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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
influences and from influences antagonistic to religion. They
recommend what may be described as a state of ‘religious
neutrality’. Their argument is that an emotional struggle is
going on in the patient, and that to take the side either of God
or the devil is to participate in this struggle. Whether the
balance is weighted on the one side or the other makes no
difference. The patient is harmed by the intensification of the
conflict produced by the interference.
This point of view cannot be accepted because it is based on a
false assumption. There is no such thing as neutrality in the
relations between human beings. Positive attitudes, negative
attitudes and non-committal attitudes all have real effects upon
those with whom we are in association; and if it happens that a
passive, disinterested attitude to a patient—and this is
presumably what is meant by ‘neutrality ’—has the effect of convincing
the patient that his interests are not being watched or that
nobody cares what happens to him, it will do positive harm.
On the other hand, there are occasions in the life of a mental
patient when his condition will certainly not be improved by
any words or behaviour that tend to increase the emotional
tension or conflict. Then, for positive, therapeutic reasons, it is
necessary for those who have him in their care to be completely
detached and apparently unconcerned. In such situations the
minister or spiritual counsellor must, for tactical reasons,
refrain from any kind of religious teaching or exhortation. His
duty, then, is so to behave that, as far as possible, the patient
becomes aware of him as a reliable friend; one who cares for a
suffering human being because he is suffering, and renders
whatever help it is possible to give to augment and support the
work of the physicians.
This may mean sometimes that a conscious effort is made to
subdue a religious conflict by behaviour that the patient and
maybe his relatives also construe as religious indifference. There
is no help for that. The counsellor must accept the
responsibility.
- In dealing with insane persons it is always wrong to try to
hasten any spiritual processes that may be working. In general
itis the character and actions of the spiritual adviser that convey
his religious message about the love of God and the forgiveness
of sins, not the words he utters. The person he desires to in-
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