Is Contemplative Prayer more efficacious in treatment of mental disordered than Behavioral Therapy

[Robert_Sock]

Absolutely. Read DBT’s post as it is confirming of what I said.

Really what helped the most is to have a spiritual director that had been through similar purifications and could recognize them and not try to fix them. During that period there were lots of issues for me- one is that everyone except the monk was trying to fix the cure God was giving me. The feeling of darkness, the feeling of being separate from God. the amplified and intense awareness of my sin and issues-- * all of these were the symptoms of God healing me *but anyone else I spoke with would try to address these symptoms of healing as issues to be fixed.

I can name a number of things that helped along the way but it was truly Gods power that healed me. There is so much to say but there are two things I would mention that God placed in me that helped above all else. I am not saying these are qualities I have, I am saying that God would shine these qualities in me and they more than anything else created the healing. The first quality I began to notice after a good long while of feeling only my issues amplified was “Holy Sorrow” I found a way to be deeply sorrowful for my own sin, for the pain in my life, and for the pain in the world that was “holy” that was not depression or sadness as the world would have it. This sorrow was different- it was deeply God filled and it became my very close friend after a couple of years in that purification. It gave me the ability to repent in a way that was far deeper and more honest than anything I had ever known before.

The second quality of the two was humility, but not a humility like I had known before, this like the holy sorrow, was a participation in Gods humility, Christs humility. Sometimes it would get so deep and it would feel like I was sinking down out of self until it would get so deep that I would find myself underneath my pain. Humility is the great healer of pain I have discovered. It takes away our need to be someone, or to define ourselves in comparison with others, it allows us to be comfortable with being nobody. If the mind or someone in the world steps in to accuse us of being a sinner, or incompetent, or not enough, humility can answer honestly “who cares, that’s why I need Jesus” and humility can say that statement sincerely and find great peace in it. I think it is a piece of the poverty of spirit that Jesus taught about in the Beatitudes.

To this day humility and holy sorrow are my surest foundation for growing spiritually, the monk I go see says “Hug the ground.” It is really important to know that none of this can be fabricated or created, it all comes about when God decides to bring it about but that is unlikely to happen if the person is not truly devoted to prayer and growing in union with God.

I can really relate to what you say. Looking back, I think God wanted me to drift off into atheism so that I could experience vanity and thus eventually grow nearer to Him than what I would have otherwise.

 

[franklinstower]

^^^^^

Makes sense to me.

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

Loss of concentration first. To some people in some circumstances a set of “behavioural” instructions might appear too complicated to follow exactly or memorise.

It might also in some circumstances smack of manipulativeness. At best behavioural therapy might actually be a form of wholesome instruction.

Next empty-headedness. You are spot on, I had the misfortune over a lengthy period to be impacted by many of those concoctions!

Incidentally I prefer to use a usual level of lighting and be free of background “music” but that’s just me. I think that it is worshipful to acknowledge God as provider by interceding out loud so we can give others faith to know a person or thing has been interceded for and that God has got it in the “pipeline”.

In my own history I was struggling for many years with undiagnosed learning differences, and that was depressing. Following healing prayers at a gospel camp I was given information to understand all about these!

I don’t very often do a formal process for contemplative prayer, but more incorporated it into active life and that has worked well. Like if there is music, or even if I am doing something, I can do it while wrangling over demons in my mind, or I can do it with clear simplicity. If it’s quiet that’s great too.

The important thing for me, is to be able to allow my mind to let energy run out of any topic that wants to take my mind and run away with it. Or more generally to be able to relax and be awake and aware, without necessarily needing to react mentally and emotionally but just letting the sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and even fleeting thoughts go by without having to focus and actively control the thoughts. Like let the thoughts out of their harnesses and wander a bit.

 

[lifeandhope]

Furthermore we mustn’t forget there are no easy definitions of “effective”. We may be able to tell after a while or after a lifetime. We may not “get over” our trauma in a lifetime but in God’s eyes that may be a success compared to what might otherwise have been.

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In many instances, the idea of getting over trauma is not realistic, possible, or desirable depending on the situation. Often, a better focus is to teach the client coping skills to deal with ongoing trauma and suffering. For me personally, I have focused on learning to cope with my suffering and on how to maintain a high quality of life in the midst of all of life’s circumstances. When I refocused my efforts from getting rid of PTSD symptoms to learning to cope with and ride out times of suffering, my quality of life dramatically improved. Many of my clients have benefited from this shift in focus as well. And to the specific topic at hand, contemplative prayer is a significant component in my healing and ongoing mental, emotional, spiritual, and even physical health.

