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OrthodoxCounselor.com
OrthodoxCounselor.com carefully brings
together the wisdom from the Orthodox Christian Church and counseling and psychology. Here you will
find links to the early Church Fathers, who were the first
healers of the soul. By their experience of God in prayer and
fasting, they studied the passions, and the process of how to
be healed. They are (and still are the healers) in our
journey towards Christ. An orthodox Christian
understanding of marriage and family life will help live out
the life we are called to live as Christians. Articles on
depression, anxiety and thoughts (logismoi) will give us a
better understanding of how the spiritual world intersects with
the biological and psychological. We seek also to assist
those recovering from anger problems and addictive behaviors.
May God grant us what we each need in our journey of
healing.
----Erik
Healing the
Mind: the Nexus between Contemporary Psychology and Early
Christian Practice
The fields of
medicine, psychology and religion are coming together again.
For centuries, the human being was viewed holistically and
these disciplines were interconnected and integrated. Over the
course of history they parted company and the body, mind and
soul were studied and treated separately. Now, these healing
paths are parallel and at times converging. Mental health
practitioners today embrace physical etiologies for what was
once a “thought,” “emotion” or “behavior.” They look to brain
imaging and antidepressant medicine to bring their clients to
greater mental health. Physicians are now more likely to refer
their patients for bio-feedback, hypnotherapy, stress
management and psychotherapy to help with physical healing.
Both medicine and psychology has pushed past the veil of
religion to understand how spiritual practices affect the body
and mind.
Because the
human being has an integrated body, mind and soul; these paths
of healing will always intersect at various points. These
intersections has many implications for us physicians, mental
health practitioners and clergy. We will address the nexus
points where physiology and spirituality meet and how this can
enhance our work. A summary of the clinical research of brain
imaging of those engaged in spiritual practice will help us
begin to uncover the mystery of how prayer affects the mind.
It is important to say, however, that prayer and the mysteries
of God are beyond measurement using a scientific model. It is
not our purpose to research the unsearchableness of God’s
divine energies and the holy mysteries of where the heavenly
and the earthly meet; but on what is searchable,
understandable and replicable, we have an obligation (just as
the desert fathers and healers of the ancient church did) to
report our findings.
In the early Christian Church,
the human person, was studied by the psychologists of the day,
that is the desert fathers and mothers, and the theologians
who researched the human soul and its illnesses, by seeking a
direct experience with the energies of God. The church fathers
defined aspects of the soul, studied the passions, that is,
the main soul sickness of each individual and discovered the
healing method for each. The nous , or “eye of the mind” has
been darkened as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve, and
thus mental disorder entered the world along with physical and
relational illnesses. Prayer, meditation, fasting, communion
with the Saints, and other ascetic practices were all part of
healing the nous. Most interestingly, these scientists of the
soul, came to similar conclusions and understandings over many
centuries and from different parts of the world.
By comparing and contrasting
these Eastern Christian practices with modern psychology, we
will explore how incense might be affecting the limbic system
of someone who is struggling with Major Depression. We will
look at how the medical community turned to spirituality to
heal addiction through the 12-step movement of Alcoholics
Anonymous, whose principles mirror that of the early church
with repetitious prayers, sponsors, and a similar
understanding of the human will. By examining the “counseling
session” in the desert between the spiritual father and his
disciple, we can learn how to deal with assaultive thoughts or
logismoi.
For the full paper:
Healing the Mind (in MS Word)
Healing
the Mind
(in PDF)
I would love to correspond with any of you who specifically
wanted a copy of the paper who were were at the IMPR
conference. Please
email me. Erik
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