“Do not admire every form of health, and do not condemn every illness.”
_ Saint Gregory of Nazianzus:
Excerpt from “What it means to be an Orthodox therapist: Three Perspectives“
Dr. Philip Mamalakis: “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’re 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 belief 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.”
Excerpt from: “Orthodox Christian Spirituality & Mental Health”
Dr. Mamalakis (time stamp 39:44):
“Orthodox spirituality, as I understand it, is precisely those practices and behaviors … we engage in that allow us to encounter [The] Trinitarian God… We are created in the image of this Trinitarian God and we encounter this God through these practices we engage in. For-most of all, we engage in this ritual of worship, this Liturgy. And we gather together as community to actually encounter this uncreated God who created us to precisely 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 we, 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 other 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 is that 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 … 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, is to recognize that when I’m not doing very well … we want to think of mental health kind of on a spectrum. I’m not feeling 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. 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 that inner life and that outer life are intimately connected. And what I love about my work is that’s the mystery of the human person. What is that about? 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. Well, what’s the effect on the body of the child? Well, the body of a child, it usually will heal. What’s the long lasting effect of child abuse? There’s a type of an inner wound, an inner trauma. And [so] we recognize that – when I’m not doing well, there could be inner struggles, [or] it could be 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. … 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.”
THE ORTHODOX FAMILY 
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