Most theories of human behaviour postulate a relationship between the mind and the body. There are different concepts of what the mind is and its mechanisms of action, including the ability of the body to affect the mind. The duality of the mind and body answers a lot about human behaviour. Plato, Descartes and Aristotle through to more recent theorists have all contributed to this understanding. At its simplest, this theory can explain how someone can walk across a room. I think that I want to walk across the room (mind). I walk across the room (body). Pretty simple stuff – we’ve all done it!!!
Arguments against the dualist view postulate that since the mind is a non physical entity, how can it affect a physical structure like the body, and potentially violate laws such as the conservation of energy. And there are others…
Mental illness can significantly impair the relationship between the mind and the body. For example in Schizophrenia, it is thought that increases in the neurotransmitter dopamine are associated with hallucinations and delusions. The mind believes that there are things going on, where in reality, they are not. These are manifested in behaviour one can see. Functional MRI’s taken when people are hallucinating, indicate that associated areas of the brain are active during that hallucination. For example, the visual cortex lights up when there are visual hallucinations occurring. Interestingly, elderly patients with Parkinson’s are often treated with L-dopa which increases the amount of dopamine in the brain. Too much can turn an elderly patient with no history of mental illness into one with a fully psychotic episode. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8555378
Broadly, in the gospel, it is held that we are agents unto ourselves, free to act and not be acted upon. The assumption is that we have full control over our minds and then, by consequence, our bodies. Sins or other actions are taken to have had their genesis in the mind over which we have had full control. There are some broad exceptions to this like intellectual impairment and other similar conditions. Most people are happy with these exceptions and that it would fundamentally affect that persons’ ability to choose.
So what happens when something like a mental illness affects us? It can alter that relationship between the mind and the body. Messages can get mixed up. Clarity can fade. Behaviour can be changed.
Medical advancements like deep brain stimulation have radically affected the way we view people’s behaviour. Consider for example, this woman who had been severely depressed for her whole life. I can only imagine many peoples response to her depression. Get over it, pull your socks up, what have you got to be sad about?? After a short treatment of stimulating her brain, years of depression were in the past.
In the gospel, it is most often thought that we operate not in a mind-body duality, but in a mind-body-spirit triad. This is an infinitely more complex system. Interestingly, as in D&C 130, “the spirit is matter”. The Holy Spirit is there as the third member of the Godhead to teach and guide us, amongst other roles. How is this achieved? We are told that the spirit can speak to our mind and our heart. I think in this sense the mind is our brain, or our conscious thought. Our heart, in this sense, is our spirit. Neither of these “receptors” is perfect. Our minds can be cluttered, diseased, subject to mental illness. Our spirit can be insensitive, unsanctified and impure.
So…try to imagine, for a moment, all the things that might be going on for a person at any given time – for a healthy functioning person. Then add illness, add stress, add a death in the family, add a mental illness, add poor nutrition, add substance abuse. How confident might you be in assessing that persons motives, behaviours and intent. It becomes an infinitely difficult task.
We have all seen people judge someone and many of us have made monumental errors ourselves in judging others.
My observations in the church is that many do not offer the same leeway to people who live with a mental illness as those with other conditions. And whilst I am not making light of other physical conditions, nor am I saying that they do not affect someone’s mind, I am saying that most mental illnesses directly affect the way we think and therefore add another dimension to our lives.
I recently (after much pushing) taught a fifth Sunday lesson on Mental Illness. I was rather nervous about doing so as I knew of many in the Ward with such issues. After I finished I had several people come up to me and with tears in their eyes, tell me that they had never before heard someone speak so kindly and thoughtfully about these issues in the church. I was humbled at such positive remarks, but I also felt a sense of sadness, that these adult members of the church had never before listened to a talk or lesson that spoke positively about mental health issues.
