“Finding Jesus In The Storm” with John Swinton

Shownotes:

The language surrounding mental health often limits the fullness of each complex human experience. Stigma, stereotypes, and media representations perpetuate one-dimensional portraits of what it means to live with a mental illness. Additionally, Christians tend to view sadness and joy in a narrow manner, when the Bible speaks to a vast array of human emotions we all experience. With all of this in mind, how can we speak about mental health in a more liberating and comprehensive way?

In this episode, Chris and Eddie speak to John Swinton, author of “Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges.” A registered mental health nurse, Swinton has listened to the multi-layered experiences of Christians who deal mainly with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Swinton maps out what it looks like to redefine health and healing in the context of connection, he speaks to the unique resources and community that the church can offer, and he addresses the sense of abandonment that Christians feel, especially when dealing with depression. We hope that this episode gives you permission to move through your story with freedom and greater imagination.

Resources:

Check out John Swinton’s book “Finding Jesus in the Storm” here

Follow John Swinton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnswintonabdn 

Transcript:

Eddie Rester 0:00

I'm Eddie Rester.

Chris McAlilly 0:01

I'm Chris McAlilly. Welcome to The Weight.

Eddie Rester 0:03

Today's guest is one that I didn't get to spend a lot of time with, Dr. John Swinton, talking to us about not just mental health but mental health kind of placed in a larger context.

Chris McAlilly 0:15

Yeah, Eddie comes in mid-conversation

Eddie Rester 0:18

Sweeping in, right.

Chris McAlilly 0:19

He comes sweeping in and dashing questions and in presence. It was your daughter who got an award today.

Eddie Rester 0:28

She got several awards. It was senior awards day. I've got, we'll be empty nesters. Proud father. She was Hall of Fame at Oxford High School amongst some myriad of other one major awards.

Chris McAlilly 0:39

Watch out. Go ahead and brush your shoulder.

Eddie Rester 0:41

There you go, I'm just gonna brush my shoulder off right there.

Chris McAlilly 0:43

John Swinton is the Chair of Divinity and Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He had a career, though, before going into theology as a registered nurse specializing in mental health. And that combination, his work as a practitioner in the mental health field combined with his research and kind of deep dive into Christian theology makes for a really fascinating conversation today.

Eddie Rester 1:11

He helps us again, like I said earlier, think about mental health. And he writes a lot about schizophrenia, depression, but it really helps us think, okay, we have to deal with more than just the presenting symptoms. How do we place that in an arena where people can find health and healing?

Chris McAlilly 1:32

The last conversation we had with Monica Coleman was around bipolar faith. And we really take a deeper dive into what it means to live as a person experiencing depression, what it means to be diagnosed, the ways in which diagnosis is important, but also it has limitations. The need for thick descriptions in the way that we navigate matters of mental health challenge and resources, both for individuals and friends, but also for pastors and mental health professionals and communities of faith.

Chris McAlilly 2:08

We end with a conversation really about how to thicken our understanding of what it means to be healed and whole. We hope that you enjoy the conversation and you share it with somebody who may need it today.

Chris McAlilly 2:22

[INTRO] We started this podcast out of frustration with the tone of American Christianity.

Eddie Rester 2:29

There are some topics too heavy for sermons and sound bites.

Chris McAlilly 2:32

We wanted to create a space with a bit more recognition of the difficulty, nuance, and complexity of cultural issues.

Eddie Rester 2:39

If you've given up on the church, we want to give you a place to encounter a fresh perspective on the wisdom of the Christian tradition in our conversations about politics, race, sexuality, art, and mental health.

Chris McAlilly 2:51

If you're a Christian seeking a better way to talk about the important issues of the day, with more humility, charity, and intellectual honesty, that grapples with Scripture and the church's tradition in a way that doesn't dismiss people out of hand, you're in the right place.

Eddie Rester 3:07

Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Chris McAlilly 3:09

Well, we're here today with--I say we; Edie is not not here yet. But he should be joining us, joining me soon. He is out with an award's day for his daughter--and so I'm here today with John Swinton. John, thank you for taking the time to be with us today.

John Swinton 3:28

No, it's a pleasure. It's nice to be with you.

Chris McAlilly 3:30

We came across a book that you wrote a few years ago, or was it? I don't know when it was released? Was it 2020?

John Swinton 3:38

Last year, yeah.

