/45
MENTAL WELFARE
By
A. GRAHAM
IKIN, M.A., M.Sc.
Psychologist, The Archbishop of York's Committee of Doctors and Clergy time ago, a medical psychologist said he wished the Church would a sound consulting service for spiritual problems. Shortly afterwards, I came across an appeal from Dr. C. G. Jung, a medical psychologist of world renown. He first said that the real problem of hundreds of patients coming to him from all parts of the civilised world was that of finding a religious outlook on life, and that none of them was really healed who did not regain his religious outlook. He then added : It is high time for clergy and psychotherapists to join forces to meet this great spiritual task." This double appeal to the Church led me to write a little book, Religion and Psychotherapy," as a definite plea for co-operation between doctors and clergy in order to meet the needs of the vast number of those in mental distress. Only nerves may be a common cry, but it frequently expresses a state of mind near to hell for the sufferer concerned, who has got so entangled in himself or herself that life no longer seems worth living. Early help in such cases can prevent much mental distress and frequently avert serious breakdowns. Soon after this, I received invitations to lecture to clergy and others on the subject. As a result of the interest aroused, the Archbishop of York decided that if a Committee of doctors and clergy, of which he was prepared to be Chairman, could be formed to support my work, it would be helpful if I could be given a full time appointment under it. Such a measure of joint authorisation by members of both the medical and clerical professions, it was felt, would enable me to expand more effectively the work I had begun to do voluntarily. It was also hoped to raise a stipend to cover living expenses and the necessarily considerable expense involved in travelling and correspondence, through an appeal issued by the Committee. This it was hoped might be secured for five years in order that the work might be planned with a view to continuity. Such a Committee was formed and I began work officially under it from October 1st, 1936. But though engagements came in as fast as I could respond to them, the necessary money is proving very difficult to raise and funds are still urgently needed to make the position financially secure. The work already done under the Committee has confirmed us in the necessity and importance of this attempt to promote co-operation between two professions so closely concerned with human needs, especially in connection with those engaged as pastors in giving spiritual direction and those engaged in medical psychology in healing broken personalities, in which work Christian principles are directly relevant. My work is very varied and interesting, bringing me into personal contact with workers in many fields. But I must make it quite clear that I do not undertake to treat cases myself. My aim is on the one hand to stimulate interest in the principles of psychological medicine amongst clergy, both in order to help them to deal with moral disorders, either in the confessional or in vestry talks, or private visiting, and to enable them to avoid some of the failures in spiritual healing which result from ignorance of such principles ?n the part of the healer. On the other hand, it is hoped to stimulate the
SOME provide
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46
MENTAL
WELFARE
medical profession to realise the importance of psychical and spiritual factors in the prevention and cure of disease. The fact that medical psychologists and clergy alike have to deal with the specific sins, negligences and ignorances of their patients and penitents respectively, brings their work into close relation. are not We are finding that so called nervous breakdowns primarily breakdowns of the nervous system, but of the mind controlling it. Personality disorders would be a far more useful term, and would lead to the recognition that character deficiencies such as bad temper, self-righteousness and many forms of sexual maladjustment, result from similar psychological processes to those concerned in the production of hysterical or other nervous " In both cases, treatment" rather than punishment" is symptoms. necessary, and understanding is essential if this is to be effective. My work therefore consists in lecturing to clerical societies or meetings of doctors and clergy to promote mutual understanding,* and in starting groups for study or research. It also includes getting into personal touch with doctors and clergy in various large towns to enlist their co-operation. In time we hope there will be a panel of doctors and clergy who recognise the overlapping of their spheres and are prepared to co-operate practically when expedient. I so often get letters asking me to put someone in need, in touch with someone who could help in a particular neighbourhood, and at present often have to say there is no one near who is competent to deal with the case. Some parts of the North are very poorly served in this way; there is a great dearth of medical psychologists over large areas, and every competent man or woman is getting more work than any one person should have to handle. Nor is there a sufficient number of clergy adequately trained to help the countless thousands who might be saved from breakdown by timely help. The function of clergy so trained would not be to supersede the doctor in cases of actual breakdown: serious psycho-neuroses," as they are technically called, are best treated by the medical psychologist who has himself But there are thousands of cases where a little a spiritual background. lines could be given by properly trained clergy which along psychological help would prevent the medical psychologist being needed later. Such prevention is essentially part of the work of the Church. But this particular branch of it can only be effectively carried out by clergy who have a thorough knowledge of psycho-pathology (i.e., who have studied abnormal psychology and gained an insight?preferably through some analysis of themselves?into our various ways of trying to escape from unpleasant realities). My appointment will justify itself if it arouses both doctors and clergy to the need for specialising to deal with the increasing number of cases in which psychological rather than physiological disorder is primary, and can stimulate more members of both professions to train to meet the need. "
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We can no longer rest content with the view that doctors are concerned with our bodies, and clergy with our souls. The unity of personality is fundamental : through it, we adapt on the one hand to the material and animal world: and on the other, we adapt to the spiritual world in a community of intelligent co-operation with our fellows, which leads to its fulfilment in fellowship with the Divine Ground of our being which we call God. *
One scries of lectures has recently been published by Allen & Umi'in Ltd. under the title "The Background of Spiritual Healing; Religious and Psychologicalof which a review will appear i>i the July number of Mental Welfare.
