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CHAPTER V
THE SPIRITUAL CARE
OF THE INSANE
CHRISTIAN ministers and spiritual advisers carry a heavy and
difficult responsibility when, directly or indirectly, they have
to minister to the needs of insane persons. They stand in a
special relation both to the physicians who have these patients
under their care and to the patients’ relatives. Many difficult
problems are presented also by the mentally ill themselves who
may, despite the peculiar nature of their infirmities, derive
constructive benefit from wise spiritual guidance; while their
state can be gravely jeopardised by those whose goodwill is not
reinforced with sound knowledge.
The Mentally Ill and Their Relatives
Among the general public there is a deep-rooted mistrust of
mental hospitals and those who work in them. Despite the fact
that most mental hospitals are overcrowded and under-staffed,
there is still a strong impression that the authorities are reluctant
to release patients once they have been certified as insane; and
this mistaken idea is not dissipated by the accounts, occasionally
reported, of tragedies and brutalities that occur from time to
time because insane people are given their freedom before they
are fit to be at large. Too little is publicly known of the grave
risks attending the premature discharge from mental hospitals
of the mentally diseased and the refusal of relatives to allow
sufferers from mental illness to be certified. Indeed, in some
countries, the law errs so much on the side of caution that it is
almost impossible to protect the community from some types of
insanity until the sufferers from it have inflicted grievous bodily
harm on innocent people.
A clergyman or minister must often accept the difficult task
of acting as intermediary between a mental specialist and an
insane person’s relatives. It is important that he should be able
to represent the interests of both parties intelligently. This often
means that he must explain to the relatives why they should
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