Chris McAlilly 3:39

Last year. The book is entitled "Finding Jesus in the Storm: the Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges." And in the book, you write that you're urging us to change our language about and modify our descriptions of mental health challenges in ways that can help all of us to live peaceably, peaceably and faithfully without misrepresentation or stigma. Talk about why language and description is so important to the way that we navigate mental health challenges.

John Swinton 4:12

Well, language and descriptions very important for the way we navigate the world, because the way in which we describe certain things tells us a lot about what we think it is we're describing. And then the way in which, once something is described, we respond to it in that way. So if you describe your car as a beautiful thing, you know that is the love of your life, then you respond to it in that way. If you call your car, like, an old bucket that you couldn't care, less you respond to it in that way. And it's the same when we're talking about human beings.

John Swinton 4:42

And it's particularly the case when we're talking about issues around mental health, because one of the big problems for people living with mental health challenges is the issue of stigma. And what stigma does, it reduces someone to the smallest part of them, very often just to the nature of the diagnosis. So instead of seeing a lovely, warm, beautiful person who is having some difficulties, maybe hearing some voices, but actually has a desire to be loved and to care for, to be in community, what we see is a schizophrenic. And as soon as you start to use that kind of language, you shrink somebody down to the size of the diagnosis, because when there's a schizophrenic, this is this is bizarre term.

John Swinton 5:24

And so language is really important, because just for that very reason, because the way we talk about things determines what we think we see, and what we think we see will determine how we respond to what we think we see.

Chris McAlilly 5:36

Yeah, the convictions, it's pretty clear in the book that your convictions around these things emerge, not just as a person who's thinking about these things, theoretically, but but emerges out of a long, long practice as a nurse. Could you talk a little bit about that journey in healthcare and how that's informed your views?

John Swinton 6:00

Yeah, absolutely. So I spent the first 16 years of my life as a mental health nurse. So I trained originally in psychiatry, and I worked there, loved it there. And then I retrained in the area of intellectual disability, or what we in the UK called learning disability. I spent a number of years there. And so all of my formative years I've spent with people who see the world differently: people who have different experiences of emotions, people who hear voices, people who just see the world differently, or in the context of intellectual disability, people who don't have words and don't use symbols and cognition in the way that many people assume most of us should within a society.

John Swinton 6:44

And yet, these people are deeply spiritual, and they have relationships with God that are very deep and very important. And so when I moved out of nursing, and into theology, I kind of came with a different set of questions than perhaps I would have done if I just come through the educational system, because the kind of experiences that I had with people with mental health challenges and people with intellectual disabilities really shaped and formed what I thought a human being looked like, what I thought a human being was, and how we should be creating communities together, what it means to worship when you don't have words, and all of these things.

John Swinton 7:24

And so it's just, it was just a good place of formation. And then my academic life, like my place of vocation, where I say, well, how do I make sense of that, in light of what I know about God and human beings before God?

Chris McAlilly 7:37

Right. Yeah, it seems like one of the strong convictions that you have, that kind of undergirds the argument of the book, is the the importance of diagnosis, but also the limitations of diagnosis within a healthcare context. And one of the things you write is, "Being diagnosed is often a pivotal point in a person's mental health journey." Talk a little bit about that.

John Swinton 8:02

What I mean, I have the greatest respect for the mental health professions, and I think psychiatry and psychology, mental health nursing are tremendous and it's really, really important. And something like a diagnosis is important for them to be able to do the healing tasks well, because that gives them a structure, that helps them to fit into theoretical frameworks they have, and it gives a range of possibilities for intervention and healing and helping people to deal with the challenges.

John Swinton 8:31

But when diagnosis leak out into society, they have a different function, you know, because, when it's a big, heavy label, like schizophrenia, for example, when you see the way that the media talks about that, it's very different than the way that a mental health professional will talk about it, because it's distorted. So people talk about a split personality or somebody's dangerous, and all of these different things that are simply not true and misunderstandings. But that creates an identity for people. So as soon as you see you have that, that form of mental health challenge within society, people don't do the same thing as mental health professionals do, which is look at how to care for people well, very often, they just reject them on the basis of that.

John Swinton 9:15

So diagnoses are kind of double edged in that way. They can be really, really helpful in the right context. They can be really, really destructive in the wrong context.

Chris McAlilly 9:26

One of the ways that you seek to rehabilitate, I guess, the cultural constructs around mental health is by way of description. And description is a category that you use throughout the book but it has a, you know, a lot of importance to you. I mean, there's a lot of weight and meaning behind that. So talk a little bit about what you mean when you're describing something, when you're using the art of description.

