We need to better inform ourselves about mental health care

By David Lichter, D. Min.
Executive Director

We have all been aware of the national debate on gun control and mental health in light of the Newtown, CT, tragedy. As I write this column on April 8, 2013, the political news continues to expose the deeply conflicted stances on gun control. However, the public discussion on mental health related to gun control seems to have waned a bit. Part of the reason for this was the clear and decisive information about the minimal relationship of mental health to gun violence. One helpful article was written by Richard Friedman, M.D, “In Gun Debate, a Misguided Focus on Mental Illness,” in the New York Times, published Dec. 17, 2012. Mr. Friedman stated that “there is overwhelming epidemiological evidence that the vast majority of people with psychiatric disorders do not commit violent acts. Only about 4 percent of violence in the United States can be attributed to people with mental illness. However, a general public understanding of and care about the pervasive presence of mental illness is still lacking.
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Chaplains can let mentally ill know they don’t walk alone

By Elaine Chan, MSW, MDiv, BCC

On Good Friday I got a referral to see a Roman Catholic patient whose adult son had died recently. The woman was lying in bed and spoke very softly, almost inaudibly. As I listened carefully I learned that she was upset about her son’s death and that the staff would not give her medication to dull her emotional pain. She said she did not really want to talk, just to get her medication. A few days later I saw her again but she repeated her request for medication. The doctor had requested “spiritual care” because he did not see the need for more psychotropic drugs. But unfortunately the woman was adamant about receiving medication and was not receptive to spiritual care.
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Four lines of pastoral inquiry chaplains to ‘comprehend the human soul’

By Rev. Craig Rennebohm, PhD

As chaplains, we are daily witnesses to the importance of faith and the power of spiritual practice in healing and recovery. We share our experience largely through narrative, through parable and personal story. We mine verbatim accounts of our conversations with patients for insight. We bring to bear a phenomenological approach, richly describing moments of the soul, drawing on the wide range of human knowledge to help us understand and explain, moving toward ultimate wisdom and theological truth. At our best a constant qualitative reflection guides our pastoral work. The practices of contemplation, meditation and discernment, individual and collective, help us shape the body of knowledge in spiritual care.
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A case study: Using mantras in pastoral care to help patients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

By Gerald M. Gundersen, BCC

One of the inspirational leaders in my Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) training at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC, was Anton Boisen, a man suffering from mental illness who over the course of his long life contributed so much to CPE training and the grounding of chaplain candidates in “real world” spirituality. His ability to merge behavioral science with pastoral care is imbedded in CPE training and reflected in the basic elements contributing to his case study method: intergroup relations, verbatims, spiritual need assessments, a practical, “hands on” experience, and shared learning. Pastoral care was not to be isolated from other disciplines but linked in ways that would provide mutual respect and mutual support. His approach to CPE provided an enduring example of best practices.
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Q&A with Donna Markham, OP, PhD

By Sandra Lucas, MDiv, BCC

Donna Markham OP, PhD, vice president of behavioral health services for Ohio- and Kentucky-based Catholic Health Partners (CHP), is convinced that over the past 20 years, the quality of effective treatment for the severely and persistently mentally ill has been steadily declining.

      Donna Markham, OP
 

“Many healthcare facilities have closed acute care behavioral health units or cut back staffing to the extent that care is largely custodial,” she told Vision. “Private, state and federal funding for mental illness has been drastically reduced. This has resulted in behavioral health being a loss leader in the healthcare industry and, as a consequence, caused many hospitals to discontinue serving this population. Many persons suffering from mental illness have thus been left to fend for themselves, often homeless and in critical need for care.”
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Gifted journalist reveals inner thoughts at husband’s diagnosis, hospital treatment, end of life

By Marilyn Williams, MSHHA, MTS, BCC

Amanda Bennett’s memoir spans the meeting of her husband, Terrence Foley – “Mr. Bow Tie” in Peking, China, when she was a Wall Street correspondent, to his death from cancer at the University of Pennsylvania in December 2007. As chaplains we have the privilege of seeing and hearing snippets of similar stories, but Bennett’s book is unique in letting us know an entire story through the eyes and words of a gifted journalist. Bennett says her story is about marriage and love, about a man and his life, and “about family and everything we did to try to save the husband and father at the core of it”
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Relationship key to integrating spirituality though small group meditation

By Kathleen Hagerty, CSJ, MA

In 1998, when I came to the Solomon Carter Fuller Mental Health Center in Boston, MA, my hope was to minister to the mentally ill and to be able to integrate spiritual care into the life of our three locked units as an interfaith chaplain.

Believing that our clients had the capacity for and an interest in spiritual care, I developed programs that assisted them in discussing their spiritual or religious concerns as well as offered opportunities for quiet time for prayer and reflection. My hope was that they might deepen their relationship with God and one another.
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Assist the mentally ill to live full lives: Approach all with dignity, personalize accommodations, educate, advocate

By S. Frances Smalkowski, CSFN, RN, PMHCS, BC, BCC

The Monroe convent home of 30 sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth is less than nine miles from the December Newtown tragedy. Our sisters were and still are intimately involved in prayer and presence as the Spirit directs. The actual day and time of this horrific happening I was out of state with a college friend en route to breakfast. “Prophetically,” as we were driving out of her living development, she commented on all the parents who were waiting with their children for the arrival of the school buses. Her words contained a word that was painful for me to hear (since I consider myself a mental health advocate). That I did not address that “word” was a testament to my own “lapses” in the same area of using insensitive and stereotypical speech about those who live with mental illness. She said: “It's a shame that the parents have to wait here until the last minute to put their children on the buses. They never know when any of the ‘crazies’ will come around.”
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