I would point out that modern psychiatric diagnoses derive mostly from an unbelieving rational, “scientific” culture dating back to Freud, Jung, et al. As a Catholic physician, it was my experience that most physicians are non-believers, including (maybe, especially) psychiatrists…the modern thought police. This rational “scientific” culture has a dark, intertwined history of abusing nearly as much as helping the mentally ill. Consider the horrors of large mental institutions, psycho-surgery (like frontal lobotomies), electro-convulsive therapy, and the eugenics / abortions / sterilizations of Margaret Sanger and mass sterilizations / murders of Adolf Hitler. The latter behaviors stem from the very common, worldly view that the mentally ill are a dangerous blot and unproductive burden on humanity. They need sterilization or liquidation to “protect” society.
This worldly, rational, attitude has infected most of Western thinking, sadly including the Church.
All humans are sinners and most suffer maladies. Having hypertension, or asthma (even severe, or debilitating), or kidney disease is socially acceptable, but mental health disorders are unacceptable. Here, we see a two-class medical / social system, based on pride. “My health conditions are socially acceptable, so I am GOOD…but, your health condition is socially unacceptable, so you are BAD.”
One can only wonder how many prophets, hearing voices, and having visions, might be dubbed “schizophrenic” (i.e. BAD) by the rational “science” of modern psychiatry. Ecclesiastes certainly comes to my mind.
Acceptable and unacceptable mental experiences are often determined by the culture in which they take place. Consequently, the individuals reporting those experiences may be valued (they are GOOD) or rejected (they are BAD). For example, the Vikings had a cohort of obviously mentally deranged people, WHOM THEY VALUED, because these people were believed to obtain messages from the gods (kind of like Ecclesiastes). Some Native Americans ingested peyote buttons to get divine visions. Others went on long treks with fasting from water and food, to get divine visions (called a “vision quest”). In the Bible, Daniel only ate “pulse” (vegetables) to get dreams and visions.
In some cases, the Church may be excluding spiritually valuable people by buying into the diagnostic labels generated by a largely worldly, unbelieving, rational, “scientific,” medical community.