John Swinton 9:54

Yeah, well, to describe something as I mean, some people for example, with mental health challenges want to think about themselves as living under the description. So they live under the description of, say, bipolar disorder, right? So that's part of their lives, but it's not the whole of the lives. There are other ways to which you can describe a person: as a father, as a mother, as a friend, as someone who is worthy of value in community. And so these kinds of descriptions, all of us have different ways that we're described differently, depending on what context we're in. But when we bring them all together, we can either make a positive distinct description or a negative description.

John Swinton 10:35

And the problem with stigma is it tends to focus on a negative description. And so when people say, "I'm living under the description of bipolar disorder," it means, "Yeah, I have it. It's part of who I am. But it's not all of who I am." And so what I'm interested in is, you know, how can we as Christians, how can theology and church and community help to describe people in positive ways, and creative ways, and ways to engage with their humaneness, even in the midst of the difficulties that people have, and even in the midst of the deeper storms that people go through? How can we find positive descriptions that will bring about positive responses?

Chris McAlilly 11:13

There are a lot of ways that we could talk about those in terms of various diagnoses and descriptions under which people live. I want to, you know, for the sake of getting a bit more concrete, move into one dimension of the book, which is really about depression. I think it's important to talk about this right now. Because, you know, we're living, you know, many, many months now into a global pandemic, where people, you know, within our congregational context and our communities--but you hear it across the country and around the world--that folks are struggling with anxiety and depression. Can you just perhaps start by defining depression? What do you mean when you're using that word, and when you're thinking about describing a person who's experiencing depression?

John Swinton 12:07

Well, I mean, the way I, the way I would describe depression would be the way that people describe it to me. I don't live with depression, so I haven't had that experience. But the way in which people describe it is like, a sense of being in a deep dark pit, within which you can look up, and you can see possibly light sometimes, possibly not light at other times. And the walls of that pit lined with some kind of slippery substance, which means that you can't get out, no matter how much you try to climb up that, you can't get out. And eventually, you've slumped down, and you're exhausted. And the darkness just envelops you, and you need to wait there for somebody to help you. Which very often for some people, that's medication. That may be therapy, a way of getting out of that pit when you can't really get out by yourself.

John Swinton 12:58

And when you're well, your life is kind of like walking around the edge of that pit, always looking over into the abyss, knowing that at any moment, you could fall back into that. So even when you're well, that kind of specter of depression hangs over you. And it's a very difficult way to live your life. And one of the things that people sometimes think or associate depression with is sadness. And it was interesting in the piece of research that lies behind the book we're talking about, is that people will say to me that depression is not sadness. Sadness is something else.

John Swinton 13:36

So one gentleman said to me, you know, "I kind of long for sadness, because at least when I'm sad, I know what I'm sad about. I know there's something I can do about it." But with depression, it just seems to be grinding, unending. And so he said that, like, there's two different paths that you walk along. One is depression, one is sadness. They're not the same thing. Certainly, somebody who's depressed may be sad, but they're not the same thing. It's a deeper, darker, more difficult thing. So that's how I would describe it. I mean, of course, there's clinical definitions, which are very useful for those who are working in a clinical context. But I think that kind of narrative description really helps you to get into what it feels like.

Chris McAlilly 14:19

I was struck by the the way in which, within the context of a conversation about depression, you talk a little bit about the way in which communities of faith and specifically Christians are a bit lazy in our language around joy. And you talk, you kind of offer three different dimensions of this as we think about depression in light of the way that we talk about joy. One is, "Theologically, joy is best not equated with happiness." Talk a little bit about what you mean there.

John Swinton 14:56

Yeah, it's interesting because, like, if you look at what Paul says about the gifts of the Spirit, he names joy as a gift of the Spirit. But he doesn't name happiness as a gift of the spirit. So happiness is a fleeting emotion that comes and it goes, it depends on things going well, for instance. And you know all of us like to be happy. But as a life goal, we're all going to fail with that. Whereas joy from a biblical point of view seems to be, even Paul talks about that in particular, he talks, it's a gift that the Spirit gives us that even in the midst of our suffering and difficulties, we can have hope. We can have that joy. That joy, of course, is Jesus. So Jesus is our joy.

John Swinton 15:33

And if you look at the way in which joy is used within the New Testament, in particular, you'll see the idea coming back again, again, again, that even in the midst of your suffering, you can find joy, "count it all joy." Doesn't mean to say that you "count it all happy." You have to be happy in the midst of your suffering. But to be joyful is to recognize that even in this difficult place, Jesus is still here, and Jesus is still with you. Which makes it really difficult for somebody who is going through that deep depression, where actually you begin to lose that sense that Jesus is with you in that sense.

