How Faith Groups can support and sometimes hinder those experiencing depression
Richard Wickison, Chief Executive, Stockport MIND

Richard’s talk explored a Christian perspective on mental distress, particularly depression, looking both at the common misunderstandings that can hinder recovery and the positive examples of Christian principles in practice to support people in recovery.

MIND supports a number of activities run by churches:

• ‘Thursday at One’ at Stockport Baptist Church – the church approached MIND to support what they wanted to do to offer a service to people both within and outside the church who were suffering from mental distress.
• ‘Start the Week’ – a support group held at Tiviot Dale Methodist Church on Monday mornings
• St Cuthbert’s in Cheadle fortnightly support group.

Some wrong assumptions are often made:

1. if you’re in a church, everything will be or should be fine
2. that being in despair means turning your back on God – although sometimes depression is caused by a loss of faith.

If you have a physical illness there will usually be people around you to support you, but if you are depressed, it’s more likely that no one will be around you.   There are exceptions, but people are often sidelined if they have a mental health problem.  Some vicars don’t understand.  This is not so much to do with religion but to do with the culture we live in.

The traditional Government attitude in the past has been that mental illness is dangerous and therefore people suffering from mental health problems should be kept out of the community.  This reflects on the attitude within communities and this attitude pervades into church communities. As a result, people often have to search until they find somewhere to accept them.  There are two assumptions often made in churches which can hinder the recovery of people suffering from mental distress:

1. Christians shouldn’t suffer from depression but have faith instead.
2. Being depressed and having faith are opposite to each other.

Stockport MIND has been invited to give talks in churches to counteract these assumptions.

Richard used the story of Elijah from the first book of Kings in the Old Testament to illustrate a biblical Christian perspective on mental distress:

Elijah who had done wonderful work for God, ran away from Queen Jezebel’s death threats.  He was the only prophet left, as all the others had been put to death.  Elijah was in despair and wanted to die.  He was not just sad, but suicidal.  There were a number of separate elements to Elijah’s recovery.  God helped him by:

• not telling him off for being depressed and having no faith
• allowing him to get out of the dangerous environment he’d been in
• sending an angel to bring him food and drink and keeping him safe so that he could sleep
• telling him to set out on a long walk of 40 days/40 nights
• rather than writing him off as a failure, reaffirming Elijah’s role as His prophet and giving him more work to do – work that carried risks and dangers rather than being safe and stress-free

Many of the principles behind the new holistic services being offered do in fact mirror Elijah’s recovery process although they were not developed with the story of Elijah in mind.  The following principles are used by MIND services to help people suffering from mental distress:

• don’t be judgmental
• support them to get out of a dangerous or bad environment if appropriate
• meet their physical needs
• encourage them to get involved in an activity (walking holiday for instance)
• help them look at their next steps and get them back to where they need to be so they can carry on with a fulfilled and meaningful life