Printed from: https://archive.cmf.org.uk/advocacy/clinical-practice/psychiatry/?index=30
I have some sympathy for the character in Molière's play, who said: 'Good heavens! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it'.[1] I have been a practising Christian for a long time, but over recent years have found myself to be labelled with what other...
Mary is 72, has stopped eating and drinking, is profoundly depressed and believes she deserves to die.You consider giving her antidepressants but you know they may take a few weeks to work. She might die unless you intervene within a few days. A colleague suggests ECT (electro-convulsive therapy). What should...
Richard Winter is a psychiatrist and theologian who says one of the reasons why people are unsatisfied with life is because society is preoccupied with airbrushed and computer enhanced features, perfect bodies, perfect homes, designer babies. He says that people can be grouped into 1) non-perfectionists 2) healthy perfectionists and...
I recently had an interesting week at work. I explained true forgiveness to a lady whose depression was being fuelled by intense guilt then was asked about the meaning of life by a young man who had been given a diagnosis of schizophrenia. An older man was in despair due...
This is the second of two articles seeking to answer some of the questions that Christian students raise when they start psychiatry attachments. In my first article[1] I outlined a biblical model through which we can begin to make sense of the different secular models for mental illness from a...
Many Christian medical students find their psychiatry attachments daunting. They are in an environment where people talk about feelings, emotions and values, but in a way that may seem hostile to the gospel. This article aims to answer some of the questions that often confuse Christian students. For example: How...
Stories of out of body experiences, beliefs in life after death, or diseases affecting the brain all raise questions about whether our minds and our bodies are separate entities that have the ability to exist independently. Out of body experiences can occur under the influence of drugs, as part of...
In the last decade, mental health services have received much adverse publicity, particularly over homicides committed by psychiatric patients. This has given rise to the mistaken public perception, especially in the print media, that many psychiatric patients pose an increasing danger to other people. In fact the number of homicides...
As a working Christian minister I am becoming increasingly uneasy about certain groups in our society who are vulnerable to predators with nothing in mind except their own pleasure or profit. The two groups who have come to my attention are people in psychiatric wards and those with disabilities in...
