The image of Psalm 69 is that of person drowning. The water has risen to my neck and I am about to go under. So we cry out to God.
A lot of us are feeling this way. Drowning. Pushed to the edge. About to crack. At our limit. Holding on.
Perhaps the question I am asked the most when I spend time with churches and organizations is this: "Are we really having a mental health crisis, or are people just more willing today to admit mental health problems?" The question takes many forms, like "Are kids today really more anxious than prior generations, or are they just using the word 'anxiety' more than ever?" Or: "Has mental health terminology creeped into normal everyday speech and is now being used to describe normal everyday experiences?"
The answer is that no one really knows. We have patterns and trends which are open to various narratives or explanations. My sense is that it's a bit of both. Our mental health crisis might be artificially inflated by an overuse of mental health terminology and a quickness to self-diagnosis ourselves. But I also think people are struggling. I don't think we need to get overly fixated on if our mental anguish is greater than that of prior generations. Pain is pain. Like Psalm 69, people are really drowning.
So, where do we turn?
The other question I'm asked a lot concerns the role of God in mental health. Religious folks tend to go in one of two directions here. Some, generally conservative folks, dismiss or avoid mental health technologies, from medicine to therapy. In this view, mental health problems are, at root, spiritual problems. The other view, more likely held by progressives, is that mental health is wholly a medical issue and that God doesn't have a lot to do with it.
I think both of these views are wrong. I don't think you can grow tomatoes by praying for them to appear out of thin air. There is this thing called gardening that God gave us to grow and cultivate tomatoes. In a similar way, God gave us technologies that promote mental health and well-being and it would be foolish not to use these when needed. And yet, I also think it's a mistake to ignore the role faith and spirituality plays in psychological well-being. As I describe in The Shape of Joy (due out in about two weeks), one of the best kept secrets of psychology is that faith and spirituality have been repeatedly shown to be predictive of health and happiness. God is good for you.
This isn't to say we should approach God in a therapeutic, utilitarian manner. I know a lot of pastors and theologians who worry about reducing God to "the therapeutic." I tend to respond to this concern with Augustine: Our hearts are restless until they rest in God. If God is our Creator and the ground of our being then it stands to reason that we'll thrive when we make contact with and abide in that ground. Mental health improves when psychology makes contact with ontology. Living in the real matters.
