Grace for the mind: The Christian and mental health treatment
By Summer Martin
“You don’t need medicine, you just need faith”. “You have depression because you don’t fully rely on Jesus. Stop taking the meds, and increase your faith”. Boy do these statements really cook my grits. To me these comments are the same as “Your child would still be alive if you had enough faith”. Which has been one of the reasons I wanted to write this. I have always had a soft spot for psychiatric patients in my years as a nurse, and even more so for people in general who battle against mental health disorders. Since starting this certification program for Biblical counseling I’ve come across conversations that rotate around the sentences above, which has put this need in my life to write this article. I have started and stopped several times, but the need just grew. I feel like it needed to be written for the fact that Christians should know that it’s okay to take the medications if needed.
Now a little about me, in all my years as a nurse I have come to almost loathe medication administration if the underlying issue can be cured or managed without them. For instance, someone with type I diabetes more than likely a person is going to have to have medications; but for someone like me (who at one point) was diagnosed with prediabetes, or others who were not born with it but their lifestyle caused type II diabetes, why can’t their lifestyle and diet be adjusted? Granted if their blood sugars are remaining elevated, they will need medication to manage acutely. Or lets say someone has high blood pressure, like I do, they need medication in order to keep it in normal range. So who’s to say someone wouldn’t benefit from some sort of mental health medications.
The term mental health has such a stigma surrounding it. If you admit that you go to a therapist, or admit to taking any sort of mental health medication you are seen as the pink and purple polka dot weirdo walking around. Even more so when you tell them you are a Christian. Because when you’re a Christian everything is sunshine and rainbows right? Wrong, see my article on suffering. But the Bible even has people who suffered with mental health, an article from Reclaim Today lists some of them: Hannah (1 Samuel 1: 1-20) who knew about grief, sorrow, depression which led to anorexia (not eating); Elijah (1 Kings 19) who felt helpless and terrified; Job (Job 1-42) who lost literally everything, deep sorrow, hopeless and confusion; and David (Psalm 6, 13) who had all the feelings, particularly depression in some of the Psalms.
A lot of times mental health disorders affect different brain chemicals or the electricity in the brain. Medications can correct that. Bring levels and electrical impulses back to normal. Even though I agree with taking the medications if needed, I don’t believe they are the end all, there has to be work put in with it. Which is where Biblical Counseling comes in for Christians. A certified biblical counselor cannot prescribe, but if they have questions about medication, the counselor can refer them to their primary care who can help and maybe get them in touch with a psychiatric practitioner. While they get their lab work normalized, we will be able to work together to come to what God says about the situation that placed them in that situation. Depression, gluttony, anxiety, etc. They are all roots of something more, yes they have physical symptoms, but in order to relieve the entire problem, you have to get to the bottom of the sin problem.
There is actually a Christian neuroscientist named Aaya that I came across on TikTok, who talks about how the seven deadly sins impact not only your spirit but your brain. She goes on to say “Pride overstimulates the ego and shuts down empathy. You literally lose the ability to see people clearly because the part of your brain responsible for self awareness goes dim. Envy hijacks your brain’s reward system making you crave what others have instead of what’s yours. Over time your brain starts rewiring itself for bitterness and lack. Wrath keeps your amygdala on fire, that's the fear and the fight center of your brain. So your brain stays in survival mode while your logic shuts down. Sloth isn’t just being lazy, it’s a loss of drive. Your dopamine levels drop and your brain stops seeking success, purpose, or pleasure in the right places. Greed floods your brain with short term dopamine the more you chase, the less you feel. That’s how addictions happen. Gluttony overstimulates your pleasure centers and then numbs them, you keep consuming but satisfaction never happens. Lust when disconnected from love weakens impulse control and deep connection. It wires the brain to crave bodies and not bonds. They don’t just hurt your spirit but rewire your brain.”
I mean look at sloth and greed for instance, those dopamine levels drop, or you just get a short shot of dopamine which is the happy chemical. We chase whatever it is in order to produce that happiness, We crave it. So if we do not have a natural “normal” level of this in our bodies due to the choices that we make, medications can help. It doesn’t mean that a person has to stay on them all their life. And as I stated before, medication will not address the main problem: sin, but it can help to allow those levels to be maintained where they should be in order to receive the counseling that needs to take place. We need to realize that medication by itself will not produce the obedience that is needed to address the sin.
My final thoughts here are that I believe that my God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, can do mighty things, and can heal anything if it is in his will. That Scripture is sufficient to address all mental health issues. This quote by Jeremy Pierre from The Gospel Coalition stood out to me “And proclaiming the gospel is the primary way we exercise dominion, psychiatric medication may be understood as a legitimate outworking of the dominion function”.
Ultimately it is a conviction between you and the Lord. Seek Biblical guidance, and if needed, seek professional guidance as well.
