In light of Mental Health Month, we talked with two counsellors about how we approach mental health both as Catholics and in time when it feels more prevalent than ever.

How do we deal with and approach mental health as Catholics?

Sister John Mary Sullivan: 

As Christians, an understanding of the human person is the fullness of life. We want wholeness in healing in every aspect of someone’s life: physical, spiritual, and emotional. And all those things are all interrelated. 

To know the fullness of spiritual life is to address all areas. That being said, the great gift of our understanding of the human person, in areas of woundedness, such as mental health, is that those things can be means of spiritual wholeness. As we struggle with things like depression and anxiety, they don’t have to inhibit spiritual growth but be a means of our spiritual growth.

Trisha McManus: 

You start from the basic Catholic understanding of the human person: who and what we are made for. If we have that in order, then the rest is easy. Take for example existential questions, the anxiety that arises in young people who are looking for purpose, meaning, etc. There are countless examples of different mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, or even familial/relational conflict that are, at a basic level, crisis of meaning. They can be resolved, or given new meaning, or appreciated as a means to growing towards a person's full potential, or their highest purpose - Heaven. Often, a battle in the mind can be a battle for virtue. It can be complex and different to pinpoint what may be going in a person or a couple, or family - but in the grand scheme of things it more often than not points to a journey of growth in some personal virtue. 

Probably the most important part of my philosophy is on emotion. We want to avoid two equal and opposite errors. One is that emotions should rule our lives--if it feels good, do it. If you want it, get it. We Catholics rightly react against this, but we sometimes react by falling into the opposite error, seeing emotions as simply obstacles to our happiness and fulfillment. We have to remember that we are made in the image of God, particularly of Christ. Christ felt deeply. He wept when Lazarus died. He wept over the sins of Jerusalem. He felt exasperated at his apostles. He became angry before cleansing the Temple. He was "sorrowful unto death" in the Garden of Gethsemane. He let Judas, his friend, hurt him emotionally: "Friend, why are you here?" "Do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" So emotions are important and not a flaw in God's design, but actually quite purposeful in our humanity and useful in relationships, deeper understanding of ourselves and others. Emotions are poor masters, but great servants - the idea is that when they act in accord with our reason as opposed to against it, they are doing what they are made for. 

What we need is to understand what we feel, and why we feel it, so that we can then have the autonomy to make fully human choices that acknowledge our emotions, rather than making our emotions our masters or trying to squash them altogether. In other words we need to have right relationships with our emotions, rather than rejecting them as weak or a flaw in our nature - we befriend them as a means of deeper knowledge of ourselves and our tendencies and then we have the opportunity to grow in virtue by making decisions that out of reason, assisted by the emotions not the other way around. 

How do we balance the power of supernatural healing and the need for medicine?

Sister John Mary Sullivan: 

We often have no doubt that God can heal. Some of us have probably seen it and experienced it. But the mystery is around when some are healed and some are not. 

Once again, not being healed in a certain area of mental health, could be our means of leaning more into our relationship with God. And a means to which we reveal to others how to live with faith, hope, and love in the midst of physical and mental health struggle. This is one realm. 

The other area is that fact that we want human flourishing, God wants that, and He provides means on a natural human level to which we can move towards that. It’s not only okay but we should seek those natural means of healing. It is not the opposite of God’s working in it but it is in those relationships, therapeutic processes, that God can work miraculously in what seems so natural. They aren’t opposed to one another. 

We can go back to regular physical health… If I have cancer, I’m going to pray but also seek physical health. They aren’t opposed in a Catholic perspective. There is always a strong embracing of both faith and reason. And working within those two realms because they are all leading towards the same, truth, and beauty. 

There are two extremes we can get stuck in. We can dismiss the supernatural and lean into only the natural. Or we can over spiritualize things and think that it's a lack of faith or something you’ve done morally wrong that is contributing to this or causing all this… And that is where we have to hold the middle ground. We recognize there can be significant illness that doesn’t have anything to do with our moral and spiritual standing. And yet, growing in our spirituality and relationship with God, is wonderfully grounding and strengthening. 

Trisha McManus: 

This not something a marriage and family therapist typically does, however, I have on some occasions recommended that a client see a medical professional on the matter if it will help their overall functioning. For example, therapy is quite a bit of work; it's not magic where a client can just show up and "Poof!" They are healed. It requires a collaborative effort, largely on the client's part, to really dive into and grow in awareness and autonomy when it comes to their own healing. There have, however, been clients with debilitating anxiety and depression that clearly required some chemical balancing to aid in their progress in therapy and overall functioning. I would take the route of making sure that this is more than just a season, environmental factors, etc before going the route of medication - but I do see value in it, especially for those who are struggling to function even on the most basic level despite their best efforts towards healing, for an extended period of time and a medical professional deems the client to be undergoing a chemical imbalance. 

It feels like mental health is just as much work as physical health in today's world. What are the basic principles you would recommend for us as not just healthy minds but healthy, God-centered minds? 

Sister John Mary Sullivan: 

It’s definitely harder to pinpoint. When it’s physical, it's so clear to others and ourselves. With mental health, it's a harder dynamic. Some basic things: 

  1. Daily routine - And an element of prayer in that routine. This helps get us through anxiety and depression because we are grounded.

  2. Physical health - Focusing on things like sleeping patterns and eating habits. The physical realm has an impact on us spiritually. 

  3. Relationships - When we stay connected and we don’t isolate, we get relief of not having to carry it all alone. And this is the relationship with God and others.

  4. Acts of service  - When we can get outside of ourselves and do things for others, especially when we don’t want to, we aren’t stuck within ourselves. We are less likely to experience anxiety and emotional swings within ourselves because we are pushed outside the view of our own circumstances.

  5. Gratitude - When we face real struggles, and we can find just one thing to thank God for at the end of the day, it shifts our mindset and gives us greater context to see those struggles and pains.

My one recommendation would be for Sanctuary, a free 8-session series on mental health in the faith.

Trisha McManus:

 This is a question I am most interested in, because this is very much in line with my philosophy for change, especially with those seeking to live in the fullness of Truth as Catholics. My recommendations are to attend to these things with the same attention that you do to healthy eating and exercise: 

1. Mass more than just on Sunday.  

2. Confession regularly. 

3. Spiritual Direction. 

4. Spiritual reading, especially of the classics--St. Augustine, G.K. Chesterton, Jacques Phillipe. 

5. Surround yourself with sound and like-minded individuals. If you're charismatic, join a charismatic community. If you're a contemplative, find other contemplatives. If you don't know what spirituality is most inline with you - try them on! Our faith and our church is so rich with literature, traditions, history. We have resources new and old within our Catholic Church - but it is a matter of finding them. So finding and participating in a community with sound doctrine and good human and spiritual formation would really streamline this goal for health, happiness and holiness both here on earth and in Heaven. 

Next Steps?

We understand finding the right resource or support can be overwhelming, but we want to do our best to help guide you in the right direction. You can check out the list of support resources below. 

The Sanctuary Course is a study guide for small groups, designed to raise awareness and start conversations in local churches regarding mental health - https://sanctuarymentalhealth.org/

For those in the Diocese of Vancouver - https://behold.catholicvan.com/services 

For those in the Diocese of Columbus - https://beholdcolumbus.org/services 

Thank you to Sister John Mary Sullivan and Trisha McManus for your time.