Matthew S. Stanford - Grace for the Afflicted: A Clinical and Biblical Perspective on Mental Illness

SINCE THE PUBLICATION of Grace for the Afflicted in 2008, significant changes have occurred both in my personal life and in the mental health care system. Ten years after its publication, I find myself in full-time ministry and part of a national conversation on the role of faith communities in mental health care. This has given me the opportunity to meet and talk with thousands of individuals around the country who live with mental illness and their families. Those conversations have given me greater insight into the topic and a better feel for the role that faith communities might play in the lives of those broken by mental health difficulties and disorders.

Within the mental health community, the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in 2013 dramatically changed how mental disorders are classified and diagnosed. These two factors have led me to revise and expand Grace for the Afflicted.

This new edition is consistent with DSM-5 diagnoses and includes updated neurobiological and treatment information on all disorders. There is a new section on neurological disorders (e.g., dementia), more examples and discussion of madness and mental health problems in the Bible, and new chapters on suicide, bipolar disorders, and trauma. Finally, I have included step-by-step information for setting up a holistic mental health recovery plan and a detailed guide on equipping congregations to better serve those living with mental disorders and their families.

These changes have been made so that Grace for the Afflicted might continue to be helpful for those ministering to the least of these.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), created in the very image of God (Genesis 1:26). Humans are complex beings, unlike any other living creature: the union of a physical body with an immaterial (nonphysical) mind and spirit. Jesus himself describes the complexity of the self in Mark 12:30-31. When asked about the greatest of all the commandments, Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5, responds by saying, LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.... [AND] LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. In other words, love God with all aspects of your being (your whole self) and through your relationships.

The four facets of the self are clearly outlined in Luke 2:52. Describing the development of the young Christ, Luke writes, Jesus kept increasing in wisdom [mental] and stature [physical], and in favor with God [spiritual] and men [relational]. So you and I, like the incarnate Christ, are a unity of physical, mental, spiritual, and relational facets, with each aspect affecting and being affected by all the others.

Physical. We exist in a physical body so we can interact with the material world around us. Our bodies have been specifically designed to take in information from the environment and relay it to our brains. We see, hear, taste, smell, and touch the world around us. The processing of sensory information by our brains produces thoughts, feelings, and emotions, which then result in some outward behavioral display. We are Gods creative masterpiece: a miracle of skin, bone, and blood formed from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). But at the same time we are so much more. We reason, we love, and we pray.

Mental. Are our thoughts, feelings, and emotions merely the product of neurochemical changes and electrical discharges in our brain? Or is our mind something moresomething immaterial, more than the sum of our parts? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. While the functioning of our brain is integral to the existence of our mind, that alone is not sufficient to explain it. Similarly, to imagine our mind as completely separate and unrelated to the brain doesnt seem correct either. Body and mind are intimately connected, each affecting the other. We retrieve a past memory of a fearful event in our mind, and our physiology reacts with a racing heart and sweaty palms. Our sensory receptors are activated by familiar stimuli in the environment and past thoughts, and feelings rush to consciousness.