The Church and Mental Health
Editorial
Many readers will have been present at the opening session of the Annual Conference when the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke of the need for closer co-operation between church and medicine.
It is a sad indication of the gulf between the church and medicine that some surprise had originally been expressed at the ” novel” suggestion of inviting the Primate to open the Conference ; and it may be of value to reflect on how this gulf has been caused, and what can be done from our side to follow the Archbishop’s lead in trying to fill it.
Some of the earliest records of medicine described Hippocrates’ practice as being carried out in a temple, appearing to the patients as a representative of a god, if not a god himself ; ideas about psychological medicine have no doubt changed a great deal since then, but so have ideas about religion. In the early middle ages the church’s representatives were foremost in providing medical services, and some of the greatest of our modern medical institutions trace a direct descent from these. But there was a period in the late middle-ages when independent scientific enquiry was frowned upon by the church as subversive of discipline and sometimes blasphemous, and leading scientists were severely persecuted. There has also been a tendency among physicians and particularly those in their younger days, to limit themselves to the materialistic side of their work, and to disregard the intangible and invisible ; so much so that even now much of psychological medicine is either disregarded in this way or only grudgingly accepted ; consequently an attitude of suspicion and sometimes hostility has grown up between doctors who regard the clergy as unpractical visionaries, and clergy who regard doctors as atheistic materialists.
If mental health workers, whatever their discipline, are prepared to admit that it is what the patient thinks that influences his behaviour and health, they can scarcely deny that his beliefs are of some professional interest to themselves and that those who are also professionally interested in these beliefs are, or should be, their colleagues. On paper it is possible to separate the mind from the spirit, but probably nowhere else. Collaboration is therefore essential between the clergy and all concerned in mental health.
Doctors also are often hindered by their own variety of faith from helping a patient who lacks it, but they are all the same reluctant to seek the aid of the clergy. On the other hand they would not hesitate to condemn the shortsightedness of clergy who try to treat psychiatric problems unaided.
It is possible that doctors and clergy often disagree because they are too much alike in their tendency to dogmatic utterance; and expect their hearers to acquiesce without question in ritual phrases from pulpit or bedside. It would do neither any harm to have to justify their views in answer to questions from congregation or patient. The Archbishop warned us of the danger of loose thinking and loose phrases, and this must be applied to our assessment of our own work, and our views on that of others. Elsewhere we have stressed the need to restrict our claims of authority to the extent allowed by our training and this must still be remembered. But it also behoves us to understand what our colleagues’ training consists of, and for what they are best fitted, and in what part of our work they can best help us. We must be prepared to set aside our prejudices, and so soften theirs. We must make allowances for the legacy of suspicion from the past.
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