John Swinton 16:08

And so there is a real sense in which people who are going through the darkness of depression can lose their joy in that way. And one of the primary tasks of the of the church and its minister to people, ministry with people with mental health challenges, is to help people to hold on to the joy. And if they can't hold on to it, to hold on to it for them, even in the midst of the difficulties that they're going through. And that's something that the professional services can't offer it. There's something unique that the church brings to the ministry within this area.

Chris McAlilly 16:44

I want to press this a little bit more, because I want to, I really want to understand what you mean, when you say that "sadness and suffering are not the opposite of joy. Indeed, they're aspects of joy." You describe it in terms of Paul in kind of the New Testament writings that Paul's experiencing situations of persecution or imprisonment, and he can say, "I counted all as joy because of Christ." And but what is that, how, when you're talking to individuals who are experiencing depression, talk a little bit about what that looks like, as you're listening to people today.

John Swinton 17:26

I think very often for people when they're going through the dark depression, it probably doesn't mean very much in the sense that that's not how people feel. But what we get to remember is that you always--we should always experience our depression within the body of Christ. So therefore, if I can't hold on to joy myself, my brothers and sisters around me can hold on to that for me. So if you're still part of that, if you still have that opportunity, for example, to express the difficulties you encounter through lament. Lamentation within the context of worship is a very good way of articulating joy even when you don't feel particularly joyful in any kind of meaningful sense.

John Swinton 18:12

So it drives you. There's two things it does: it drives us back to think about the significance of the reality of the body of Christ, that we do hold the joy for one another in that sense. But secondly, in order for that to function well, in order for the reality of that experience--that "I don't feel this, I don't feel Jesus, I don't feel good at all"--in order for that to occur, we need to have a context where that kind of language is acceptable. And that's why I always come back to the psalms of lament, which are really powerful articulations of frustration and anger and lostness.

John Swinton 18:48

And in Psalm 88, you know, it ends with "darkness is my only companion," that said that many people with depression would understand that. That's a way that people feel. But again, it's a prayer. It's an articulation of our faith, even in the midst of that deep darkness. So I think that's how I read it. I think you just need to acknowledge that sometimes people just don't feel that way.

John Swinton 19:14

But there's a connected point to that as well, which is, you know, one of the feelings that people have when they're depressed is a sense of real abandonment, that God has abandoned them. They're lost, in that sense. And sometimes people, sometimes other Christians say, "Well, that's, you know, it's indicative of a lack of faith or a lack of trusting God." And sometimes people put that on themselves. But when you look at the the tradition more broadly, you know, God actually, quite frequently seems to hide. Isaiah talks about God hiding and not being available and psalmist talks a lot about God just not being there. And Jesus Christ on the cross, you know, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It's that he doesn't get an answer.

John Swinton 19:56

And so there is that, kind of, what you may call a spirituality of absence or a spirituality of darkness, within our tradition, but we never talk about it. And then when somebody encounters that, in the context of depression, it just feels so alien to the individual and so alien to the congregation that we try to make, you know, we've tried to make explanations, which become even more hurtful: lack of faith or whatever it may be. Whereas maybe if we incorporated even these difficult, dark teachings about God into our ongoing teaching and worship, then when people hit these difficult spots, it wouldn't be so alien.

Chris McAlilly 20:39

Yeah, that resonates with me for sure. Because I think what I hear you saying in that is that what the Psalms of lament offer are a way to hold on to the feeling of sadness, or even the feeling of suffering, which is not the opposite of joy. In fact, it's a way of holding... It gives a structure, a way to contain those emotions, those feelings, I guess, giving people access to those feelings and emotions within the context of the body of Christ, and community. Knowing that that's one moment within a broader spectrum of experience of life before God.

Chris McAlilly 21:24

And I think that leads to this other way in which you describe depression, as not as feeling--something that we feel, even though we talk about "feeling depressed," that's not an accurate description. It's more accurate, or perhaps, one of the things that you found by talking to people who are experiencing this reality is that it's more likely anti-feeling. It's the opposite of feeling. It's the inability to feel. And, you know, I think the... I want to just ask about kind of the ways you've seen the church, you know... Continue to talk a little bit more about the ways in which the church has failed to create enough space for that reality, for that dimension of the human experience.

