By Liam Beecher

There has likely never been a time when “mental health” was discussed so frequently as it is now. Prestigious news sources, professional health organizations, and even the White House have warned of an urgent “mental health crisis.”¹ As faithful Catholics are aware, however, prestige has never meant trustworthiness, and as many of these same prominent sources have shown themselves time and again to be enemies of Christ and his Church, many Catholics may be left skeptical of the concept of “mental health” itself. As spoken of by many modern psychologists and “mental health professionals,” the pursuit of “mental health” seems to be a naturalistic substitute for spiritual progress, an ersatz end for man which disregards our need for union with God. The godless anthropological assumptions of modern psychology are so prevalent among those who declare themselves experts on mental health that Catholics can easily be left bewildered as to whether “mental health” as a concept is even compatible with the convictions of the Faith.

The reality is that a proper consideration and care for the health of the mind, directed to our supernatural end, is not merely compatible with but essential to spiritual progress. The perverse age we live in, by conceptually severing the mind and the soul, has undermined the true understanding of the mind’s role in the spiritual life and instead set up “mental health” as an idol. The Church, on the other hand, has always insisted on the unity of the human being, and hence gives us ample resources for coming to a truly Catholic understanding of mental health in its relation to the spiritual life. This subject could fill (and has filled) many volumes, but in this article I seek merely to provide an introduction to the topic. This brief foray will be composed of two parts: first, a speculative consideration of man’s nature as body and soul, and the meaning of “mental health” and “mental illness” from a Christian perspective; second, a practical consideration of how one can deal with and benefit spiritually from everyday mental maladies.

I would like to make clear from the outset that I have no pretension of speaking as an “expert” or a “professional on this subject. My aim is simply to synthesize and make accessible some of the wisdom of the Church (expressed by saints, venerable spiritual writers, and faithful contemporary authors) on this subject. It is indeed a pernicious mindset that regards mental health as the territory of psychological “professionals” but ignore the wisdom of spiritual masters whose grasp of human nature is so incisive.

The Mind in Our Ascent to God

Over the centuries, there have been many heretics and heathens who emphasized either the soul or the body of man to the exclusion of the other. In the face of all this, however, the Church has always firmly maintained that the human person is intended by God as a harmonious unity of the two. It is correct to say that the soul is more important than the body, inasmuch as the soul is what gives the body actual existence and, as St. Thomas says, “the body is for the sake of the soul.”² The ultimate end of man, the happiness for which he is destined, is an activity of the soul, and the body can only serve to aid us in working toward this end.³ That being said, to treat the body as if it is irrelevant is akin to Manicheanism and is far from the Catholic understanding of human nature. St. Thomas very clearly rejects the idea that “soul is man,”⁴ and the Church has since time immemorial repudiated the notion that the body is something evil, detestable, or extrinsic to our humanity.

God created man as a composite, and his purpose is accomplished by the bodily and spiritual faculties working together. Man desires happiness, and his ultimate happiness is the vision of God, which is an activity of his intellect. To attain to this intellectual union, each man needs to direct his will to God to reach Him. The will is a blind faculty, however, meaning it cannot inform itself; it depends on reason to inform all of its acts. But the intellectual knowledge that informs our will must itself be gathered somehow, and in this life, this ordinarily happens through our bodily powers. We acquire knowledge through the senses: both the five exterior senses that likely come to mind at the word “senses,” and the interior senses, which include memory, imagination, and our power of thinking. Clearly, while all our senses are related to our soul’s operation in some way, the interior senses are much more directly tied to our soul. We think through the medium of our brains, and while we can clearly see the difference between our hand, for example, and our soul, it is a much more delicate task to distinguish between the bodily workings of the mind and our spiritual faculty of knowledge, because (on earth) we typically only come to ideas in our speculative intellect by a discursive process of reasoning which our brain enables us to undertake. While it is outside of the scope of this article to delve more deeply into the precise relations of the body and the soul, this sketch of the unity of human nature and the role the workings of our mind play in our ascent to God is essential groundwork for further considerations on mental health.⁵

What does all this mean? Put simply, that we ought to aspire to have our mental faculties in good working order if we truly aspire to union with God. If we want to know Truth and choose it with our will, we must desire a mind which apprehends reality accurately. Mental health, properly understood, is a quality of mind which enables us to perceive things as they are. Conversely, this means that mental illness is any malady that inhibits our reason’s capacity to accurate assess reality.

Catholic concern for mental health differs from mainstream psychology’s approach precisely in the end that is sought. The Church desires men to have minds which can grasp reality because she understands that this enables our approach to the ultimate reality, God. As St. Irenaeus wrote, “the glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God.”⁶ We seek to be “fully alive” in all ways, including in the health of our minds, so that we can attain the fullness of life in the vision of God. The World Health Organization’s website, on the other hand, has a rather different vision of man. The WHO defines mental health as follows: “A state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community.”⁷ It is ironic that this definition uses the language of “realizing abilities,” since, if this were taken in a Thomistic sense, there would be profound truth in these words. Unfortunately, organizations like the WHO have amply proven that they do not mean the same thing as St. Thomas when they speak of “realizing abilities.”⁸ These and other prominent “experts” of modern psychology essentially posit freedom from suffering as the only good universal to all people; the ultimate end of each man is something he determines himself. Hence the modern mental health paradigm is a short-circuit; it seeks to provide happiness but does not orient itself toward what our happiness consists in, and so it will never satisfy in the end.