MENTAL WELFARE
47
The sphere of disorders of personality " (whether expressed in functional disturbances which bring the patient to the consulting room of a medical psychologist, or in sins which lead him to the confessional, or in crimes which land him in the dock) offers a real meeting point between religion and science. It is a unique opportunity within the history of man, since the sphere within which spiritual healers, in the religious sense, spiritual directors and medical psychologists all work, is the field of human personality. There could be no direct contact when science was concerned only with the material side of existence and religion with the spiritual. But the Incarnation seems to indicate that neither can be adequately considered apart from the other. The forces of spirit have converged upon a common task, and we must tackle it together if we are to bring the Kingdom of Heaven, the kingdom of the Real, to earth within the lives of those whose unconscious evasions of reality have landed them in the morass of mental or nervous disease. The importance of sound religious beliefs cannot be overstressed. The ego which has not grown up enough to realise its dependence upon and its kinship with God, cannot stand up to the challenge of life, and tends to blame God or the Devil, or both, for the consequences of its own childishness. The host of psychoneurotic ailments to-day is a sign of our lack of faith, and a challenge to all who realise the importance of the spiritual aspect of life to co-operate to eliminate this mountain of agonising disability. "
Here both religion and psychotherapy have a part to play and it would disaster of the first magnitude if the synthesis between them which is just becoming possible, were not effected. It falls to the lot of our generation to envisage the possibility of such a synthesis and to bring it into effective being, uniting the religious and scientific response of the spirit of Man to the Reality in which he lives and moves and has his being.
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MENTAL WELFARE
By
A. GRAHAM
IKIN, M.A., M.Sc.
Psychologist, The Archbishop of York's Committee of Doctors and Clergy time ago, a medical psychologist said he wished the Church would a sound consulting service for spiritual problems. Shortly afterwards, I came across an appeal from Dr. C. G. Jung, a medical psychologist of world renown. He first said that the real problem of hundreds of patients coming to him from all parts of the civilised world was that of finding a religious outlook on life, and that none of them was really healed who did not regain his religious outlook. He then added : It is high time for clergy and psychotherapists to join forces to meet this great spiritual task." This double appeal to the Church led me to write a little book, Religion and Psychotherapy," as a definite plea for co-operation between doctors and clergy in order to meet the needs of the vast number of those in mental distress. Only nerves may be a common cry, but it frequently expresses a state of mind near to hell for the sufferer concerned, who has got so entangled in himself or herself that life no longer seems worth living. Early help in such cases can prevent much mental distress and frequently avert serious breakdowns. Soon after this, I received invitations to lecture to clergy and others on the subject. As a result of the interest aroused, the Archbishop of York decided that if a Committee of doctors and clergy, of which he was prepared to be Chairman, could be formed to support my work, it would be helpful if I could be given a full time appointment under it. Such a measure of joint authorisation by members of both the medical and clerical professions, it was felt, would enable me to expand more effectively the work I had begun to do voluntarily. It was also hoped to raise a stipend to cover living expenses and the necessarily considerable expense involved in travelling and correspondence, through an appeal issued by the Committee. This it was hoped might be secured for five years in order that the work might be planned with a view to continuity. Such a Committee was formed and I began work officially under it from October 1st, 1936. But though engagements came in as fast as I could respond to them, the necessary money is proving very difficult to raise and funds are still urgently needed to make the position financially secure. The work already done under the Committee has confirmed us in the necessity and importance of this attempt to promote co-operation between two professions so closely concerned with human needs, especially in connection with those engaged as pastors in giving spiritual direction and those engaged in medical psychology in healing broken personalities, in which work Christian principles are directly relevant. My work is very varied and interesting, bringing me into personal contact with workers in many fields. But I must make it quite clear that I do not undertake to treat cases myself. My aim is on the one hand to stimulate interest in the principles of psychological medicine amongst clergy, both in order to help them to deal with moral disorders, either in the confessional or in vestry talks, or private visiting, and to enable them to avoid some of the failures in spiritual healing which result from ignorance of such principles ?n the part of the healer. On the other hand, it is hoped to stimulate the
SOME provide
"
"
"
46
MENTAL
WELFARE