John Swinton 22:17

Yeah, that, I mean, I think that a number of people that I spoke to, in relation to the book in particular, did talk about this idea of anti-feeling. And that's why for somebody who says--what seemed like a really odd thing to say--is that "I long for sadness," because sadness is a feeling. It's emotion. You realize you're alive. Whereas anti-feeling is just that feeling of not feeling anything. That's not feeling. And that's the total lostness and emptiness and darkness, which is a horrible way to encounter the world.

John Swinton 22:49

So I think it's important to acknowledge that, in our, the reality of that within our worship, for example, because what depends on what your denomination is and how you worship, but our worships tends to be very emotionally oriented, and very happiness--I mean, the church I go to is very a happy church. We like to be happy. We like to raise our hands. We like to come out the service feeling great. And all that, all that's very good. But the problem, the problems come when, actually in real life, we don't feel that way. We don't have the liturgical resources to be able to deal with that.

John Swinton 23:26

So to be able to create a liturgy, if you like, that includes all of the people of God, not simply those who feel particularly good on this day, to open up that space, where all the people, all the different emotions that people have, can be incorporated faithfully and positively in the midst of worship. And I know that there's some people that I've spoken to have really began to experiment with that, for example, by creating liturgies that focus specifically on depression, as we're speaking about depression. You know, so your prayers focus on depression. You have your patient professing depression. You have the songs that resonate around that.

John Swinton 24:12

And what people say is that they're amazed that after doing that, how many people in their congregation have been living with depression, but have never been able to find a safe space to articulate it. But by creating that kind of a liturgy, you open up a safe space. And, you know, you'll find in the average congregation that seems to be very, very happy, many, many people are not. You just don't have the permission to do that. Or you mistake happiness for faithfulness.

Chris McAlilly 24:39

Yeah, for sure, and unhappiness or some malady, or

John Swinton 24:45

That's right.

Chris McAlilly 24:46

spirituality or a sense that something is wrong, perhaps, you know, you're living in sin or, you know, in certain contexts, there's a demonic quality that's kind of overwhelming the person. And I feel like those descriptions, I think they just miss the mark.

John Swinton 25:05

Yeah, they do.

Chris McAlilly 25:05

And you know, and I think part of it is trying to... I guess part of what I hear you saying is that what's needed is sitting with a person long enough until they have the sense of safety to begin articulating what they actually feel, or what they're actually experiencing, what they're not feeling.

John Swinton 25:28

Yeah, that's exactly right. But also just beginning to incorporate these kind of forgotten or overlooked dimensions of your congregation and your day-to-day worship. So for example, [SNIFFLES]. Excuse me. At church in Vancouver, a couple of years ago, in the good old days when we could travel. And they had a interest to set up. So they had a preaching team. And before anybody could preach a sermon on a Sunday morning, they had to preach midweek to the preaching team. And then the preaching team was give feedback and criticism, and eventually on Sunday, they were able to, hopefully, present a better sermon.

John Swinton 26:12

And one of the things that they considered is having somebody with a mental health challenge as part of that discernment group, to begin to prod the preachers to think about how they can preach about these more difficult and sometimes hidden issues. And I thought that's quite a creative way to think about it. Because if you're beginning to incorporate mental health into your preaching and teaching in a constructive and positive way, that's the beginning point for creating a really mentally healthy community. So everybody benefits from that.

Chris McAlilly 26:43

What I like about that, one of the things, what I like about that is that it expands the imagination of possible responses within the context of community. Oftentimes, I think one of my frustrations when I hear churches talk about mental health or mental health challenges, is really the end goal or the answer, kind of, the implicit answer is that everyone needs to go see a therapist, which I think is a good thing. I think, going into therapy, going to counselors, going and seeing psychologists and psychiatrists, that is a very important dimension. And I don't want to undervalue that or under-emphasize that.

John Swinton 27:25

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 27:26

But I do long for and reach for other options and possibilities. So there are liturgical options. And there are kind of ways in which the conversation around mental health can be integrated into the preaching life of the church. Are there other ways that you think Christian communities can improve in how they talk, the language they use, the descriptions, and the practices that they incorporate?

John Swinton 27:56

Yeah, I think that there are. You know, to hold on to that tension between the mental health professionals and the ministry of the church is important. Because apart from anything else, mental health professionals tend to have a different model of health than church communities should have any way. So if you think about it, if you're a psychiatrist, then your idea of health is going to be, like, the absence of symptoms or the absence of illness. So therefore, you're creating a strategy, a healer strategy, is going to be to eradicate symptoms and to get rid of unpleasant experiences, all of which is good.