There is a significant “behavioural” flavour to the gospel. That is, there is an attraction in teaching people to do things (which are potentially measurable) rather than be things (which is not). Do your family history, do missionary work, wear knee length clothing, one pair of earrings, do your home teaching etc etc… It may be a topic for another post, but I was doing a bit of thinking on Q15 and their ages and professional lives. Most of them were educated and did most of their professional work during the 50’s-70’s when behaviourism was king (B. F. Skinner and Pavlov’s dogs). Maybe it’s just a false correlation?
However, I am buoyed by the recent General level discussions about mental illness and its effects. Whilst many years overdue, it is very welcome. Unfortunately, much of this has not filtered down to the local level where I still hear the same old rhetoric linking someone’s obedience to being “healed” of their mental illness.
1. Do you feel a dichotomous position from the church – a sense of “just do it” on one hand, and yet an acknowledgement of mental illness on the other
2. What, if anything, should be done at a general level of the church in relation to improving or understanding of mental illness and gospel principles? At a local level?
Wheat & Tares 
Interesting thought provoking article!
There is a significant “behavioural” flavour to the gospel. Not really, this is just a common LDS misuse of the word gospel, in this usage gospel is confused and conflated with church teachings including the LDS checklist. The OT is behavioral oriented but as we move to the NT it becomes attitude oriented with the beatitudes from sermon on the mount and plain. This moves the area of focus into the mind and of course due to the mind body connection also changes behavior but that isn’t the main point. The main point is to become more Godlike, more loving and behavior is just a beginning lesson in that progression. Unfortunately behavior is also where the church happens to be significantly stuck.
I think what needs to change regarding talks about mental illness is that we need more psychologists called among the GA’s.
I am not sure the world needs more Psychologists any more than we need more lawyers….. I can’t even imagine what a General Conference might be like…..
When you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The corrolaries:
When most GA’s are lawyers, the church becomes legalistic and policy bound.
When most GA’s are corporate executives and businessmen, church administration is organized and run like a corporation.
When most GA’s are professional counselors and pyschologists? I don’t think we’ve ever come close, but it would certainly create a major shift in church policy, thinking and culture.
Very good post. I think of identity as tri-part: biology, culture, and eternal spirit. To me that means that at any given moment, I can only take credit for 1/3 of the choice I am making. Biological personality and cultural wiring are HUGE factors in our behavior.
So I don’t think we should judge anyone for wrong decisions until we have understood how much of them is responding to uncontrollable elements, and how much is truly free agency.
By the same token, good decisions cannot be universally lauded for the same reason. We cannot take credit for swiming in the right direction when there is a strong current carrying us.
I see psychology as a subset of spirituality. Deep and thorough repentance has many parallels and similarities to regression and insight therapy so much so that you might think of repentance as religion based therapy or (some) therapy as secular based repentance. If we had more psychologists among the GAs we would see more emphasis on personal repentance and following the spirit which actually resolves some things and less emphasis on rote obedience to bright-line rules which simply teaches discipline.
Psychology is ignored (maybe disliked?) by the brethren probably because 1) they are old, Freud the father of psychoanalysis died in 1939 and psychoanalysis is a very inefficient drawn out process so they probably weren’t favorably impressed during their coming of age and 2) psychology competes with their monopoly of authority and control over people (never mind that Jesus didn’t act that way).
We are quickly reaching the point where most of our nurture based psychological problems can be resolved in therapy provided the therapist is competent.
If you grew up LDS feeling somewhat loved without early abuse chances are you believe the church is on the right track in guiding people’s lives. But if love was lacking, abuse present and/or discipline inconsistent during your early upbringing your baseline resting stress level may be much higher than your more healthy pew mates, if so rote obedience and creating better habits may not work well or even at all for you. This is something the brethren and the church act deaf, dumb and blind to to so you are treated as an outsider, maybe even a trouble maker. Oddly if you’re trisomy 21 will probably buy you a pass and you’ll be adored even when you’re making too much noise for the talk to continue!
Thought-provoking post and comments.
On this specific issue, I am reminded of conversations I have had with two (active–if that is relevant) LDS psycho-therapists/psychologists. Both are strident in their condemnation of professional peers they talk to that work for LDS Social Services. My friends find LDSSS’ emphasis on a spiritual-based approach to counseling maddening–fasting and prayer being their primary approach for too many mental health issues.
