Revealing the Spiritual Wisdom of People with Mental Illness

by
Rev. Laura L. Mancuso, MS, CRC
Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Goleta, CA
February 7, 2010
For some people in the room today, mental illness is right here (in your
heart). It may be something that you, or a loved one, struggles with on a
daily basis. For others, it may be right here in your face. Perhaps you are
concerned about the distressing behavior of a neighbor, co-worker, or
friend. But there is no one for whom mental illness is irrelevant.
What do you suppose are the chances that any one of us will experience
mental illness in a given year? The National Institute of Mental Health has
conducted very complex studies of the epidemiology of mental illness. They
have calculated that 1 in 4 American adults will have a diagnosable mental
disorder each year (26%). Thats 58 million people!1 Over the course of our
lifetimes, nearly 1 in 2 people will have a psychiatric disorder2.
Primarily, Im talking about Depression, Anxiety Disorders, Schizophrenia,
and Mania (which, when it alternates with depression, is called Bipolar
Disorder). And while some among us will be fortunate enough to come out
ahead in this statistical roulette, and may live and die without ever
developing a diagnosable mental health condition, none of us who is
engaged with life will be able to completely avoid losses which leave you
feeling grief, disorientation and/or fear, at least temporarily.
The good news is that while this suffering cannot be avoided, it is not a
cosmic mistake; it is not without meaning; and you are most definitely not
alone!
There are many different lenses or frames through which we can view the
experience of mental illness. Today, Id like to speak about it from a
spiritual perspective.
1

Source: National Institute of Mental Health, The Numbers Count: Mental Disorders in America, 2008
data. www.nimh.nih.gov. Accessed 2010-01-19.
2
Source: Kessler, Ronald C. et.al. Lifetime Prevalence and Age-of-Onset Distributions of DSM-IV
Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of General Psychiatry, Volume 62,
Number 6 (June 2005), pp 593-602.

When a physician is diagnosing depression, the symptoms that he or she

looks for are things like: being slowed down; feeling overwhelming
sadness, hopelessness, or pessimism; an inability to experience pleasure;
difficulty concentrating; sleep disturbance; weight gain or weight loss. This
is the medical view of depression. But the main spiritual crisis inherent in
depression is DESPAIR.
The medical symptoms of ANXIETY DISORDERS include: excessive
worry; an inability to fall asleep or stay asleep; irritability; lack of
concentration; trembling; shortness of breath, etc. But the main spiritual
crisis inherent in anxiety disorders is FEAR, and a LACK OF TRUST.
The medical symptoms of SCHIZOPHRENIA include: delusions;
hallucinations; disordered thinking; social withdrawal; blunted emotions. But
the spiritual crisis in schizophrenia is primarily ALIENATION.
The medical description of MANIA includes things like: racing thoughts;
rapid talking; decreased need for sleep; extreme irritability, euphoric
feelings, or distraction; poor judgment. But when we consider mania from a
spiritual perspective, the main difficulty is a relentless RESTLESSNESS.
These spiritual problems of despair, fear, lack of trust, alienation, and
restlessness can be addressed directly both by spiritual practices that the
individual can engage in, and through spiritual support that can be provided
by a loving community such as a family or congregation.
I am not saying that mental illnesses are *only* spiritual in nature. I am not
saying that they should be treated by spiritual practices & spiritual supports
alone. But I am saying that mental illnesses have a spiritual dimension to
them, like all serious health conditions.
One of my mentors is Jay Mahler, a long-time advocate for people with
mental health issues. Jay is a man of great humility and courage. He
speaks publicly of the atrocities he endured as an involuntary patient at a
state hospital in the 1960s and 70s after being diagnosed with chronic
schizophrenia3. He was given electro-shock treatments against his will, and
3

See video of Jays speech at the June 2009 Conference on Mental Health & Spirituality by the Los
Angeles County Department of Mental Health. viewable online at www.mhspirit.org. Click on Audio &