John Swinton 28:31

But a biblical model of health doesn't work that way. So the Bible doesn't have a word for the kind of biomedical understanding the health that we have, in Western society anyway. Because this word is a term of "Shalom," which means justice, righteousness, and holiness, right relationship with God. So to be healthy is to be in right relationship with God, even in the midst of the difficulties you may be encountering whether physical or psychological. Then the goal of health is not simply to get rid of symptoms, but actually to help people to hold on to God, even in the midst of these difficulties.

John Swinton 29:10

So I think that by bringing that perspective into the experience of how we are with people who are going through these difficulties is really important, because some people are going to live with mental health challenges for the rest of their life. And the option is that you can either be ill forever, or perhaps you can actually have a different way of thinking about health, within which you can find health, even in the midst of what appears to be ill health. So I think that the church community can bring that way of thinking into--that way of describing health--into constructive and creative dialogue with the other model of health that I'm talking about, but in a way that enhances the person's spirituality, in a way that the other model can't because it doesn't try to do that. So by rethinking and redefining health, that's that's a step forward. And that says health is right relationship with God, or holding on to God in the midst of it.

John Swinton 30:07

And then tied in with that is a particular type of relationship that we may want to offer to people who are going through these kinds of difficulties, and all kind of difficulties. And for me, the most important relationship that I see outlined in the Gospel is the relationship of friendship. You know, in John's Gospel, Jesus says to the disciples, "I no longer call you servants. I call you friends." So friendship suddenly becomes what discipleship is. So friendship becomes discipleship. So now we're friends of Jesus. And we're friends with another. That's the mark of discipleship.

John Swinton 30:41

But the key thing about the friendships that Jesus gives to us is that they're really quite radically different from the friendships that we get within society. So within society, our friendships tend to be like attracts like. You look at your own circle of friends, and they're all probably very similar to you, similar interests, similar ways of looking at the world. But Jesus always sits with people who are on the outside, on the fringes. And indeed, the whole principle of the Incarnation is that God, who is radically unlike human beings, becomes a human being and offers friendship. So the kinds of friendships that we can offer as Christians, if we think about that is that--if you like, I don't know, if you got like an incarnation or principle, whatever it is--these are healing friendships, because they remind us of who Jesus is, even in the midst of the difficulty we're going through. So you embody that spirit, your spirit of Shalom, and you spend time with those who society pushes to one side. So redescribing health and rethinking friendship are two important practices that I think are fundamental to good mental health care.

Chris McAlilly 31:49

I had an individual in our congregation come to me, or we were in conversation with one another about how to be a good friend to a person who was describing a condition of depression. And, you know, I think, oftentimes the pastoral response is to encourage someone to be present bodily, not to say too much, not to overly describe the situation, especially to someone who's not experienced that reality. I wonder what you would say, what advice would you give to someone who may be a friend of a person who's experiencing a hard time right now.

John Swinton 32:33

Basically, everybody wants the same thing. You know, people want to be loved and be accepted and valued, and value is not something that you can... You know, mental health challenges tend to be very devalued things. Value is not something you can get by yourself. It's a gift. Value is always something that's given to you by other people. And friendship is not something you get by yourself. It's a gift. So I think that recognizing that, yes, people will be going through difficult and sometimes very alien experiences--and there may need to be serious conversations and helpful conversations with mental health professionals to work out some of the technical complexities.

John Swinton 33:13

But bottom line is, people want to be with people who love them, care for them, and trust them. That's what we all want. And that doesn't change because you're going through an unusual, unconventional experience. So I think the first thing I would say, and maybe the last thing I would say, would be just treat people as people and see what happens.

Chris McAlilly 33:35

Yeah, I think that, you know, treating people as people, seeing people as human, or fully human, as opposed to, "I'm relating to you simply as a person who has this one dimension, or this one perspective," I think is an essential part, and in the end, so difficult to figure out exactly, you know, how to practice that on a day-to-day basis. So what... As you talk to mental health professionals, and you encourage them to think beyond simply kind of a clinical frame and to see their patients as more than simply patients with a particular illness or with a particular diagnosis, are there practices or habits that you offer?

John Swinton 34:25

For professionals?

Chris McAlilly 34:27

Yeah, for professionals.

John Swinton 34:29

Yeah, well, I think, I mean, it's actually very difficult for professionals in some senses, particularly psychiatrists, you know, have a very limited amount of time that they can spend with people. And very often, that can be spent talking about your medications or talking about blood levels, or whatever it is. So it's complicated for them. But there's a lot of good psychiatrists out there. And the good psychiatrists, in my humble opinion, are people who just do recognize the personhood of the person, and recognize that, yes, it's important to be able to control symptoms, but that there's another question after that. So the question is not just how do we control symptoms, it's how do we control symptoms in order that this person can have good quality of life?

