THE ORTHODOX FAMILY

“Our goal is intimacy with God. John 17 ‘and this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’ Based on this concept of union with God, we can say that mental health, [as Bishop Chrysostomos writes], ‘involves the cleansing of our minds, the attainment of the mind of Christ and victory over the passions and all evil that impedes one’s participation in the divine – the natural state in which man was created.’ (Bishop Chrysostomos)

Mental health is a synergy of the physical and spiritual person aligned with God – in relationship and communion with God and neighbor.

Bishop Chrystostomos writes ‘to the extent that the mind can grasp, digest and strive after this natural personhood, the grace of God strengthens, encourages, protects and deifies’.

For us, optimal mental health might be expressed as seeing clearly, feeling peace, thinking true thoughts and enduring struggles and affliction with patience and gratitude as we see manifested in the person of Christ. In this sense, the Martyrs and Saints, they have attained the mind of Christ and true well being and we want that same path through our own process of repentance, purification and healing.

We can see that our spiritual health relates to mental health much like physical health does. We all know that if we fail to attend to our physical health, for example, poor exercise and diet, that has negative effects on our mental health. In the same way, even to a greater degree, a failure to attend to our souls, our inner life, has a negative effect on our mental health. Either of these can contribute to mental distress. And what we offer as Church are the means to attend to our spiritual health, our souls, in the face of suffering and illness, for example, what we know – prayer, worship, living God’s commandments, love of God, forgiving others, in particular our enemies, repentance, confession, practice of the virtues, etc.

We also know we cannot idealize mental health or physical health as our goal because that is by nature precarious. Saint Gregory of Nizanzius writes ‘do not admire every form of health and do not condemn every illness’. It’s easy to live in a world where health is good and illness is bad. That’s just not our story. Why? Because when we are healthy, it’s easy to adopt an illusion of self-sufficiency, neglecting God in our spiritual life, and losing sight of our inherent dependent nature until the stresses of life overwhelm us, and our health is jeopardized. We believe that God can work in our inner lives both in and through the struggles, distresses and illnesses that we experience. Illness can wake us up to our inner lives, our souls.”

When we think about Orthodox spirituality and mental health, Orthodox spirituality, as I understand it, is precisely those practices and behaviors we do, we engage in, that allow us to encounter [the] Trinitarian God . . . We, as Orthodox, understand that we are created in the image of this Trinitarian God. And, we encounter this God through these practices we engage in. Formost of all, we engage in this ritual of worship, [the] Liturgy, and we gather together as community to actually encounter this uncreated God who created us to precisely . . . to be in that relationship. And . . . our lives emanate out of that liturgical experience into relationships of love with other people – with people on the street. And . . . out of this encounter with God as we enter into that relationship, the deeper that relationship is the more we develop a sense that God is present and active in our lives and in our day. And, we maintain these practices to stay in that relationship. And its not much different that any other relationship. You want to build a relationship with someone – you’re going to spend time, you’re going to pay attention, you’re going to learn about them. And we understand, as Orthodox, that we are created to be in a relationship not just with each others but with this eternal person of God.

And in a sense, because we are created for this, we can imagine that our well being is found in that encounter with God. And as we can imagine, going to Church should fill us with peace and joy. And, maybe it does.

But what if I twisted my knee the day before I went to church, and I’m in church and I’m encountering this uncreated God in a real encounter but my leg is killing me! Am I doing well? Well, we might say part of me is doing well but my body is not doing well at all.

And what if . . . I’m going to Church to encounter God and it’s my first semester at college, and frankly, I miss my home, I miss my parents, I miss my family and I’m not actually feeling that good! I’m frankly kind of lonely. Is that going to magically disappear when I enter into that sacred space and encounter with God?

And what if . . . I just broke up with someone the night before, you know? Maybe I’m feeling really, really sad with what has happened!

So, as Orthodox, as an Orthodox therapist, I understand that we bring our whole person into a relationship with God.

