IT'S WHAT'S MISSING IN MENTAL HEALTHBehind the quest for
spirituality lies a growing need for passion and depth in our lives.
That's why, David Elkins argues, psychotherapy still has a thing or two
to learn from religion.
DURING THAT FIRST THERAPY SESSION 20 YEARS AGO HE LISTENED TO ME AS
NO ONE had ever listened before. I told my story, the one I had
rehearsed, but he heard the truth anyway. Near the end of the session, he
said gently, "You are spiritually hungry." I began to cry. Me, a grown
31-year-old man. Because somewhere, deep inside, I knew he was
right.
For the next two years, under the guise of psychotherapy, I was
taught how to care for and feed my soul. The psychologist gave me the
skills I needed to build a life of passion and depth. Today, as a
clinical psychologist and university professor, I share this wisdom with
clients and students because I believe that spirituality is essential to
human happiness and mental health.
One of my graduate students told me she had gone for a walk on the
beach in the late afternoon. As the sun was setting, she climbed onto a
boulder at the water's edge. Gazing out to sea, she felt herself slowly
becoming one with nature--with the sun descending toward the horizon, the
waves crashing at her feet, the pastel colors that streaked the western
sky. She said, "In that moment I felt eternity. I knew these things had
gone on for millions of years before I came and that they would go on for
millions of years after I'm gone. It felt good to be alive, to be part of
all this. I was deeply moved and began to cry."
Contemplation, meditation, prayer, rituals and other spiritual
practices have the power to release the "life force" in the deepest
levels of the human psyche, levels that secular interventions cannot
reach. Indeed, new evidence shows that religious and spiritual
interventions can help when everything else has failed.
I encourage clients and students to first figure out what moves
them deeply--whether it's Beethoven, Garth Brooks or the Grateful Dead, a
hike in the mountains, or a day in an art gallery. Then, I help them
design a regular, structured program to incorporate these activities into
their life.
Studies show that most Americans want spirituality, but perhaps not
in religious form. Researcher Wade Clark Roof, Ph.D., from the University
of California at Santa Barbara, found that in the 1960s and 1970s baby
boomers dropped out of organized religion in large numbers: 84% of Jews,
69% of mainline Protestants, 61% of conservative Protestants and 67% of
Catholics.
Many left church and synagogue not because they had lost interest
in spirituality, but because organized religion was not meeting their
spiritual needs. In the 1990s and as we approach the millennium, it is
obvious that Americans are becoming more expressively spiritual.
National polls show that 9 out of 10 Americans believe in God and
consider religion important in their lives.
Spirituality is the fastest growing--one of the only
growing--sector of the publishing industry, with literally millions
buying books on the theme. Television programs such as Bill Moyers'
"Genesis: a Living Conversation" and Hugh Hewitt's "Searching for God in
America" have attracted large audiences. Newspapers and national
magazines, including Newsweek, Time and the New York Times Magazine
publish stories on "Faith and Healing," "Science, God, and Man" and
"Choosing My Religion."
But this rekindling of interest is not only a return to traditional
religion. An estimated 32 million baby boomers remain unaffiliated today,
turning instead to Eastern practices, new age philosophies, Twelve Step
programs, Greek mythology, Jungian psychology, shamanic practices,
massage, yoga and a host of other traditions and practices. Many find
spiritual fulfillment in music, poetry, literature, art, nature and
intimate relationships.
The trend toward alternative forms of spirituality figures
prominently on the spiritual landscape of America. More and more
Americans are finding in spirituality what they're looking for in
therapy--healing techniques and new inspiration.
As spirituality spreads, psychology can't decide to love it or
leave it alone.
Back when it was a new science, psychology tried to distance itself
from theological explanations of behavior and to discover its own truths
through scientific inquiry Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, even
declared religion to be nothing but a form of pathology--an obsessional
neurosis that grew out of feelings of infantile helplessness.
Mental health professionals have learned from their own clinical
experience that Freud was at least partly right--religion can be
neurotic. Even those who are sympathetic to religion are reluctant to
give it wholehearted approval. Many feel more comfortable referring
clients struggling with these issues to a priest, pastor or rabbi.
BUT SOME OF THE MOST RESPECTED INDIVIDUals in the history of
psychology--William James, Gordon Allport, Erich Fromm, Viktor Frankl,
Abraham Maslow and Rollo May--have made spirituality a major focus of
their work. And Carl Jung went so far as to say that spirituality was
such an essential ingredient in psychological health that he could heal
only those middle-age people who embraced a spiritual or religious
perspective toward life.
So like their forefathers, psychologists today are not unified on
their attitude toward religion. But they confirm that it plays some sort
of role in their patients' mental health.
