In this post, I’d like to use Gordon McConville’s chapter in The Bible and Mental Health as a base for understanding what Mental Health and Mental Ill health mean from a Biblical perspective, without losing track of the psychological aspects of this important distinction.
In the first paragraph, McConville writes:
“A biblical approach to mental health, as to health generally, entails fundamental theological questions about the nature of the human being. Arguably, the entire scriptural witness is a response to such questions.” (Pg. 20).
The field of psychology began with a similar curiosity but from a different perspective. While the Bible talks about humans in relation to God and Christ and the world we live in, psychology talks about humans in relation to themselves and the world we live in.
This includes our conscious, preconscious and unconscious minds, as theorised by Freud, which influence our thoughts and behaviours, and can also affect our body and physical health.
For me, this creates an interesting parallel with the Biblical language of body, soul and spirit. I’m not suggesting that they correspond directly — conscious does not equal body, preconscious does not equal soul, and so on — but both perspectives make me think about the different dimensions of what it means to be human.
Authors such as Freud, Rogers, Beck, and many others, wanted to understand why we do what we do, why we think what we think and how we arrive at these thoughts and behaviours.
Freud explored how our unconscious processes and past experiences might influence our present thoughts and behaviours. Rogers was interested in the conditions that enable people to grow towards becoming more fully themselves, while Beck explored how our thoughts and beliefs influence our emotions and behaviours.
Their theories developed from different traditions and don’t always agree with each other, but they share a curiosity about what shapes us as human beings and what might help us change.
McConville mentions that to understand mental health – or human wholeness as he calls it here – we need to see it through the lens of ill mental health or human unwholeness (which includes illness, ageing, death). (Pg.20).
And this is where the people we encounter in the Old Testament speaks about become relevant.
We can read the stories of Job, David or Ruth and relate to some of what they went through: suffering, grief, wrongdoing, difficult choices, loyalty, relationships, questions of identity and purpose, and the ways they navigated what happened to them.
Rogers speaks of actualisation – the human tendency towards growth and fulfilment. McConville, from a very different theological perspective, writes about “a spiritual commitment to formation and transformation” (pg.21). They aren’t describing the same process, but both raise questions about growth, change and what it means for a human being to become more fully who they are.
Exploring these themes through Biblical stories shows us a spectrum of human wellbeing and suffering, and the different ways people navigate both.
So what makes us human?
In short, the good, the bad and the ugly.
There are some great stories in the Bible that teach us about hatred (Cain murders Abel, Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, but God ultimately brings good out of what they intended for harm) and love (Isaac and Rebekka’s love story, David and Jonathan’s loyal friendship, and God’s love for Israel and The Church eventually in the New Testament).
So then, what constitutes a healthy human being?
For this, McConville mentions that the Bible talks about the soul, the heart and the mind. He states that “the mind is an unavoidable concept when we think about what it is to be human; it cannot be isolated from other essential aspects of the human condition”. (pg.23-24).
In sessions with my clients, I try to see the whole person.
They might come with a clinical diagnosis. I don’t discard it, I leave it in front of me where I can see it, or maybe on the shelf nearby, because it might tell me something useful, but it doesn’t tell me everything about the person sitting in front of me.
In CBT terms, we’d work with the thoughts, behaviours and consequences, as well as their beliefs about themselves, the world and how they feel they should live their lives.
In psychodynamic terms, I’ll want to know a bit – or a lot – about their past as that will inform where those thoughts, behaviours and beliefs come from, to see if there are any patterns that need disentangling or understanding further, so we can then start to do something about them.
I observe their body language or ask where they experience certain feelings or sensations in their body.
I might enquire about relationships, culture, work and other experiences.
And if they wish to do so, we can go into the spiritual side of things too, which will also inform the work we do together.
So, the question is not “what is wrong with my client?”
The question is broader, deeper and more compassionate, taking into account the complexity of each of us as human beings:
“What is happening for my client, what does the whole of their story help us understand, and what might be helpful for them in our sessions?”