And so, fundamental to an Orthodox understanding of spirituality and mental health is that the human person as Dr. George said is body and soul. Some people call it body, soul and spirit – that we have a physical body and we have an internal life. And what Dr. George described [about] what we’ve learned from those who have encountered God and then they explain and they talk about their experience, is that our inner life is made up of feelings – drives and desires, and then we have this nous – this ‘eye of the soul’, this power, this capacity to connect with God.

So for our purposes, and for my purposes as a mental health provider, [it] is [important] to recognize that when I’m not doing very well . . . we want to think of mental health as kind of on a spectrum. ‘I’m not feeling well’ . . . well, I’m sad, I miss my parents, I just broke up. ‘I’m not feeling well’ . . . maybe I’ve experienced loss or stress. I’m struggling emotionally or psychologically, but my physical health may actually be great and maybe my spiritual health might be great.

So from an Orthodox spiritual perspective, we recognize that we have mental health that’s kind of on a spectrum and sometimes can fall into the category of illness. We have physical health that for all of us might fall on a little spectrum [and] we have physical illness. And then we have spiritual health. And, we understand that, as a human person, to thrive is to attend to myself as a person . . . that [our] inner life and outer life are intimately connected. And what I love about my work is that’s the mystery of the human person . . . Anything that I do with my body is going to affect my inner life. If you punch me, you might hurt my body. But my body, it will heal in a day or two. But it might hurt me because I’m kind of really hurt by that.

And, we see this interaction between the body and the soul, let’s say, with something like child abuse where you get beaten by your parents. The body of a child usually will heal . . . [but] what’s the long lasting effect of child abuse? There’s a type of an inner wound, an inner trauma. And we recognize that when I’m not doing well, there could be inner struggles. . . or external circumstances that are affecting my life.

And, so when we think about what is revealed to us, what we know about how to thrive – we were created to thrive in close relationships with one another. Well, that requires something – that requires me allowing myself to be known by you. And, that type of vulnerability, it’s really necessary for me to thrive as a human being. But, we understand as Orthodox that we’re not just created to thrive with each other but we’re created to thrive with God. And, there is a close relationship with my capacity to open myself up to get to know you and my capacity to deepen my relationship with God. For the Orthodox, those are all intimately related. 

“Think about a relationship. Think about someone you are dating or married to. Do we believe in love . . . does it matter that we believe in love . . . when I encounter you in an intimate relationship, that there is something greater, there is something invisible, there’s something that can’t be measured, and there’s something that seems extremely real and true? That’s a belief. And I experience it! And not to be confused with feelings, but to recognize, it’s the nature of love. Do we recognize love as a driving force to who we are as humans and our capacity to thrive . . . love as something deeper than feelings?

And we can see evidence of this! When my child, a 4-year-old, is sick and throwing up in the middle of the night, you know what love looks like? Love looks miserable! Love looks terrible, and it smells terrible! And yet when a child encounters that nasty awful love, we see them thrive. It’s in the nature of love that I don’t get anything out of it and yet . . . I do. It’s not about me – it’s about the child.

And we see this in relationships. Do you want to be dating someone who is thinking about themselves or do you want to date someone who, actually, if you’re in need, they have a sense of it and they will suffer for you! And then you think ‘wow, this person respects me, they’re not in this relationship to get something – they recognize there’s something deeper than what I need and what I want’! That’s the nature of love! And, when I encounter that, paradoxically, I thrive as a human being.

The degree to which we open our eyes and our hearts to recognize that reality, and take steps in that reality, is the time that we encounter something that’s beyond this physical world. And I think the nature of suffering in this world becomes exactly the space where we are invited to contemplate that question: ‘what does love mean?‘ I like that question! It’s easy to think of religion as this drug that makes me feel good – I think about bad things, I think about Jesus, I feel better. That is not love! And that’s where psychology can challenge bad practice.”