When Medicine Isn’t Enough: A Spiritual Take on Psychiatric Healing.

There have been many studies conducted about psychiatric disorders. They have come to several inferences and given various names also. If scientific studies were foolproof, their medications would have yielded tangible results. In the absence of such results, we have to infer that treatment went wrong because the diagnosis went wrong.

“Is lifelong medication a cure—or a compromise?”

If medications have to be lifelong, such a life on medicines will have little relevance or quality.

Medicines and physicians are appointed by God Himself. These are solaces given by God.

God knows for sure that all sickness, destruction, ruins, and downfalls are caused by spiritual blindness. God has created different medicines and placed them in nature so that Satan does not make use of the ignorance of man to destroy him.

Here, our study has a different orientation. We are using the tools of spirituality with the intention that it may lead to sanctification, transformation, and purification of hearts.

A True Story of Spiritual Healing

I shall narrate this case. This particular woman was brought to us by her husband and others to be prayed over. She was taking medicines for a psychiatric disorder for quite so long.

But there has been no respite. I prayed over her. Now she confided to me of a hidden event in her early married life. She had conceived for a second time. Remembering that her husband was furious when her first child was born, she was now fearful of his responses at this juncture.

Cursing herself, she began to beat her abdomen with force. It ultimately resulted in the abortion of her pregnancy.

“Can Fear and Sin Cause Mental Illness? A Deeper Look into the Soul’s Struggles”

She now could grasp the gravity of her unthinking act. Peace of mind was lost. She became mentally sick, a psychotic.

During the counselling and prayers that ensued, she was asked to repent and seek pardon from the Lord as well as from her unborn child,d who was not allowed to be born.

She had come with a heavy heart and a darkened, gloomy face. But she was now going back joyous, radiant, and peaceful.

It is fear that drives many people to psychiatric disorders. Fear leads to a guilty conscience, which is destructive. A sense of guilt is not just a negative feeling. It is, in fact, a diabolic attack, bondage of Satan, the evildoer.

Spiritual counselling and prayers are needed.

“If fear is the seed, sin is the soil — and the fruit is suffering.

If fear is the reason behind psychiatric disorders, what can be the cause of fear? Sin is the root cause of fear. Sin proceeds from and is a product of Satan.

“Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning” (1 Jn 3:8). It is his nature for the devil to lead human beings to sin because he is sin personified.

The nature of Satan and his dominion come into a person through sin. When he takes control of the body and soul of a person through sin, it is but natural that he leads such a person to graver sins.

Sin invokes fear in human hearts. This fear, which is diabolic, leads one to many other negative feelings like unfounded fear of places and persons, insurmountable grief, deep disgust and anguish, angry outbursts, guilt sense and other such negative feelings which ultimately lead to suicidal tendencies.

Sin replaced Love with Fear!

God has created man to be in His love, perfect and pure. God has given him His own image, likeness, His spirit, strength like His own, and dominion and power over all the creation. (Sirach 17:3, Genesis 1:26).

He was given authority over the paradise also. Yes, man had power and authority like God. In spite of all this, once he sinned, man became just a sinner, distanced from the grace and love of God. And everything else was concomitantly lost. Fear engrossed him.

Adam’s Fall…

God, while walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze called out to Adam,

“Where are you?”

He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:9,10).

We find two things happening to Adam.

(1) He became aware of his nakedness.

(2) He hid himself in fear.

The realization that he was naked did not lead Adam to repentance, but to a sense of guilt. He did not feel that he had sinned against God. Guilt feelings can lead one to fear only, and Adam hid himself from God, his creator, in fear.

God has created man to be in His love, perfect and pure. God has given him His own image, likeness, His spirit, strength like His own, and dominion and power over all the creation. (Sirach 17:3, Genesis 1:26).

He was given authority over the paradise also. Yes, man had power and authority like God. In spite of all this, once he sinned, man became just a sinner, distanced from the grace and love of God. And everything else was concomitantly lost. Fear engrossed him.

From glory to guilt!!!

Sense of guilt led Adam not to remorse or repentance, which would have reconciled him to God. Instead, fear engulfed him. He hid himself from God.

He ran away from God in fear.

Fear leads men to run away from God, just like aberrant children hiding away from their parents in fear when their crimes have come to light.

Criminals also flee in fear of the authorities.

Adam lost his love of God when fear engrossed him. Every sinful act leads to the love of God being eroded further. It is the absence of love of God that begets fear.

“ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” (1 Jn 4:18)

“Can we truly love God and still live in fear?” . “Perfect Love Casts Out Fear: The Cure No Medicine Can Offer”

There is no fear in love of God. Love of God is perfect love with which all human beings are to be filled. Love of God is the medicine to banish fear. No medicine, in whatever heavy dose, can root out fear.

Have we ever heard of any such medicine by which one’s fear has been rooted out?

Because it is a product of the devil, fear can be nullified with the Word of God and the love of God only. In many of my services, I have prayed for deliverance from sin and have experienced the healing that ensues from such deliverance from sin.

Is there any medication that removes fear like perfect love does?”

Love of God! Proceeding from the Father through the Holy Spirit is the best remedy for eradicating fear.

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:5).

“The Unseen Burden: Spiritual Roots of Psychiatric Illness”

How is it then that a person of the present generation who has not committed sin in his lifetime becomes a psychiatric patient?

Depression is a great malady that takes a heavy toll. Even at a tender age, people fall prey to psychiatric disorders. It is the diseases and sins passed on through generations that invade the present generation through genes.

Hereditary diseases are passed on through the blood. At the moment of conception itself, through the sperm cell and ovum from the parents, both good and evil are transmitted to the embryo.

There are diseases and diabolic influences passed on to the child in the womb through genes.

Psychiatric diseases may sometimes not be there in the immediate offspring. But it may reappear in the grandchildren and other generations.

The disease might have been lying latent and in a state of hibernation. It was awakened in the grandchildren and revealed itself as diseases. Sinful state, disquietude, and tempestuousness in family life, stressful situations at the spouse’s home are all fertile ground for the reappearance of latent psychiatric disorders.

While entering a zone of cold climate, some may feel suffocation. There were no symptoms earlier, but the change in climate aroused the disease.

How can prayer and medicine work hand-in-hand toward healing?

Depression and schizophrenia are latent in the unconscious mind or blood. Such patients need prayers.

At the same time, medicines have to be continued till such time as full relief is obtained. Many practitioners of psychiatry discourage prayers altogether. But the fact is that only through prayer can healing be achieved.

There is authority & power in the Word of God. At the Spirit in Jesus retreats, we actually welcome persons with psychiatric disorders to take part. There may be about 100 patients on medicine in a community of 500 retreaters.

Those who have been taking medicine for years shall not stop it all of a sudden but shall reduce its dose proportionate to the healing received through prayer until it is completely achieved.

If it is out of fear that the disease first occurred, we can root out the power of fear in prayers and heal the affected one. Jesus, our Lord, has given us the necessary power and authority through the Holy Spirit.

Word of God teaches us, “For neither herb nor poultice cured them, but it was your word, O Lord, that heals all people”(Wis 16:12). By that Word of God itself, our Lord heals us today also.

He is still in our midst. His power and might are unsullied.

Sins committed by oneself and the influence of previous generations are behind psychiatric disorders. We shall deal with it elaborately in the next issue.