medical profession to realise the importance of psychical and spiritual factors in the prevention and cure of disease. The fact that medical psychologists and clergy alike have to deal with the specific sins, negligences and ignorances of their patients and penitents respectively, brings their work into close relation. are not We are finding that so called nervous breakdowns primarily breakdowns of the nervous system, but of the mind controlling it. Personality disorders would be a far more useful term, and would lead to the recognition that character deficiencies such as bad temper, self-righteousness and many forms of sexual maladjustment, result from similar psychological processes to those concerned in the production of hysterical or other nervous " In both cases, treatment" rather than punishment" is symptoms. necessary, and understanding is essential if this is to be effective. My work therefore consists in lecturing to clerical societies or meetings of doctors and clergy to promote mutual understanding,* and in starting groups for study or research. It also includes getting into personal touch with doctors and clergy in various large towns to enlist their co-operation. In time we hope there will be a panel of doctors and clergy who recognise the overlapping of their spheres and are prepared to co-operate practically when expedient. I so often get letters asking me to put someone in need, in touch with someone who could help in a particular neighbourhood, and at present often have to say there is no one near who is competent to deal with the case. Some parts of the North are very poorly served in this way; there is a great dearth of medical psychologists over large areas, and every competent man or woman is getting more work than any one person should have to handle. Nor is there a sufficient number of clergy adequately trained to help the countless thousands who might be saved from breakdown by timely help. The function of clergy so trained would not be to supersede the doctor in cases of actual breakdown: serious psycho-neuroses," as they are technically called, are best treated by the medical psychologist who has himself But there are thousands of cases where a little a spiritual background. lines could be given by properly trained clergy which along psychological help would prevent the medical psychologist being needed later. Such prevention is essentially part of the work of the Church. But this particular branch of it can only be effectively carried out by clergy who have a thorough knowledge of psycho-pathology (i.e., who have studied abnormal psychology and gained an insight?preferably through some analysis of themselves?into our various ways of trying to escape from unpleasant realities). My appointment will justify itself if it arouses both doctors and clergy to the need for specialising to deal with the increasing number of cases in which psychological rather than physiological disorder is primary, and can stimulate more members of both professions to train to meet the need. "
"
"
"
"
"
"
"
We can no longer rest content with the view that doctors are concerned with our bodies, and clergy with our souls. The unity of personality is fundamental : through it, we adapt on the one hand to the material and animal world: and on the other, we adapt to the spiritual world in a community of intelligent co-operation with our fellows, which leads to its fulfilment in fellowship with the Divine Ground of our being which we call God. *
One scries of lectures has recently been published by Allen & Umi'in Ltd. under the title "The Background of Spiritual Healing; Religious and Psychologicalof which a review will appear i>i the July number of Mental Welfare.
MENTAL WELFARE
47
The sphere of disorders of personality " (whether expressed in functional disturbances which bring the patient to the consulting room of a medical psychologist, or in sins which lead him to the confessional, or in crimes which land him in the dock) offers a real meeting point between religion and science. It is a unique opportunity within the history of man, since the sphere within which spiritual healers, in the religious sense, spiritual directors and medical psychologists all work, is the field of human personality. There could be no direct contact when science was concerned only with the material side of existence and religion with the spiritual. But the Incarnation seems to indicate that neither can be adequately considered apart from the other. The forces of spirit have converged upon a common task, and we must tackle it together if we are to bring the Kingdom of Heaven, the kingdom of the Real, to earth within the lives of those whose unconscious evasions of reality have landed them in the morass of mental or nervous disease. The importance of sound religious beliefs cannot be overstressed. The ego which has not grown up enough to realise its dependence upon and its kinship with God, cannot stand up to the challenge of life, and tends to blame God or the Devil, or both, for the consequences of its own childishness. The host of psychoneurotic ailments to-day is a sign of our lack of faith, and a challenge to all who realise the importance of the spiritual aspect of life to co-operate to eliminate this mountain of agonising disability. "
Here both religion and psychotherapy have a part to play and it would disaster of the first magnitude if the synthesis between them which is just becoming possible, were not effected. It falls to the lot of our generation to envisage the possibility of such a synthesis and to bring it into effective being, uniting the religious and scientific response of the spirit of Man to the Reality in which he lives and moves and has his being.
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