Category Archives: Mental Health

The chasm is bigger than I ever imagined…

Parents of kids with mental health conditions are especially prone to be stigmatized at church because of the lingering belief among many in the Christian community that mental illness is a byproduct of sin, kids who struggle with managing emotions and maintaining self-control are the product of parents who are ineffective or indifferent and much of the mental health profession can’t be trusted. Continue reading

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Looking at the Lifeway/Focus on the Family mental illness study as a peer reviewer would…

In examining and interpreting the study for our readers, I thought it would be most helpful going forward to put on my “old hat” as a reviewer and offer insight into how the folks who sit where I sat might think about the Focus/Lifeway study…
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Focus on the Family, Lifeway avoid the tough questions about mental illness…

Here’s my most significant criticism of this survey…they didn’t ask the right questions! Continue reading

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Updated…How are kids and teens with ADHD different?

Dr. Barkley’s theories suggest that ADHD is a disorder not only of attention, but of executive functioning as well. Executive functioning describes a set of cognitive abilities involved in controlling and regulating other abilities and behaviors. Such functions are necessary in initiating goal-directed behavior, suppressing impulses arising from lower brain centers, and planning future behavior.
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Kimberlie Zakarian…When an invisible disability meets pediatric bipolar disorder

During those times, not one person from the church we were at came to visit or pray with me. My guess is that they perhaps did not know how to handle mental illness. Walking those early years alone as a parent of a child with bipolarity led to depression and trauma on my part. This is the trauma many parents of children with hidden disabilities endure. Continue reading

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The relationship between depressed mood and church attendance

While many experts in the mental health or Christian counseling fields acknowledge the mental health benefits of a vital faith, this data appears to represent a signal that self-reported symptoms associated with anxiety or depression may be significant barriers to church attendance. Continue reading

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The relationship between anxiety and church attendance…

Is it possible…or even likely that an important reason people attending church report less anxiety is that the regular experience of anxiety causes people to have more difficulty in attending church? Continue reading

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Incomplete…

I can attest that our work would be impossible without the time and talent of Board members, staff and volunteers who themselves are being actively treated for a mental health condition or have a child (or multiple children) receiving treatment. Life for each of them is not without bumps in the road, but yet they serve magnificently. Continue reading

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The sins of psychiatry…and psychology

“It seems reasonable to conclude that the institutions of psychiatry and psychology (and many practitioners of those disciplines) have conducted themselves in a manner to betray the trust of church leaders, especially those leaders who adhere to traditional interpretations of Scripture. I’d hypothesize that one manifestation of the collateral damage resulting from this “falling out” between the church and the mental health community is the lack of understanding in the church as to how to most effectively minister to individuals and families impacted by mental illness.” Continue reading

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When church leaders talk about mental illness, spiritual evil and demons…

We have to be EXTREMELY CAREFUL when telling people who approach the church for help that they have a sin problem (after all, we ALL have a sin problem!) when they truly have a mental health problem. Continue reading

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