Mental Health – History

In the time of Jesus, what we now call psychiatric disorders were considered to be caused by demonic possession. A number of Jesus’ healings involved his casting out of devils that were believed to be causing severe behaviors that we would probably now consider psychiatric in nature. The important thing was that Jesus related to these suffering people with compasson and kindness and a deep longing to help them to be healed of what they were suffering from.

Through most of civilized history people with these kinds of disorded lives have been terribly persecuted: chained, thrown into horrible cells, kept locked away in closets, hidden from human society. Many believed that such people had caused their own disorders due to something that they or their ancestors had done.

In 1792 a Yorkshire Quaker named William Tuke founded revolutionary new facility for treating “mental illness” called The Retreat. Residents there were treated in ways that could not be more different from the “insane asylums” of the day. There were no manacles or corporal punishment. Treatment focused on healthy manual labor such as gardening, healthy food, and time outdoors. Residents were treated with respect and compassion. Residents and “staff” lived and worked and ate meals side by side. This model of treatment had radical effects on treatment of the “mentally ill” around the world, with a number of similar institutions established modeled on the Retreat in the United States. Quakers in the World article Wikipedia article. Unfortunately the positive approaches practiced in the York Retreat and similar facilities gradually declined over the 19th century and by the mid-20th century these institutions were little distinguishable from other psychiatric facilitities with a sharp distinction between staff led by psychiatrists and patients and the emphasis of treatment heavily focused on medication, electroconvulsive therapy, and even psychosurgery (“lobotomy”).

Mental health – modern

A number of yearly meetings including Philadelphia YM and Baltimore YM have established counseling services to provide professional counseling to members & attenders around mental health, addicitions, and relationship challenges.

We will be posting a number of Pendle Hill articles on these issues.

Addictions

People with additions such as alcoholism were deeply stigmatized in the past, in some ways similarly to those suffering from behavioral health disorders. People of faith recognized the damage of alcoholism on individuals, families, and larger communities but focused their efforts on prohibition rather than healing of individuals. In many cases Quakers and other Christian groups worked side by side for prohibiton along with abolition of enslavement and women’s suffrage. Unfortunately prohibition did not bring about the radical improvements that those working for prohibition hoped for. Alcohol production and sale continued to be rife but became controlled by organized crime groups.

The way people thought about an treated alcoholism radically changed in the 1930 with the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA and the many related 12 Step Programs that rew out of AA is a deeply spiritual approach that involves turning one’s whole life over to the guidance of God (or a “higher power” as each participant defines this). AA grew out of a Christian revival program called the Oxford Group. There are many similarities to the steps that are taken in other forms of spiritual formation: looking honestly at one’s broken places and seeking to bring one’s life more and more under God’s guidance.