By Lauren Carlson-Vohs
Statistics show that one out of five people are affected by mental illness at some point in their life and that number is growing. Yet despite the prevalence of mental illness, there still remains a great deal of misinformation and fear about it. This contributes to the stigma surrounding mental illness, whereby so many suffer silently, ashamed to seek accurate diagnosis and treatment. And disappointingly, for those who do seek treatment, they often are dismayed by the very limited options available to them.
Few people fully comprehend how brain disorders limit the daily lives of people. They do not understand how the hopeless despair of depression takes over the thoughts and decision-making ability of a person. Many have little understanding of the fact that the majority of homeless people are homeless due to their mental illness. The devastating impact of unrelenting stress or traumatic events is not always recognized in those with post traumatic stress syndrome, as witnessed by many soldiers. The list goes on.
It is rapidly becoming a crisis situation in this country as growing numbers have no health insurance and for those who do, many are finding their mental health coverage reduced. Our jails and prisons have become the place where all too often individuals with severe mental health conditions are sent now that most former mental health institutions have been closed and not enough alternative facilities created to replace needed services. It is well-documented that mental health treatment in our jails and prisons is usually abysmal, if present at all.
As this crisis situation escalates, it is imperative that each of us become more informed and find ways to effect change. A very important way is for us to ensure our spiritual community is offering outreach through education and support. This is especially important since a strong spiritual faith has been found to be so helpful to people working through their mental illness and correlates with a reduction in suicide rates.
There are many resources for spiritual communities to take on this work. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), which has a local office in the Twin Cities (www.namimn.org), offers a special outreach program, FaithWays, which offers technical assistance to spiritual communities of all faiths through trainings and programs. Their Web site lists many other helpful organizations and resources, as does the national NAMI Web site, www.faithnet.nami.org. These are great places for spiritual communities to begin their outreach on mental illness.
Education is seen as critical to helping break down the stigma surrounding mental illness. When people learn to view mental illness like any other illness of the body, that understanding leads to a supportive climate where it is acceptable to be open about one’s mental illness – which in turn, greatly facilitates the healing process.
Wonderful guidance on how to go about doing this is also offered through the work of Mental Health Ministries (www.mentalhealthministries.net), particularly with their excellent DVD and accompanying teaching materials, “Creating Caring Congregations.” In it they stress the importance of creating a “ministry of presence,” considering how many people with mental illness have felt isolated or forgotten by their spiritual communities. The DVD notes the positive impact a trained lay person can have by simply offering the words, “I care about you and I’m here to bring you God’s love and listen.”
Garth House elaborated on this further in his article, “Spirituality, Meaning and Recovery from Serious Brain Disorder,” (www.namiscc.org): “A loving and accepting congregation of faith can restore to the recovering person, through its embrace, a proper and healthy perspective which affirms both the “choseness” of that person for a special “way” marked by the unique extremes of mental suffering and yet at the same time embraces that person in their humanity as a human being worthy of love, healing, and community.”
Mental Illness Awareness week begins Oct. 6, 2008, with Tuesday, Oct. 7, designated as the National Day of Prayer for Mental Illness Recovery and Understanding. This offers spiritual communities and each of us as individuals a wonderful opportunity to commit to quality mental health for all and an end to the debilitating stigma so often found about mental illness.
When we offer our prayers, support and outreach to those who find themselves immersed in a healing journey with mental illness, we offer light and love to help illuminate their path. We help to bring mental illness out of the darkness and into the light of understanding and compassion it deserves. So much suffering with mental illness could be abated, so much care and treatment could be so much kinder and humane. The need for public policy change in these matters is immense.
Neuroscience holds out such exciting promise as more is learned about the human brain and its neuroplasticity. Mind/body science is exploding with fascinating new insights into the power of our thoughts and emotions, and techniques for channeling them more positively. New therapies and medications are emerging which facilitate healing with ever-increasing effectiveness. It all contributes to a message of inspiring hope that needs to be heard. May our spiritual communities increasingly become harbingers of this message.

Spiritual writer Lauren Carlson-Vohs shares this space with Dr. Bernard E. Johnson and the Revs. Tim Power, Rod Anderson and Timothy A. Johnson. “Spiritually Speaking” appears weekly.