John Swinton 35:15

And so, for example, something like, you know, prescribing medication is that, why do you prescribe medication? Do you prescribe medication to kind of control symptoms, because this individual is causing distress to other people? Do you prescribe because they're in distress themselves? Are there consequences for this medication, which actually may sometimes be worse than the distress itself?

John Swinton 35:41

And so just simply asking these questions of the technical things that you're doing on a day-to-day basis begins to--I don't know the right way of putting it--but it softens your task. So that even if something is apparently technical, as giving medication, it becomes a spiritual practice, because you're thinking beyond the obvious. I'm really trying to get this, how can I enhance this person's spirituality? And you know, we talked about depression earlier on. And that's really important, because sometimes when you're down at the bottom of that pit, you can't get back out. There's nothing you can do, other than to take medication, which gets you to integrate with the public. It gets to that place where you can begin, you know, clambering your way out. And so in that context, medication acts as a form of spiritual care. You know, the simple taking a medication is a spiritual act that takes you up that ladder, so you can get back out of there, back in touch with God, yourself and other people.

Chris McAlilly 36:44

I want to introduce you, John, to my colleague, Eddie, Eddie Rester. He has been functioning as more than just a podcast host or pastor today. He's been a father.

John Swinton 36:54

A dad.

Eddie Rester 36:55

I've been a dad. Yeah. Sorry about being late today.

John Swinton 36:59

No, you're all right.

Eddie Rester 37:00

But I hated to miss the first part of the conversation, but dad is my first priority.

John Swinton 37:05

Absolutely.

Chris McAlilly 37:05

Yeah, we've been talking about, I think the area that you would be really interested in here is this idea that what the church has to offer is an expanded definition of health. That there's a biomedical definition of health, it's really about the eradication of symptoms. But John was talking about a Biblical model of health that involves justice and righteousness and holiness, an expanded definition of what it means to be healed. And even if you are experiencing significant, you know, things that would be considered illnesses, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder, or depression, that there's, you still have access to health from Biblical perspective. I found that really, really interesting. I wonder what you think about that.

Eddie Rester 37:21

John, one of the things that I picked up that you write about is the "thick" description. So it's a little bit beyond just a clinical conversation about this is what is wrong with somebody, or it expands kind of our, maybe our viewpoint of how to see what we see. And so could you say a little bit about kind of what a thick description is? What you mean by that?

John Swinton 38:15

Yeah, well, we were talking about medication a few moments ago. And so a thin description of medication will be, you need to take this chemical and get better, full stop. Thick description of medication will be just medication is possibly helpful for you, if you take it. It will give you this amount of benefit or give you this amount of side effects. It may affect your community. It may affect your relationship. It may affect your future, and your job, and so on and so forth. And so you have, thin description's accurate. But that thick description really takes in the significance of medication, for community, for relationships, with sexuality, for your future career, all these things.

John Swinton 38:59

That's the difference between a thin and thick description. And the important thing I think, from the church's perspective is, the thicker the description we have, the more unique things the church can bring to the table of healing. The thinner this description we have, the less we really can obviously bring to the conversation.

Chris McAlilly 39:22

I think so much of the ministry of the church is geared towards the, quote, normal person or normal family. But I think that the struggle, really I think, you know, one of the things I'm thinking about is just how do we put ourselves in the way of the stories of people who have experienced these things and who have an opportunity and kind of the safety within the context of the body of Christ to give voice or witness to what faithfulness looks like in that context?

John Swinton 39:55

Well, I mean, I think one of the things that, one of the reasons why I wrote this particular book in the way that I did, which was based on a series of conversations I had with people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, was that, in order to really understand the nature of mental health challenges, you need to ask the people who are going through it. You don't need to ask, you don't need to simply listen to those who are theorizing about it, or those who are thinking about it in third person, you need to listen to the person themselves. And when you listen to that, all sorts of really interesting and surprising things begin to emerge. And I think the only way that church communities can really develop a solid mental health, mentally healthy community, is by listening to the voices of people with mental health challenges, by creating spaces within your teaching spaces, within your services, where people who feel safe enough to do that can talk about their experiences. Or you might want to do in small groups, whatever it is. But the point is, don't speculate. Don't imagine. Ask people.

