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CHAPTER VI
THE RELIGIOUS DEPRESSION
MANY physical diseases, and many conditions of bodily
disorder, especially in the endocrine system, are accompanied
by characteristic mental and emotional changes. Very often
these take the form of depression which may rise to the intensity
of anguish or despair. A person who is assailed by thoughts and
feelings of this kind seldom realises that they are of physical
origin. He tends to seek an explanation for them in his
circumstances or behaviour; and when he is religious he will often
ascribe them to some personal fault, failure or sin. The effect
of doing this is, of course, to exacerbate the symptoms.
The more healthy a person’s religious attitude the less likely
is this to occur. Then the religious ideas and feelings may
actively counteract the depression. It is as if the disease is
deliberately confined to the physical part of the personality,
whose spiritual integrity refuses to be infected by moods and
ideas that arise from bodily disorder. A deep spring of inward
happiness refuses to be dammed up, and from time to time it
breaks through and manifests itself despite the adverse physical
state against which it must contend.
But there is a religious depression of a different and special
kind. It arises from the fundamental religious attitude of the
sufferer. It does not drive him either to a nerve specialist or to a
mental hospital, but to his spiritual counsellor. The significance
of this condition depends upon its mental and spiritual
foundation, and the counsellor who is called upon to deal with it
must be both wise and well-informed. A mistaken judgment
by him, or a faulty attitude on the part of the Church or
religious group of which the sufferer is a member, can do grave
injury. In unfavourable cases faulty treatment can increase the
disorder: even to the point where it becomes the critical factor
in precipitating an insanity that otherwise would not have
occurred.
One of the most important conditions for correctly
understanding religious depression is its recognition as a normal
reaction to an abnormal situation. The significance of the
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