Where Does Illness Come from & What is the Solution?
Sadly, this stands as yet another value lifted from the non-Jewish world and then shechted, salted, and soaked to make it look kosher.
Yes, there is the concept of mimerchak tavi lachma ["she brings her bread from afar" - from the famous "Woman of Valor" in Mishlei], but you actually have to go to the right place and actually bring back the real thing — not Wonder Bread.
Beneficial borrowing from the non-Jewish world takes a certain amount of research & scrutiny, not just blind acceptance of the latest fad to hit the mainstream.
The Little-Known Wonders of "Reality Therapy"
These exemplified behaviors we label as schizophrenia; they even experienced visual and audial hallucinations, something today's mainstream psychiatry considers incurable and only controllable via medication.
Yet Dr. Glasser managed to cure the vast majority of them.
How can that be?
Dr. Glasser believed that harmful behaviors (whether criminal or insane) resulted from unconscious choices on the part of the sufferer.
He believed that therapy must focus on the person’s behavior and their choices, and that behaving in a moral and decent manner would reap natural positive consequence that would then positively influence a person’s thinking.
So he came in to the veterans’ program and basically said that if they were genuinely crazy, then even meds couldn’t really help and they certainly didn’t need any of the privileges they currently enjoyed, like cigarettes, outings, TV, and so on.
Thus, their privileges were taken away.
To earn them back, the patients needed to display sane behavior.
And they did.
Dr. Glasser writes of his psychotic patients (and delinquent girls whom he also treated) with obvious warmth and compassion and a strong belief that all these people had great potential and the ability to fulfill that potential.
In a nutshell Reality Therapy asks the following:
- What are your goals?
- What can you do to achieve your goals?
- What are you doing to achieve your goals?
(You can read more about Reality Therapy here.)
Reality Therapy proved highly effective in curing mental illness and is not new (it was developed in 1965), yet who has heard of it?
It was so effective...yet why is it so unknown?
Why are less effective therapies so popular?
Reality Therapy focuses on one’s relationship with others as the goal, but the Torah view would use Reality Therapy techniques toward one’s relationship with Hashem.
That would be the “kosher” version of it.
There is also logotherapy, along with other therapies with a proven success rate, like EMDR (which I don’t know much about, but I’ve read about practitioners who use it with surprising success), acupuncture, acupressure, etc.
Instead, many well-meaning frummies try to kasher the pharmaceutically driven approach to mental illness — an approach that has shaky scientific foundation, no cure rate, and even causes problems, especially over the long term.
Okay, So What IS the Solution?
Not to just chirp that you are, but to actually do it:
- CORRECT diagnosis using ACTUAL diagnostic tools
- PROVEN treatment for the particular malady
- Compassionate & intense self-introspection, self-accounting, searching for God's messages in it all (this will take more than one day)
There is a lot more to say about it all, but this series is long enough as is.
I can’t emphasize enough the need to work out one’s issues.
Study after study shows that many people with mental illness (particularly depression, bipolar disorder, and personality disorders) have experienced or are experiencing some kind of trauma in their lives.
Even schizophrenia shows links to trauma.
Harmful behaviors common today (like engaging in violent video games and movies, vulgar movies and images, consuming drugs or alcohol, binging on empty foods, trolling — either as the victim or perpetrator — and the general indulgence in meaningless activities) obviously make any tendency toward mental illness worse.
While therapies based on sound data, holistic alternatives, and healthy eating can all alleviate or even cure mental illness, the most important thing to do is to develop a close and loving relationship with Hashem.
This should be attempted whether one takes medication or not.
The toxic shame & profound grief & powerful fear driving a lot of mental illness ultimately needs to be dealt with via God.
Post-Script in Summation
I do realize some people really do need to be on psychiatric medication, at least temporarily.
Some even need it long-term — and they really do.
I've just personally seen, experienced, and read about too many medicated people behaving badly & hurting others because they treat their mental health issues solely according to the mainstream non-Jewish anti-Torah approach.
Whether a person takes medication for their mental health issues or not, the Torah principles still apply.
Maintaining mental health is a huge struggle in our days.
Just remaining sane & rational proves a huge accomplishment in our times.
And I do very much wish people would stop claiming that mainstream psychiatry treats mental illness like physical illness. As shown in this series, that is a lie!
I wish it was true. Things would be much better if it were.
Resources
- Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher by Gwen Olsen—Using excellent documentation, this book provides a behind-the-scenes look at the pharmaceutical industry. It’s also an extremely disturbing read, as Gwen herself was involved in harming so many people through her job (she meant this book as an atonement for all that), including the death of a woman whose own doctor-son prescribed her the fatal medication, which occurred solely because Gwen pressured him to do so. (Gwen didn’t pressure him about his mother specifically, but merely to prescribe this particular drug to his “most difficult patient.” And he did.) She also documents several suicide-murders (stabbings, shootings, or burning down a home) committed by people on anti-depressants.
- Psychiatric Drugs and Violence: What are psychiatric drugs? (Includes a list of school shootings committed by a student or teacher taking or in withdrawal from psychiatric medications, particularly antidepressants.)
- Study Finds Improved Functioning for ‘Schizophrenia’ Without Antipsychotics
- Researcher Acknowledges His Mistakes in Understanding Schizophrenia
- No evidence that depression is caused by low serotonin levels
Healing Mental Health Issues
- Any book by Rivka Levy
- Garden of Emuna
- Garden of Healing
- New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy
- Improve Your Life: 10 Things You Should Do Every Day
- Happy Thoughts: Here are the things proven to make you happier
- The Causes and Treatments of Soul-Sickness as explained by the Kli Yakar in Parshat Beshalach (with some advice from the Pele Yoetz about treating addiction)
- 10 Exercises for Your Prefrontal Cortex (This last link is particularly helpful in understanding where the so-called "typical adolescent behavior" and "teen brain" comes from. If you look at this list, you'll notice that today's media-imposed teen culture actively discourages most of these 10 exercises on the list (1,2,3,4,5 & 9) and even encourages their opposite, which weakens the prefrontal cortex. So today's stereotypical adolescent behavior causes "teen brain" and is not caused by "teen brain.")