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