Hidden Courage: Reconnecting Faith and Character with Mental Wellness

Hidden Courage

Reconnecting Faith and Character with Mental Wellness

William J. Elenchin

Hidden Courage

Reconnecting Faith and Character with Mental Wellness

Copyright © 2009 William J. Elenchin. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: From a Moral to Mental Compass

Chapter 2: Faith in Reason

Chapter 3: In Freud We Trust?

Chapter 4: Is Life All about Me?

Chapter 5: Wheat and Weeds

Chapter 6: Closing the Loop

Chapter 7: Reason for Faith

Chapter 8: Character

"You will never do anything in this world without courage.

It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor."¹

—Aristotle

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.²

—Gimli

in Fellowship of the Ring

"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living,

and your belief will help create the fact."³

—William James

1. As cited in Thinkexist.com Quotations, copyright ThinkExist 1999–2006, Aristotle, http://thinkexist.com/quotation/you _will_never _do_anything_in_this_world_without/221791.htm.l.

2. J. R. R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring, volume 1 of The Lord of the Rings, (London: Allen and Unwin, 1954), 294. Available online at The Thain’s Book, 2003–2008, http://www.tuckborough.net/gimli.html.

3. William James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, Is Life Worth Living? (Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1948), 62. Available online at Questia Media America, Inc., http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=101949511. This citation from Laurence G. Boldt, Zen Soup: Tasty Morsels of Wisdom from Great Minds East & West (New York: Penguin Arkana, 1997), 19.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to my family for their unwavering support. My wife Kate offered her constant encouragement that this was a valuable project. My son Zach and daughters Mary Kate and Hannah provided daily examples of faith and joy that is purest in those with childlike spirits. My parents Gert and John modeled the virtues that bring peace, strength, and joy.

I must also express my sincere appreciation to my editor, Irene Stoops. Her enthusiasm, persistence, and kindness mirrored much of the content of this book, helping make this sometimes challenging work enjoyable.

Introduction

Nurture your minds with great thoughts.To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

⁴

—Benjamin Disraeli,Earl of Beaconfield, 1804–1881

No. Not a good idea. They have either found Jesus or become cops!" More than ten years have passed since I first heard these words from a mental health therapist, and I can still feel my mind go numb, as it did when I first tried to make sense of that response. The year was 1996, and I was working as a mental health counselor at a youth residential treatment facility. Most of the young men (ages 14 to 18) were court adjudicated delinquents who had come from severely dysfunctional homes or rough street life.

These kids were good at heart, struggling to find a way of life. They were likable, especially when they let their guard down. It also didn’t require much insight to see through their defensive shields, as unpleasant as those barricades were. Resentment, pessimism, deceit, and intemperance marked their conduct and guided their lives. They had behavior problems and life issues that needed to be resolved, which was my primary job as a therapist.

Therapy typically included several weekly individual sessions to discuss and process negative past events. These past events could be generalized into two categories: perpetrator or victim of abuse. In therapy we would talk about these experiences and help the youth understand how they influenced his caustic thoughts and behaviors. Once the youngster realized the logical connection between his past issues and deviant or delinquent actions, we could discuss more healthy and lawful modes of conduct. The simple goal was to replace destructive behavior patterns with socially acceptable ones.

The problem with this approach, as most of those who have worked with troubled youth would agree, is that teenage boys with troubled backgrounds typically reject such calculated attempts to change their behaviors. The harmful and oftentimes heartbreaking abuse these youth experienced as children seared their mind, heart, and soul. Positive behavior changes in these youngsters were the exception rather than the rule. Logic and technique were not enough.

Seeking alternative methods to help these young men find healing, I thought it would be a good idea if we had some successful program graduates visit our teens. Perhaps these prior residents, now grown men, could share insights about moving toward wellness and becoming self-sufficient. I sat down with our program director and asked whether he thought it would be a good idea for us to invite graduates to speak with our kids. He thought for a moment and replied with all sincerity, No. Not a good idea. They have either found Jesus or become cops!

