Finding Jesus in the Storm. John Swinton

Finding Jesus in the Storm - John Swinton


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and political as well as medical origins and intent.42

      The ascription of biological explanations has also been used in an attempt to destigmatize the experiences of people living with mental health challenges. The suggestion that the causes of such challenges are similar to the causes of physical illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, and influenza is intended to reduce the stigma that surrounds mental disorders. The compassion behind this approach is clear, and the sentiment is laudable. The problem is, it doesn’t seem to work.

      In his book How to Become a Schizophrenic, John Modrow, a psychiatrist who lives with schizophrenia, offers a powerful insider’s critique of biological explanations and points out a hidden danger:

      The point is not that biology may not be formative of mental challenges. We do not yet have the evidence to make such a case across the board, but in time it may emerge. The problem is that biological explanations on their own can be highly reductive, closing down aspects of our experiences and forcing us to interpret them in a very narrow and confined way. In the end, such attempts at destigmatizing “the mental” actually end up reinforcing the idea that there is a problem with that aspect of our humanness, rather than addressing the key issue—that there is no need to stigmatize issues of the mind dualistically. A psychological description is no different from a biological one; it simply addresses different aspects of our humanness—shifting the problem from the mind to the body is nothing more than another manifestation of Cartesian dualism. The unhealthy and inauthentic anthropology that underpins this way of thinking remains fully intact. Biological descriptions are simply too thin to do the work of realigning and clarifying that is necessary for the tasks of destigmatizing and healing.

      The final area of thin description emerges from a rather surprising source: the ongoing conversation around the role of spirituality in mental health care. If systems of categorization such as the DSM tend to create diagnoses that can have thinning and objectifying effects, and if biological approaches risk turning people into bodies without persons, then conversations around spirituality reveal that even in the realm of the apparently holistic and spiritual dimensions of care, thin descriptions abound and hold hidden dangers. This may at first sound rather odd. We’re tempted to say: “Surely, spirituality has to do with whole-person care and holistic ways of viewing people.” Well, one might be forgiven for thinking that. However, closer scrutiny of what is actually going on in the realm of the spiritual as it is articulated within mental health care reveals something quite different.

       Spirituality in Mental Health Care

      At first glance, this seems to be very good news! We may not be clear on what mental disorders are, but we do know what human beings are and what human beings need: they need spiritual care. Alongside the necessary care for mind and body, we also need to care for people’s spirits. One might ask the question: “What could possibly be wrong with this?” Surely this puts things like religion and theology back on the map of professional credibility and offers important new possibilities for


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