I recently gave a seminar for mental health professionals on psychological aspects of spirituality. The range of topics was broad, and increasingly, faith-based therapists are interested in studying the interface of thought, emotion, and behavior between those dynamics that we consider spiritual or transcendent.
This has been a clinical interest of mine for decades as well as an area in which I have conducted research. As neuroscience opens up the brain more and more, we discover that we know less and less about the brain’s intricacies. We can now study the areas of the brain that are activated during various mental states, and can learn more about what takes place within during moments of ecstasy, sadness, rage, calm, and transcendence. We are learning ways to assist our patients in accessing their full potential, and to learn novel and healthier ways of coping while reducing their propensity to regress when they are triggered.
Culture, education, as well as family lifestyle and upbringing shape and influence a person’s assumptions about what is real and what is important. Some grew up with an implicit trust and acceptance that Hashem is real and the only power and force in the universe. Others struggle with acquiring a sense of basic right and wrong. Some people are conditioned to be argumentative and demanding while others have learned to be docile and submissive. Spirituality is also shaped to some degree by our social and family environments. When parents speak openly with their children about the Torah and Hashem, holy concepts seem real and important to that child, and ideally will always remain sacred in their value system. In contrast, when the Torah is not valued, its precepts not respected, and the commandments not practiced with the proper deference, spirituality will seem less real to the child. For example, there is a great difference between a parent ending the Shabbos meal by saying “We have to bentsch” versus “Let us thank Hashem for our Shabbos meal.” Religion can be enticing and fulfilling or it can be a burden and an inconvenience. So much of one’s perception and attitude about religious life hinges on how it was presented to them during their formative years and the attitudes of the people around them.
During my seminar, we discussed the reasons why people want to live. That may sound odd to a non-clinician but for those involved in mental health, it is important to identify the values, motives, and assumptions (expectations) people have that give their life meaning and purpose. When life is meaningless and unfulfilling, a host of mental health conditions can arise. I often explore with my patients the concepts and the beliefs that make their existence worthwhile. There are also times when I work with people whose sense of purpose has ebbed and faded. This can underlie depression, despair, and a decreased zest for life. This was a topic that was discussed in my seminar.
There are tragic times when people lose their will to live and life loses its purpose, or is too frightening or overwhelming. A mental health professional will work with people who feel ready to cash out on existence and contemplate ending it all. When people are deeply despondent, they will often think about how to end their lives. Today is not the day to focus on the topic of self-harm. Instead, I would like to share with you a meaningful anecdote. One of the professionals at my seminar shared the following incident: working with a sad individual from a very sheltered and devout background, their sadness was explored and the patient said that they were contemplating ending their life. This patient was religious, quite spiritual, innocent, and took spiritual concepts seriously and literally. My colleague asked him what his plan was should he truly decide to end his life. The patient responded, “I will speak lashon ha’ra about someone.”
In this patient’s thinking, defaming another is described in Jewish literature as such a horrible religious offense that, as we learned in the parashah last week, it is better to die than to shame another person. The patient understood this purely and innocently, albeit concretely. He reasoned that if he wanted to die, the way to assure this would happen would be to speak ill of a fellow Jew. That would bring about a swift punishment from Heaven. My colleague and I marveled at the simple faith, Yirat Shamayim, and innocent reasoning of the young patient. There was certainly a profound spiritual context in his thinking, and a therapeutic potential to draw on that in order to instill in this patient a greater spiritual fervor to live. At times, this is exactly what many of us need: encouragement to find the spiritual fervor to increase the depth of our religious observance and the will to live a life of purpose. n
Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox is a forensic and clinical psychologist, and director of Chai Lifeline Crisis Services. To contact Chai Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis helpline, call 855-3-CRISIS or email crisis@chailifeline.org. Learn more at www.chailifeline.org/crisis.