was kept in seclusion and restraints for days at a time. Jay has turned this
awful experience in the fuel for a lifetime of effective advocacy on behalf of
people with mental health issues.....37 years to date, and counting.
Jay was interviewed by the editor of The Journal of the California Alliance
for the Mentally Ill in 1997. He described why, for him, and for many others,
the experience of having a psychiatric condition raises significant spiritual
questions, such as:
Why is this happening to me?
Will I ever be the same again?
Is there a place for me in this world?
Can my experience of life be made livable?
If I cant be cured, can I be recovering...even somewhat?
Does what remains constitute a life worth living?
Has my God abandoned me?4
While medications may be an important component of mental health
treatment for many, these are questions that cannot be resolved with
medications. Jay says repeatedly that every time he has experienced an
altered state, it has had a profound spiritual component to it. Unfortunately,
this is rarely understood or accepted by the mental health treatment
system. Yet spirituality is extremely important to healing the wounds that
mental illness inflicts.
Now, the spiritual crises I mentioned earlier as being associated with
various mental health issues are not things that any of us would voluntarily
sign up for! And people can literally get lost in the despair, fear, lack of
trust, alienation, and restlessness that characterize mental illnesses. They
can even lose their lives.
But suffering is an inevitable part of life. We all experience suffering in one
form or another. We may enjoy our lives during the good times when
everything is going smoothly. But, truth be told, the easy times usually do
not result in the most spiritual growth! It is typically the most difficult phases
of our lives that produce the most spiritual depth.

Video Resources, select Video Files, then Day 2 Opening - Spirituality As A Resource In Mental
Health Wellness & Recovery.
4
Jay Mahler, quoted in: Weisburd, Dan. Publishers Note, Introduction to Issue on Spirituality: The
Search for Meaning. The Journal of the California Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Volume 8 (1997), Number
4, pp. 1-2.

Fortunately, our spiritual practices, and the loving support from our
community, can help build a foundation to get us through the most difficult
times.
The despair of depression can be met with HOPE.
The fear of anxiety can be reduced with LOVE.
The alienation of psychosis can be overcome by CONNECTEDNESS.
And restlessness can be quelled with TRANQUILITY.
First, there are spiritual practices that an individual can engage in directly
him/herself to address these spiritual problems, things like: tai chi; yoga;
other forms of body movement; mindfulness; meditation; prayer; reading
sacred or inspiring texts; journal writing; singing; dancing; artistic
expression; making crafts; attending worship services; participating in 12step groups; taking part in rituals; or consulting with clergy or indigenous
healers. These are examples of activities that build resiliency, restore hope,
nurture a sense of balance and centeredness, and help people feel
connected to community.
There are also many actions that individuals and congregations can take to
support a person spiritually when they are experiencing the symptoms of a
mental disorder. At a minimum, we can agree to do no harm, in the spiritual
sense. That means, first of all, NOT BLAMING the person or his/her family
for the mental health issue, and NOT JUDGING them for having it.
There are many concrete actions that we can take to provide spiritual
support to someone in mental distress. I will describe six of them.
1) BE AN UNFLINCHING GUARDIAN OF HOPE
It may literally be impossible for the person to feel optimistic about their
future. Reassure them that they will not always feel as badly as they do in
the depths of their suffering. Protect that hope and gently remind them of it,
even when they cannot believe you.
2) BE A TRUSTWORTHY FRIEND

When a persons world is in chaos, and the ground around them seems
unstable, your reliable presence can be safe harbor in a storm. Be very
clear about what you can and cannot do; its OK to take care of yourself
first. So promise no more than you can deliver. But always do exactly what
you say you will do.
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, in his book, Love in Action:
Without doing anything,
things can sometimes go more smoothly
just because of our peaceful presence.
In a small boat when a storm comes,
if one person remains solid and calm,
others will not panic
and the boat is more likely to stay afloat.5
3) INSIST THAT THE PERSON YOU KNOW AND LOVE IS STILL ALIVE
AND PRESENT, IF HIDDEN.
Just as you would help a friend living with cancer to see that their whole
self is not defined by their diagnosis, so you can help a person with mental
illness by reminding them that you still see the healthy and whole person
within, even if they feel shattered.
A Quaker woman named Mariellen Gilpin has written a booklet called,
Gods Healing Grace: Reflections on a Journey With Mental & Spiritual
Illness. She acknowledges with gratitude that many in her Quaker meeting
simply treat her as if the essential Mariellen is still in here somewhere.6
Tell your friend that you know he or she is still whole, and that you are
confident of his or her ability to recover with time.
4) REFERENCE THE OTHER PERSONS ALTERNATE REALITY
WITHOUT LABELING IT AS WRONG OR ABNORMAL

Hanh, Thich Nhat. Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press,
1993. Page 31.
6
Gilpin, Mariellen. Pendle Hill Pamphlet 394: Gods Healing Grace: Reflections on a Journey With
Mental & Spiritual Illness. Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications, 2008. P. 10. See
http://www.quakerbooks.org/gods_healing_grace.php.

