

Now, having gone through appendicitis and a subsequent surgery, I can speak intelligibly about what that pain felt like and what I went through. When I’m talking with somebody else who had an appendectomy, we can compare stories, experiences, and even scars. If I am talking to somebody who hasn’t been through appendicitis, I can describe to them the sharpness of the pain, and the process of recovery. But even though I can describe what I went through, I am not qualified to perform surgery on someone else. Just because somebody removed my appendix does not mean I know how to remove someone else’s appendix. Likewise, just going through a mental health crisis does not mean one automatically has the expertise to help others. In treating mental health, there is a very specific skill set involved. Over the course of this book, we hope to teach you about some of those skills. But it is a myth to say that just because you’ve been through a mental health challenge, you automatically know how to help others.

The third myth is that the church has nothing of value to contribute in the area of mental health. This myth is completely untrue. In the wake of pastoral suicides, there was a consistent accusation being leveled against the church by major media outlets.³ It was reported, often with a tone of mockery, that the only advice a struggling person would get from the church is to go pray and go read your Bible. This accusation was meant as an insult, as emphasizing an inability of the church to offer practical help.

Let us encourage you. The church and the Bible have much to offer those who are struggling with their mental health. And don’t just take our word for it. Albert Ellis is one of the most prominent psychotherapists in history. Based on a 1982 professional survey of US and Canadian psychologists, he was considered the second most influential psychotherapist in history (Carl Rogers ranked first in the survey; Sigmund Freud was ranked third).⁴ Psychology Today noted that, No individual— not even Freud himself—has had a greater impact on modern psychotherapy.⁵

Along with his prominence in the mental health field, Albert Ellis was also a professing atheist. And yet in 1993, he wrote, I think that I can safely say that the Judeo-Christian Bible is a self-help book that has probably enabled more people to make more extensive and intensive personality and behavioral change than all professional therapists combined.⁶ I think we can safely say that the church and the Bible have something to offer in the realm of mental health.

As adherents to its teachings, we know that the Judeo-Christian Bible is more than a self-help book, as Ellis described it, but are the Words of life⁷,as the Apostle Paul described it. We would suggest that some of the most effective treatment theories and methods have emerged because a researcher has discovered a biblically true concept in the created order, whether they attribute