I agree with Howard (#6) that the age and, therefore, cultural bias of our GAs (not just now, but always) is much to blame for the mindset we commonly see (andecdotally shown by LDS_Aussie’s experience in his 5th Sunday presentation). This isn’t the only area of Science the general Mormon population does not much respect nor apply.
My wife and I have long been amazed and disgruntled by the lack of skills teaching in our lessons at church. We aren’t taught how to better communicate with our teenagers, for example, we are taught faith, sacrifice, prayer and obedience (keep them “active” in church, make sure they are preparing for a mission and a temple marriage, etc.) are the solutions to all life’s problems.
One could say “why did God give us a brain if…” (but I won’t because HE didn’t, evolution did). Nevertheless we have them, but for anything related to personal behavior we are simply to–see list above–rather than turn to psychology/psychiatry.
Very thought provoking…..it reminds me of snook I recently read, “How Children Succeed.” Basically it was about how neuroscience effects our life outcomes; the most recent research is pointing to the fact that it isn’t poverty that breeds lie success, but that the amount of traumatic experiences one has during infant/childhood development drastically chemically alters the way a brain is able to make decisions–this calling into question the idea of everyone being given the same amount of “free agency.” It toes a little bit into mental health issues. On a related note my sister in prison has mental health issues, as do large chunks of the prison population. Sad that we lock up a major part of our poor mental health/addicted population instead of providing more rehabilitation.
Sorry for the threadjack, but I think BF Skinner has an uncanny resemblance to Christopher Plummer. See http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2011-12-15T051456Z_01_NYK15_RTRIDSP_3_USA.jpg
“many do not offer the same leeway to people who live with a mental illness as those with other conditions”
I had postpartum depression after the births of both children. I longed to be diagnosed with a disease, hit by a truck, have broken legs, etc. because then I could get help. Instead, I was just a mom who couldn’t do the work.
Also, I currently live in a ward with a retired director of LDS family services and several other therapists. The retired director was a far more loving and understanding stake president than the current one we have, but other than that, I don’t find having therapists in the ward helpful. There is too much focus on prayer, fasting, and scripture study to solve all problems, and I don’t find the culture to be one of acceptance or of a nonjudgmental nature. Instead it seems they are LDS first, therapist second. They simply bring their LDS views to therapy, thus saying your prayers will fix all your problems!
I served in the RS presidency with a therapist. I remember her discussing one of her clients in a presidency meeting who had sinned (I think it was a pretty big stretch to describe it as a sin) and they were working on solving that problem together. When I had PPD I chose not to see an LDS therapist because after working with this woman, I didn’t really believe that I would be likely to get the help I needed if she represented the LDS therapist view. I didn’t need help with sins; I needed help with depression.
(That’s not to say that all LDS therapists are that way, but I really didn’t want to weed through them to find a good one. I needed help sooner than that and was very pleased with the doctor recommended non-LDS therapist I saw.)
Howard – thank you for your comments. I should have used the word church where I used the word gospel. As you rightly point out, they are not the same
MH – not sure I agree with more psychologists in the GA ranks. It wouldn’t happen anyway, as it’s not in the culture. MBA’s and LLB are philosophically as far away from the humanities as you can be. I wouldn’t mind either of the latter as long as they care about people. Certainly most area presidencies don’t seem to be focussed on very much other than numbers.
And the fact that anyone looks like B F Skinner is disturbing….
Nate – yes I guess that where I was going with the post. A decision is so much more than what we see someone ‘decide’.
Kristine A – I think we will all be very surprised when we are before the judgement bar. Both for ourselves and anyone we know.
Elsie – just me …… I would never go to an LDS therapist.
Many in the church still have the medieval idea that the devil is the cause of mental illness. I still remember a relief society sister driving me to the ER, where my son had been taken after having a psychotic break. She talked about how Satan was very active in these latter days. ARRGH!