Placing faith in a Higher Power or becoming a police officer is undesirable? I begin with this story because it is so typical of the view taken by many in the mental health field regarding faith beliefs, character, and mental health. Since this incident occurred I can cite many similar examples from my experience working in the field of behavioral health. The reason for this antagonistic view toward faith is that much current mental health treatment operates from a myopic perspective that addresses the mind with little attention given to the spirit and body.

The majority of individuals who work in the mental health system and receive treatment in that system function within a framework that has historically, perhaps unknowingly, divorced faith beliefs and virtues from psychological health. This separation of religious and spiritual beliefs from good mental health may have been necessary to help establish psychology as a serious, scientific discipline. That matter is open to debate. However, a profound outcome of the separation of faith beliefs from the cultural and clinical understanding of mental health has been that religious beliefs have not only been dismissed, but are often seen as a sign of pathology or mental illness! Fortunately, there has been growing research and public interest regarding the relationship between faith beliefs and not only psychological health but physical health as well. During the past decade studies have greatly increased in number and consistently support a positive association between religion or spirituality and overall health. This interest and recognition of the power of faith is slowly filtering down into the treatment of a variety of mental illnesses and is also influencing our cultural view of mental wellness.

It was my frustration with mental health’s arrogance toward faith that led me to study this subject in a doctoral program. When I began my studies I questioned whether there would be enough research in academic literature to support the theory that religious beliefs and practices enhance wellness. This uncertainty came from working within a field that virtually shuns religion and character traits as components of mental wellness. To my pleasant surprise I discovered that most academic literature on psychotherapy now acknowledges both the animosity toward religion that has been present since the establishment of psychology as a discipline and that key founding psychological theorists played a pivotal role in demonizing religious beliefs and faith practices. Contemporary research findings have begun to dispel the long-held false assumption that religion and values are incompatible with good mental health and have instead established a connection between faith and wellness.

In addition to those generally interested in behavioral health, this book is intended to reach two primary audiences. The first is individuals who receive mental health services to find relief from psychological difficulties. These emotional challenges include anxiety, depression, grief, alcohol abuse, and addictions. This is in no way a how-to manual for identifying or treating mental illness. Instead, the primary purpose for this book is to dispel the notion that time-honored character traits, which are often taught as part of religious teachings, have no place in mental wellness. Many who cope with emotional struggles believe that the principles of good mental health are the exclusive domain of licensed professionals, and that common virtues such as wisdom, temperance, justice, and courage are separate from mental health. This is simply not the case.

The second audience is behavioral health practitioners—licensed professionals and paraprofessionals—who work to enhance their client’s mental well-being. Until recently the majority of mental health educational and training programs have deemed faith and character to be irrelevant if not harmful to psychological wellness. This is out of step with the beliefs of the general public. A 2006 poll conducted by Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and Pew Forum on Public Life found that 96 percent of the population believes in God or some Supreme Being.⁵ This high rate of faith has remained constant, even in an increasingly materialistic society, and 42 years after an infamous Time magazine article asked Is God Dead?⁶ It is my hope that mental health professionals will reconsider their treatment models in light of contemporary research supporting religious beliefs and character traits as beneficial to wellness.

In the following pages I occasionally offer an example from my previous work as a counselor to shed light on the nuances that exist in the mental health field. The identifying characteristics have been changed and the events represent an amalgamation of typical experiences to assure anonymity. When I refer to faith beliefs I mostly draw upon Christianity because it has been the predominant religion since our nation’s founding and because most emerging research has been conducted with participants influenced by this perspective.

4. Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby, Book III, Chapter 1, (New York: W. H. Colyer, 1844), as cited online at BrainyQuote, Xplore, Inc., BrainyMedia, 2001–2004, http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes /b/q121570.html.

5. David Masci and Gregory A. Smith, God is Alive and Well in America, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (Washington D.C.: PewResearchCenter Publications), April 4, 2006, http://pewresearch.org /pubs/15/god-is-alive-and-well-in-america.

6. Ibid.

1

From a Moral to Mental Compass

"We always know that society is full of folly and will deceive us in the matter of humanity. It is an unreliable horse, and blind into the bargain. Woe to the driver