Eddie Rester 41:06

As I think about that, one of the things is you're talking even as Chris is asking this question, is that how many people experienced this that we don't realize, we don't know? We don't, when they kind of suffer or go through just in silence. And one week we had folks from our recovery community talking, and so many conversations that week, about, "I never knew there were so many other people. I never knew. This is my story, too." And I wonder how many people sit among us in our communities who are walling off part of themselves that could experience some healing?

John Swinton 41:54

Yeah.

Eddie Rester 41:55

If we were willing to have that conversation with the people, as you say, who were going through?

Chris McAlilly 42:00

I wonder if there are other... What I love that you end the book by re-describing healing, and we've talked a little bit about that. But I want to continue to expand that. What are other resources, I mean, that you would point to in terms of ways of structuring conversations around healing? You write about testimonial healing? What do you mean by that?

John Swinton 42:24

Well, testimony healing has two kind of meanings. One, I mean, to testify is to stand up in court and say, "This is the way things are." And so testimonial healing, at least in part, has to do with providing people with the opportunity to testify, to stand up in the court of life, and say, "This is the way things are," and for people to listen to that and to respond positively. So you're healed by the way that you're listened to, by the way that you're taken seriously that you're listened to, because healing has much to do with connection and reconnection, as it has to do with curing.

John Swinton 43:05

And it's very interesting that there's a real tension between healing and curing. So curing is to, you know, get rid of a black spot. So if you get, say you get a cancerous growth in your lung, you want to get in there, take it out, cut it out and throw it away. That's curing. But seems to me that healing, as we see it in the Gospels, is something much, much thicker than that, if that's the right way to put it. And that's because the bodily health is different. But if you think about something like the woman with the discharge of blood, right. So she makes her way through the crowd and touches Jesus robe, and immediately she's cured.

John Swinton 43:49

But then she has this conversation with Jesus. And at the end of that conversation, he says, "Go. Your faith has healed you." And you're thinking, "she's already been healed," if you're thinking healing is curing, but no. What it was is healing seems to be reconnection with Jesus, but also reconnection with her community, because she then, because it's not this thing that polluted her, was able to go and be part of her community. And to be part of your community, in that second century Mediterranean culture was to be fully human. If you're excluded from community, you're no longer a human being. So your personhood is held in place by your community, which is why something like leprosy is so terrible because it's pollution. You're no longer a human being. You can't talk to God. You can't talk to one another. And so, testimonial healing runs along these lines that by giving people the opportunity to talk and to be listened to, opens up that space for reincorporation and reconnection.

Eddie Rester 44:49

Which leads to another nother part of healing that you talk about, which is the relational healing, which is that reincorporation, that becoming a part of, aware maybe once you weren't a part of. So say a little bit more about the fullness in your mind of relational healing.

John Swinton 45:13

Relation to healing, I think, takes very seriously the idea that we are not simply individuals as contemporary culture may assume us to be, but persons in relation--that we become who we are, in and through our relationships with other people. And when we're disconnected from these relationships, we lose something profoundly important, which is why, you know, if somebody close to you dies, people use language like, "a part of me has died." It's because a part of you really has died, because part of your identity is tied up with that other individual in a very profound way.

John Swinton 45:53

And that's why, you know, Paul is so keen on talking about the idea of finding our identity in Christ. Because we don't find our identity simply in relationships, although we do in our day-to-day basis. Ultimately, our security is found, because our relationships are in Christ, that we're held in Christ, even when all our other relationships fall away, we find out who we are in Christ. So relational healing is kind of a prefiguration of that idea of being in Christ.

John Swinton 46:24

So on a human level, we find healing by coming together, and breaking down those bodies that actually do depersonalize us in a very real way, and come together as a meaningful community, we will ultimately find our true identity in Christ. But we manifest ourselves in the relationships within the body of Christ.

Chris McAlilly 46:45

To be healed is to be fully human. Thank you, John, so much for your time today.

John Swinton 46:49

Great pleasure.

Chris McAlilly 46:50

Really enjoyed talking to you today. If you want to learn more, you can find the book, "Finding Jesus in the Storm: the Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges." Thanks for being with us today.

Eddie Rester 47:03

[OUTRO] Thank you for listening to this episode of The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 47:07

If you like what you heard today, feel free to share the podcast with other people that are in your network. Leave us a review. That's always really helpful. Subscribe, and you can follow us on our social media channels.

Eddie Rester 47:19

If you have any suggestions or guests you'd like us to interview or anything you'd like to share with us, you can send us an email at info@theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]