When someone you care about is experiencing the alienation & self-doubt
associated with alternate realities, you can be spiritually supportive by not
judging them. This may be the only reality theyve got at the moment. So if
you denigrate it, youre denigrating their entire world and their very self.
You dont have to pretend you agree with it; you dont have to affirm it; but
you can remain neutral.
Jimi Kelley works for the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Tennessee.
He shared a story about accompanying a woman who perceived that
messages were being broadcast into her brain, which was distressing to
her. But she didnt want to go to a clinic and have them invalidate her
experience. Jimi talked to her about the possibility that she was hearing
things that the people at the clinic are not able to hear, and that taking
medications might simply reduce her ability to receive the messages. I.e., if
she took medications, she might no longer be bothered by the
messages...even if they are still being broadcast. Rather than contradicting
her experience, his gentle, affirming approach was very helpful in enabling
her to go for treatment.
5) BE OPEN TO THE POSSIBILITY THAT MENTAL HEALTH CRISES
CAN CO-OCCUR WITH AUTHENTIC SPIRITUAL AWAKENINGS.
Sometimes people experience abrupt spiritual transformations that
overwhelm their ability cope, what is known in the literature as a spiritual
emergency. There are ways to support people to move through these
experiences without getting stuck in them.
It largely involves keeping the person safe, meeting their basic needs for
food, water, sleep, etc., and letting them specify what is helpful in the
moment. Some people need to be in constant motion, others need stillness.
Some want to be safe indoors, while others want to be outside, in nature,
and feel sun on their skin. A person may prefer being alone, or may need to
be held. Its a very individualized process.
Sometimes we need to be broken down in order to let go of the old and
provide space for something new to take root.

6) LASTLY, CONSIDER WHAT YOU MAY BE ABLE TO LEARN FROM

PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS.
One of the necessary steps in devotion to a spiritual path, for all of us, is
relinquishing control. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, writes
about this process. She says that when bad things happen to us, we tend
to exclaim, Ive lost control of my life! But, she says what we actually
lose is the illusion that we were ever in control of our lives in the first
place.....this is why it takes a lot of courage to be a human being.7
Personally, I came to mental health, and even to the intersection of mental
health and spirituality, wanting to help, Intending to be of service. But what
Ive realized lately is that oftentimes the people in recovery from mental
illness that I have come into contact with possess a deep spiritual wisdom
from which I can learn a great deal. When I fully committed myself to
revealing the spiritual wisdom of people with mental illness, my life
was thrown into chaos. And from that vantage point, the only people who
made sense to me, the only ones who understood what I was experiencing,
were people who had experienced mental illness.
This is the difference between helping and walking alongside.
Spiritual companioning leaves open the possibility that today you may be
the one in need...but next week, it may be me... and back again, over and
over. This is the stuff of which real respect is made. Not respect like,
Im in awe of how much youve suffered. But more like you have
journeyed to places that I want to know more about.
When you delve really deeply into spiritual exploration, theres some pretty
scary stuff in there! For example, when you consider the writings of the
Christian mystics, for instance, their lives were not easy!
There is THE VOID there is UNBLINKING SELF-AWARENESS
there are DISORIENTING EXPERIENCES. Spiritual growth requires us to
go directly to where our most tender wounds are and open them up again
so that they can be healed at an ever deeper level.

Taylor, Barbara Brown. The Preaching Life. Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1993. P. 90-1.

The bad news is that it may seem like this work will never be done! The
good news is that our foundation grows stronger each time we do it.
Some religious traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism say that this
spiritual journey is our true lifes purpose... and that we will need to return
to this realm over and over again, with all of its suffering, until we complete
it.
Mental health and mental illness are inextricably linked with that journey.
We cannot advance on that path without some mental distress. Earnest
spiritual paths sometimes involve venturing into spiritual wildernesses
where there are few signposts, and very little that is familiar to comfort us.
People with mental illness are experienced travelers in this sort of terrain.
Just as you might purchase a tour book before venturing to a new
continent, you may want to get some tips and pointers from people with
mental illness that have already journeyed somewhere that you have not
yet.
When I began working in the field of mental health & spirituality,
I realized that if we could get the treatment system to respect the spiritual
lives of the clients they serve, they would be respecting their very essence.
Perhaps if our society can come to respect and value the spiritual
experiences of people with mental illness, we will have learned to love this
part of ourselves... the part that gets disoriented, that is prone to despair,
that loses sight of hope, that falls prey to fear, that cant feel love, that is
constantly in motion, that keeps us from experiencing that beautiful inner
stillness where we rest peacefully in the arms of the divine presence.
Perhaps then, as a people, we will become more whole, more loving, more
calm, and more hopeful.
I will close with the adaptation of a prayer from a mental health mutual aid
society called GROW. This group was founded in Australia in 1957, based
on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. Their prayer acknowledges how
little control we actually have over our lives8. I have modified it here:
8

See www.grow.net.au or www.growinamerica.org.

