Expressions of Faith series
By The Rev. Phyllis Roe
Throughout human history, mental health concerns have been inseparably linked to the spiritual dimensions of life.
Psyche and spirit inhabited the same world, shared the same root word. Only in the short span of this century has a scientific world view emerged and human experience split into seemingly unrelated spheres.
Psychological life -- the study of human mind, emotions, motivation, behavior -- became the province of science. Spiritual life -- the relationship between human beings and an ultimate meaning of purpose -- remained the realm of religion. In the office of the pastoral counselor who is both minister and therapist, the two are rejoined.
A person comes for help with a crippling depression. Is the depression best understood psychologically as repressed anger? Unresolved grief? A sign of a weak undeveloped sense of self? Or does depression have spiritual undertones: an expression of a failure to find a meaning and significance in life? Is it the sign of a guilty self which cannot feel forgiven?
These are some of the questions a pastoral counselor might ask. Trained in both human sciences and religious traditions, the pastoral counselor recognizes the interplay between our psychological lives and our spirituality. We are whole persons. Problems in living which bring persons to a counselor's office are most adequately understood from a holistic perspective.
A married couple comes for therapy. Two professionals, now in mid-life, they have slowly grown apart as they devoted their energies to work and raising a family.
Marriage counseling helps them learn to communicate more effectively, to share their needs and wants, to work more cooperatively. Still each partner expresses a longing for a deeper connection, for a sense that their lives have significance beyond their own achievements.
Psychological knowledge helps them improve their marriage. The question of why struggle with the difficulties of marriage and of the importance of a marriage rooted in values and a common search for meaning are religious issues.
A teen-ager is sent by his parents for counseling. He is failing in school, taking drugs, choosing friends his parents disapprove of, and is silent and withdrawn at home.
He speaks of his despair: why try when all he sees is an unjust world in which people are trapped by poverty and discrimination? What hope is there for him when he sees his parents exhausted by working two jobs to make ends meet? They are rarely at home and quarrel when they are.
These are a few of the stories of persons who come for help from a pastoral counselor. There is a longing in all of us to see our story in a larger context.
Our pains and joys, our struggles and successes, are given meaning, not simply as individual experiences, but as particular expressions of the human spirit seeking meaning and connection beyond the everyday. Religious traditions provide both a context and a resource for persons as they seek to change their lives.
What may begin as a family problem may become an opportunity for a mother or father to realize that they have spent a lifetime controlling others because they fear they will not be loved for who they are. The devotional aspects of a religious tradition become an additional resource in therapy for experiencing the love of God, the all-embracing compassion of the Buddha at a deeper level.
A woman who recently received counseling at the Samaritan Center for depression found that as she unraveled the core experiences which had created a deep sense of unworthiness and caused the depression, she found herself more able to experience the truth of her Christian faith.
She writes: "I do not recommend depression as a means to receive and understand the Grace of God, but I have a deeper and more abiding understanding of what it means to be a child of God because of my illness, and because there are laypersons and professionals within the church who extend grace by their skill and caring."
Pastoral counseling, which combines the knowledge of the human sciences and the wisdom of religious traditions, provides a way to integrate one's spiritual values with the feelings of life circumstances which confront us. Pastoral counseling offers help and hope in a holistic context for those seeking emotional and spiritual growth and healing.
The Rev. Phyllis Roe was executive director of the Samaritan Counseling Center of Hawaii, an interfaith counseling service, and was a Methodist minister. The Center can be reached at 545-2740.
[From The Honolulu Advertiser, Saturday, October 2, 1993, p. A14. She died June 30, 2001.]