Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry

226 Marcus M. McKinneycategory. A “middle ground” has been found indepth psychology. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist,wrote with a global respect for religionand medicine. A pastoral counseling program,from our experience, can welcome a wide varietyof religious backgrounds, including veryconservative religious groups that historicallyfound the psychiatric world hostile to theirviews. And more and more health practitioners(integrative and complimentary practitioners)are seeking a middle ground as well and havefound their way to the program. During thethirty-hour class, we include speakers frompsychiatry, medicine, and religion. The classmix encourages networking that often ends inreferral possibilities locally.Given the paucity of mental health providersin many areas, an increasing “counseling” burdenis now felt by average faith leaders (as wellas professional pastoral counselors). Offeringa training experience for these individuals toassist them in their roles, whatever they are, hasproved to be energizing for clinicians and faithleaders alike. The goal in such training is modestbut critically important: to provide a spirituallyrelevant and clinically sound forum for anyonewho would benefit from pastoral counselinginsight. Mental health practitioners, faith leaders,nurses, and lay leaders have all exhibitedinterest in these programs.Mental health providers, complimentarypractitioners, and spiritual leaders have participatedin pastoral counseling training becausethey feel the nature of their work requires regeneration.All of these disciplines are in the helpingprofessions. How do we care for ourselves? Formany, the insights of ancient spiritual wisdomsustain the modern calling of caring for the soul.A spiritually informed training can add insightinto ourselves and the culture we live in.One of my clients who arrived late on his firstappointment indicated he was “sent by his psychiatrist”because he had an obsessive- compulsivedisorder (OCD). For an hour he spoke of hisstruggle with this malady. After a few sessions, hereflected on how our sessions forced him to slowdown. He noted how he drove really fast on thehighway to get to work. He felt guilty for slowingdown, because it seemed he needed to keeppace with his world. The TV, the Internet, traffic,and even his cell phone seemed to be suffering,he said, from OCD.Putting our culture in contact with the wisdomof the ages is not a bad idea. In a culture thatsuggests more information, especially the latestresearch, is best, where is the voice to slow down?Is more always better?A male middle-aged patient in our cardiacrehabilitation class who built his career as anengineer gave our class some insight on this matter.He said he always minimized dreams. He feltthey were simply caused by worry or bad digestion.When he discovered he had to go for cardiovascularsurgery he got on the Internet to findout what it was like. After an hour or so he wasfull of information. Not all accurate of course. Butthe result was a feeling of panic. That night, justbefore surgery, he had a dream. Essentially it wascalm and – in his mind – boring. But it stayedwith him the next morning. Going into surgery,he felt one of the images of the “boring” dreamcalmed his nerves and gave him a sense all wouldbe okay. In our class, he said it ran against all hebelieved that a dream could help him, especiallyas an engineer. But he could only say it made thedifference. Spiritual leaders around the worldmight not be surprised at his story.6. STEP 6: BUILDING A REFERRALNETWORKA faith leader who has participated in a trainingprogram that is integrated as noted above mayreturn to his or her community setting talkingin a different way. Before such an experience, heor she might have said to someone, “Go to SaintFrancis Hospital, someone there can help youin the clinic,” or “please check your insuranceplan to find someone,” or “have you looked intothe yellow pages?” Now they are inclined to say,“Talk to Dr. Smith. Here is her number. I knowher well and she can help.”Sometimes referral networks begin with a singlecontact within an institution. For clinicians