True, strong, and loving God, Supreme Healer:

Knowingly & deliberately I surrender myself completely to your wise
and powerful Love.
This day and forever,
I offer to You
my mind with all its powers,
my body with all its assets and imperfections,
my feelings pleasant and painful.
May I fulfill my lifes purpose
through Your limitless wisdom.
Take my life into Your care.
Take my will into Your own.
Give me this one grace:
Never to lose faith in You
& never to fear for myself.
Amen.

Rev. Laura L. Mancuso is an interfaith minister and chaplain based in

Goleta, CA. She can be reached via email at mancuso@west.net or
www.spiritofhealing.info
9

Mental Health Resources in Santa Barbara

2-1-1 HelpLine (dial 211) provided by Family Service Agency of Santa Barbara
www.211sbcounty.org
CALM
www.calm4kids.org
Casa Pacifica
www.casapacifica.org
Consumer Advocacy Coalition
www.joincac.org
Family Service Agency
www.fsacares.org
Mental Health Association in Santa Barbara County
www.mhainsb.org
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Southern Santa Barbara County Chapter
Tona Wakefield, twakefield@mhainsb.org, (805) 884-8440 ext. 105
Phoenix of Santa Barbara
www.phoenixofsb.org
PathPoint
www.pathpoint.org
Sanctuary Psychiatric Centers of Santa Barbara
www.spcsb.org
Santa Barbara County Department of Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services
www.admhs.org

Internet-Based Mental Health Resources

California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies
www.casra.org
California Mental Health & Spirituality Initiative
www.mhspirit.org
National Mental Health Consumers Self-Help Clearinghouse
www.mhselfhelp.org

10

California Network of Mental Health Clients

www.californiaclients.org
Mental Health America
www.mentalhealthamerica.net
Mental Health America in California
www.mhac.org
Mental Health Ministries, Rev. Susan Gregg-Schroeder
www.mentalhealthministries.net
National Alliance on Mental Illness
www.nami.org
NAMI STAR Center (Support, Technical Assistance & Resources)
www.consumerstar.org
NAMI Faith Net
www.nami.org/faithnet
National Empowerment Center
www.power2u.org
National Mental Health Information Center
www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov
People Who
www.peoplewho.org
Support Coalition International
www.mindfreedom.org

Many thanks to Rabbi Elliot Kukla, Staff Rabbi at the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center in
San Francisco for his eloquent ministry with people who experience mental health
needs and their families. May your heart be warmed by his prayer as featured on the
following page:

11

A PRAYER OF HEALING FOR MENTAL ILLNESS

May the One who blessed our ancestors bless all those who live with mental illness, their care-givers,
families and friends; May they walk in the footsteps of Jacob, King Saul, Miriam, Hannah and Naomi
who struggled with dark moods, hopelessness, isolation and terrors, but survived and led our people.
Just as our father, Jacob, spent the night wrestling with an angel and prevailed, may all those who live
with mental illness be granted the endurance to wrestle with their pain and prevail night upon night.
Grace them with the faith to know that though, like Jacob, they may be wounded, shaped and renamed
by this struggle, still they will live on to continue an ever unfolding, unpredictable path toward healing.
May they not be alone on this path but accompanied by their families, friends, care-givers, ancestors
and the Divine presence. Surround them with loving-kindness, grace and companionship and spread
over them a sukkat shalom, a shelter of peace and wholeness. And let us say: Amen

Rabbi Elliot Kukla, 2008

THE BAY AREA JEWISH HEALING CENTER is dedicated to providing Jewish spritual care
to those living with illness, to those caring for the ill, and to the bereaved through
direct service, education and training, and infomation and referral
We wish to thank The Jewish Community Endowment Newhouse Fund of
the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and
Sonoma Counties for their gracious support in recognizing the spiritual care needs of those who live
with mental illness.
3330 Geary Blvd., 3rd Floor West
San Francisco, CA 94118
415-750-4197
www.Jewishhealingcenter.org