Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 1, 1994 TAG: 9407010056
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By ELI HECHT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 1994 edition, has added a new category entitled ``Religious or Spiritual Problem.'' Here is what it says.
This category can be used when the focus of clinical attention is a religious or spiritual problem. Examples include distressing experiences that involve loss or questioning of faith, problems associated with conversion to a new faith, or questioning of spiritual values that may not necessarily be related to an organized church or religious institution.
This important entry to the ``bible'' of mental disorders comes somewhat as a revelation. This confirms the popular belief that mental health professionals did not recognize the intrinsic value of religion. As of 1994, religious conflicts will not be treated as a mental illness; they will be treated as a spiritual problem. Mazel Tov - congratulations! The consumer treated in therapy is now safe to express religious feelings without being accused of instability. Hallelujah!
For some reason known only to those in the mental-health field, it's only now OK to be religious. The antagonism between the religious and secular healers is over. Healers of the soul and those of the mind are in harmony.
To the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association, I say thank you. On behalf of millions of worried religious people, I congratulate you for your newly acquired sensitivity of religion.
However, as a pastoral counselor and clergyman, I'm completely flabbergasted. I wonder, when did the mental-health practitioners have this revelation? Why did it take so long? To borrow a good psychological term, what suddenly possessed the American Psychiatric Association to become so liberal?
In the '70s they were the so-called ``enlightened'' for removing homosexuality from the list of personality disorders. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders considered homosexuality normal while religion was not. Why, finally, in 1994, are we freed of religious stigma?
It is important to take notice that some of the enlightened (read anti-religious) psychotherapists have ended up in trouble with the law. Thus, the medical society has been embarrassed. There are many cases against their colleagues for fraudulent practices, sexual scandals, therapeutic practices that are costly and have no real benefits.
It is also most unfortunate that psychiatrists are the ones who have the highest rate of suicide among professionals. Without overstating the case, I believe that a more important question is to be asked.
When will religion accept mainstream, secular, relativistic, humanistic psychiatry as normal?
The founder of psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud, theorized that Moses was an Egyptian officer, not a holy man and, subsequently, classified religion as a comforting illusion to be outgrown with maturity. ``Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis,'' wrote Freud in ``Future of an Illusion.'' Carl Rogers, in his studies of troubled personalities, claimed that Jesus was really a man after all.
Thereafter, Rogers proceeded to drop religion. Psychiatrist Ernest Rudin, known as the greatest authority of ``psychiatric genetics,'' was also honored by Germany's medical leaders for establishing the ``German Society for Racial Purity.'' He was an anti-religious Nazi doctor for the German leadership.
The common denominator of the founders of the mental-health field was a lack of religious understanding.
Major schools in the mental-health field always have treated religion as a disease of the mind, playing a role in falsely comforting or tormenting mankind.
It's been noted by humanistic and self-actualization theorists that we do our studies on people who have abnormal lives and then set the standards for normal behavior.
I believe it would be far better to study the life-styles of normal, healthy, God-fearing people and then set the standards. However, psychiatry does it in reverse.
I recently asked a psychotherapist, ``What would you do to a person who told you he spoke to God? What would you do if he said that God spoke to him?'' The psychotherapist replied, ``In my estimation, this person belongs in a hospital. He most probably is suffering from a questionable psychotic condition leaning towards schizophrenia and depression, I think.''
Well, well, that puts many of our great prophets and religious teachers in the hospital.
I know that many of my colleagues never recommend a psychiatrist. They claim that religious behavior always weakens after therapy. They have a valid point, even though I don't agree with them. There are those few who tell their clients to turn to religion. Maybe there should be more religious therapists.
A story is told about a Hasidic rabbi who meets a philosophical skeptic. The skeptic says he doesn't believe in God. To this the rabbi answers, ``The God that you reject, I, too, reject.''
The religious concepts of God and religion are very different for the irreligious. For the God-fearing person, God is a vibrant, living, exciting force that pulsates his life. For the irreligious person, perhaps God is perceived as sterile, untouchable, uninteresting or imaginary.
There must be a way to truly bridge the gap between the world of mental health and religion. The psychiatrists and psychotherapists must make room for bona fide religious faith and experience. The religious leadership must have a place for the sincere, selfless mental-health practitioner.
Will we ever bring these two fields together? I think, yes, and we are on the way.
By putting God and religion back into the medical lexicon, mental-health practitioners give spirit back to man.
When I went to yeshiva, a Jewish school, I was told that everyone believes in God. In making the point my teacher told us the following amusing story. When asked about God, a hospital psychiatrist stated, ``Thank God, I'm an unequivocal atheist.''
Eli Hecht is a rabbi and director of Chabad of South Bay in Lomita, Calif., an orthodox Jewish organization. He wrote this commentary for the Press-Telegram of Long Beach.
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