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SPIRITUAL CARE OF THE INSANE
compulsive ideas seem to be losing their grip. Then, after a
short interval, they meet the patient again and find that his
state is exactly as it was on the first occasion. Sometimes the
counsellor may be astonished—and flattered—at the readiness
with which the patient accepts his help. He is deluded into the
belief that his efforts will quickly be rewarded. Then the
anticipated improvement does not occur, and he is disappointed
and disheartened. Inexhaustible patience is needed in this
ministry. Nothing is easier than to forget that one is dealing
with illness, and so to allow the patient’s vacillations, evasions
and irresponsibilities to provoke irritation and even resentment;
with the consequence that a gesture of annoyance or a word of
rebuke is uttered and great harm done.
On the other hand, one can expect too little. The counsellor
can allow himself to be influenced too much by what we may
call ‘therapeutic detachment’. He hears what the physicians
have to say about the patient’s prospects of recovery. He knows
from his own psychological studies what course the illness may
be expected to take. He becomes aware of the difficulty of
gaining any perceptible results from the religious help he tries
to give the patients. He is tempted to become pessimistic about
his work, which sometimes appears to be completely fruitless.
This attitude is as mistaken as the other. The most
unpromising cases sometimes respond in the most unexpected way.
The minister must always go about his work with quiet
confidence and expectancy; doing the positive, constructive thing
without being held or influenced by the moods and feelings of
the moment, and, above all, without allowing his own
personality to become as a mirror that reflects, and reacts in
obedience to, the fleeting emotions of the patient.
Religious realism is the requisite attitude in the spiritual
adviser. This means that he must be aware of the physical
situation of his patient, with all the limitations this implies, and
yetmust hold fast to his faith in the reality and power of spiritual
forces that are operative even in the realm of personality
disorders.
The Question of Religious Neutrality
Some medical psychologists are of the opinion that depressed
mental patients should be preserved both from positive religious
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