Psychiatric Diseases in the Context of the Christian Experience. Part 2.

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleПсихические болезни в контексте христианского опыта. Часть 2.
3. Language term Russian
4. lemma author Asliturk, Miriam
5. lemma category Scientific theories and disciplines > Medicine - Scientific theories and disciplines > Psychology-Psychoanalysis
6. Publication date 09-07-2018
7. lemma work Ларше, Жан-Клод [Author]. Психические болезни в контексте христианского опыта. Часть 2.
8. lemma manifestations Церковь и Биоэтика: Церковно-общественный совет по биомедицинской этике при Московской Патриархии.
9. Keywords Early Church Fathers - Christian faith - depression - mental health - ethics - psychiatry and Christianity - treatment of disease
10. Url Click Here
11. Citations
    1. <p>Ларше, Жан-Клод (2010). Психические болезни в контексте христианского опыта. Часть 2. <em>Церковь и Биоэтика: Церковно-общественный совет по биомедицинской этике при Московской Патриархии.</em> Retrieved from: <a href="http://bioethics.orthodoxy.ru/analitika/eticheskie-problemy-psikhiatrii/302-">http://bioethics.orthodoxy.ru/analitika/eticheskie-problemy-psikhiatrii/302-</a> </p>
12. Lemma body

    1. According to the author, the Church fathers believed that diseases could be caused by evil spirits or demons. This view has nothing to do with the European Early Modern era witch hunt. For the Church Fathers, possessed people were not conspiring with the devil but rather were his victims that needed help. Modern psychiatrists treat accounts of patients that claim being possessed by evil spirits as symptoms of psychiatric disease. However, there are researchers who claim that these accounts can be systematic and not chaotic.[1] 

       The Church Fathers also see a spiritual basis in psychiatric diseases. Notably, they see such diseases as overdeveloped passion. This type of psychiatric disease is very important because it describes most neuroses and psychoses. This symptom is very well presented in pride, in Christian terms, or narcissism, in Freudian terms. Aggressiveness here is described as an overdeveloped passion of anger; asthenia as dejection; phobias as a passion of sadness.

       Christian treatment of psychiatric diseases is based on the tradition of Christian ascetics and mystics that put a patient’s attitude toward God at its centre. Modern existential therapies adopt this Christian interpretation of psychological diseases. The interconnection of sadness and dejection is well known as a symptom of depression. Unfortunately, today many treat depression with medicine, and this is justifiable in certain cases, but the majority of people who suffer from depression have it because of existential problems. The Christian answer to depression is seeking and explaining the meaning of human life.

       In conclusion, the Church Fathers’ heritage in the treatment of psychological diseases is the active involvement of patients in their treatment, the need to trust them and be compassionate toward them.

        

       [1] Van Dusen W. The Presence of Other Worlds New York, 1974.