Bearing the Fruit of Mental Suffering

Now it remains to address how we, as Catholics seeking to grow spiritually, can profit from struggles with mental illness. Many suffer some kind of mental malady over the course of their lives, and therefore we ought to take pains to consider how to deal with these maladies and how to benefit from the experience. There are, of course, very severe and debilitating mental illnesses which require intensive medical treatment or drastic spiritual remedies. What follows is not intended to address these specifically but rather to communicate principles and practices applicable to the management of all mental distress and to focus on more common mental maladies.

It is essential to continually return to the truth of the unity of man’s body and soul, and to acknowledge the complexity in the causes of mental illnesses. Like temptations, mental disturbances can come from the world, the flesh, and the devil. The sins and influences of others can wreak havoc on the mind just as our own sins, our own bodily weaknesses, and the prompting of evil spirits can. Just as is the case with temptations, we often find these causes intertwined in a mental illness.

Keeping this in mind, a prudent approach to dealing with mental distress is one that is conscious of the fact that, while we are spiritual beings seeking to live the life of grace, grace builds on nature. Concretely this means that we should aspire to live a healthy natural and supernatural life. This includes caring for our bodies and turning away from those things that, even in the natural order, we know to negatively impact our minds (e.g., excessive technology); it also means frequent recourse to the Sacraments and to prayer. These are preconditions for caring for the health of the mind.

Beyond these practical steps it is necessary to cultivate fruitful dispositions regarding the suffering one endures. These dispositions are the same which fertilize the ground of the spiritual life in general. First, we must develop resignation to the will of God. This is what makes us able to receive a mental illness as a trial and a means of sanctification. We must strive to accept as God’s will that we be sanctified through the suffering we undergo, but simultaneously with an understanding that He wills us to be healed (in this life or the next). If God allows us to undergo mental suffering, we must bear in mind that, just like any other suffering, it is for our greater good.

Second, we must learn distrust of ourselves. We cannot leave our pursuit of truth up to our own thoughts and feelings because these are what we know to be leading us astray. This is why it is essential to have a good confessor whom we trust and to whom we can communicate our mental distress. We must talk to our confessor, especially so he can help us determine what is at the root of a mental illness, and recommend what kind of further remedies we ought to utilize (including the assistance of a mental professional). It may also be helpful to communicate with others whose wisdom we trust regarding the turmoil in our minds, because these burdens are truly lightened by the valuable perspective others can give. Someone whose mind is broken cannot easily see things objectively, so he must rely on others to give some insight into where our minds are distorting reality. I have seen it stated by some that the Catholic Church is opposed to psychological therapy. Taken simply, this claim is nonsense. Anyone can see that there is an element of what might be called “therapy” even in having a spiritual guide, and the Church has never been against the idea of mental therapeutic means of aiding a mind which is unhealthy. Instead, Catholics recognize that many among so-called “experts” of “therapy” are not properly oriented toward the proper nature and end of mental health. It is thus important to seek out, when prudence calls for it, doctors or counselors who address mental issues with an awareness of man’s spiritual end (and they do exist!).

The Church does not take an “either–or” but a “both–and” approach to mental health. Our goal is all-encompassing: the health of the mind for the sake of the health of the soul. Hence the priest’s role is to help the afflicted spiritually as much as is possible, but also to refer him to a trustworthy professional when medical or mental remedies are in order. To take a simple example, St. Francis de Sales gives advice for dealing with depression, which includes both prayer and “external works…with as much variety as may lead us to divert the mind from the subject which oppresses it, and to cheer and kindle it, for depression generally makes us dry and cold.”⁹ These are practical ways to heal habits of our mind, to correct to emotional and mental distortion. This is a perfect example of the Church’s integrated wisdom on this subject.

One reality we have to come to terms with is that some mental illnesses are not curable; sometimes mental distress can only be lessened, not fully alleviated. The limitations of godless psychology are on full display in these cases, for it cannot heal the mind but neither can it offer any meaning beyond immediate healing. This is precisely where our faith opens us up to a marvelous paradox: that we can achieve sanctity under any circumstances, even with a broken mind. We can know not only that the sufferings we undergo are for our good, but also that our minds will be healed in eternity if we remain close to God. Materialist psychology meets with a dead end; the spiritual peace that our Faith gives us is the only remedy. We can know, paradoxically, that though our powers of knowing are impaired, this is God’s means of purifying us for an eternity of health beatitude. As St. Francis de Sales writes, “never doubt but that, after He has tried you sufficiently, God will deliver you from the trial.”¹⁰

When secular sources, such as CNN and the Biden White House, express concerns about a “mental health crisis,” they are (ironically) right to do so. A mere look at the state of our culture reveals a prevailing disregard for God; how could there not be a mental crisis, when there is such a drastic spiritual crisis? It is only the Church, however, which points out the true path to healing, the only way for man to become “fully alive.”

Endnotes

¹ https://www.who.int/news/item/17-06-2022-who-highlights-urgent-need-to-transform-mental-health-and-mental-health-care; https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/health/cnn-kff-mental-health-poll-wellness/index.html; https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/18/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-actions-to-tackle-nations-mental-health-crisis/

² Summa Theologica, I, q. 70, a. 3.

³ Ibid., I-II, q. 2., a. 5; I-II, q. 3

⁴ Ibid., I, q. 75, a. 4.

⁵ This summary follows the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, cf. Summa Theologica, I, q. 75-89.

⁶ St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 4.20.7.

⁷ https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1

⁸ See, for example, https://www.who.int/health-topics/abortion, https://www.who.int/health-topics/sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights#tab=tab_1

⁹ St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life (https://www.catholicspiritualdirection.org/devoutlife.pdf), 123.

¹⁰ Ibid.

 

TITLE IMAGE: Christmas Prayers, Henry Bacon (1839–1912).