 

[lifeandhope]

This is what I meant when I said prayer is taboo in psychology.

Perhaps this was the case in the past, but the majority of current literature, theory, and practice actively encourages prayer in mental health care and strongly supports incorporating a client’s spirituality as a critical component of effective psychotherapy. There is a growing emphasis on more wholistic and integrative care that embraces all components that come together that work together for mental health.

 

[Rosarydevotion]

I can give my brief testimony to the power of prayer on mental health.

I had been caught up for a while in the mental health system and it was a train that was going no where very fast. It wasn’t until my conversion to Christ, and a vigorous prayer life, did my mental disorders begin to dissolve through the power of His grace. So I second what another poster has said about intense prayer and purification. There is a reason why Jesus is called the Divine Physician. I makes sense, as we are body/soul composites, and modern psychology does nothing for the health of ones soul. Fasting, prayer, and penance, now that is what heals us.

For me, modern psychology only scratched the surface, whereas God came along and just dug the thing out of me over a period of time. Its actually very painful, but fruitful. Praise God!

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

There is no actual division between “mental health” and “spiritual health” although there are cognitive and faith-based approaches.

These approaches are correcting the same person, but from a different tool set and skill set of the practitioner.

One model I like from my first (and only) SD, was that a person has components of mental, spiritual, physical, social, emotional and sexual – the sexual being most closely associated with self-identification.

The world’s practitioners are too specialized in general, and have expertise is usually one or maybe two but rarely more. And they all tend to frame the issue entirely from their own expertise point of view, and treat in a sub-optimal way.

So if you go to a psychiatrist, he has expertise is giving you medication to reduce symptoms like something to help sleep or an antipsychotic. If you go to a psychologist, they will work with restructuring how we think about and react to things.

These all overlap and in fact are different aspects to the same body/mind. So in my case, I was determined to do what was supposed to be unlikely and I should not even expect it – that would be recovering from my severe “bipolar disorder” which had onset June 8, 2001. It ended up taking me for an almost 14 years ride in the most awesome Dark Night with many guides in many forms and some really exciting stories most people only get to see others experience IRL or on TV. Paying attention to the spiritual journey and the psychological health as slightly different measures of the same human being, has paid off more than synergistically. Also socially if I can’t communicate well or get anxious or upset about others’ speech or actions or sinfulness, that will impede progress in the other fields.

So if I look at “socially awkward behavior” as a “manic episode” or as a “demon possession” or for gosh sakes why not “nervous breakdown” (that’s kind of funny if you think about a bundle of nerves just collapsing or something) either way something needs to be fixed and not necessarily through any one particular avenue and maybe not even the one it seems like we think it is. Maybe there is a physical problem like with a hormone gland or something. Maybe there is now but wasn’t until we became very anxious about other things.

So my advice to anyone who doesn’t have one personal guide who is worthy and able to do the function of “general contractor” for your health, is to be your own. Listen to experts in the different domains, both secular and religious – not necessarily Catholic only but Catholic only still has a lot of richness. Look at how you see from the inside and from the way others react if you can learn about how they react and/or if they are honest you can learn from them as outward gauges of the specific weaknesses – I guess that’s part of the psychology aspect. Watch videos of spiritual teachers and psychologists – there are a lot of good TED talks, many but not all of them are good IMO.

Compare how the different measures and reference frames show you different sides of yourself; listen to many opinions even ones that contradict each other as weeds and wheat, and with faith the Holy Spirit can help integrate or choose how you end up. Medicine helps to reduce symptoms, but contrary to popular opinion and Big Pharmacy, the actual fix is going to be based on thinking and the heart/mind connection, if you will.

I could write a book on the correlation between psychological teachings and the teaching of Jesus, and still hope to. At age 55, I went back to school and took two years worth of psychology classes, and that gave me amazing insight to aid with all the other work. I decided not to pursue a degree, but it was awesome. I took classes in psych development, personality p, p of learning, cognitive p, intro to fieldwork in p, and p or sensation and perception. There is some really exciting work being done these days that to me show many ways where the psychological converges with spiritual, and in fact Jesus’ teachings can directly apply to improved mental, social, and emotional health in addition to spiritual.

It’s a bit like God having three persona (faces) in one entity – we can view truth from many different angles and now and then one angle gives an advantage over another, wnd sometimes it switches and goes the other way.