I was actively taught not to talk about God in my practice because it is considered unethical.

And I do believe that in many ways if someone is in a condition of brain illness, they can be vulnerable to yuck of much religion. And it wouldn’t be the first or last time that people use God as a tool to moralize the emotions and behaviors of others. There’s so much yuck out there. Even talking about God can be viewed as taking advantage of someone in a less defensible state and maneuvering them towards belief systems with agenda. If that were the case, I’d agree a 100%.

There’s also an unequal distribution of power in any doctor patient relationship and it’s hard enough for patients to deal with the sometimes-terrible drive to please them. Many suffer from a high rejection sensitivity. They don’t even realize how hard they are trying to be “good patients.” And unfortunately, many medical providers don’t realize it either.

For me, there were religion classes when I was going through medical school. Honestly, I was so swamped with everything else, I don’t remember much about them. More, I remember the disappointment from my teacher for sitting in the back row and zoning out. There was also this beautiful man named Dr. Wil Alexander who used to routinely rotate with many of the medical specialty residents and teach about integrating spiritual care, empathy, and listening into clinical practice. But he never rotated with the department of psychiatry. Looking back now I see that I didn’t ask about it, probably assuming, “Well, we are the department of psychiatry. We don’t get to integrate spiritual care.” Now I’m blowing raspberries at my missed opportunities. I should have asked. And I don’t know the what or why to that story really. It’s on me.

But now I’m trying to understand how to do this. And my best teachers are: my own journey trying to just grow up, God, and especially my patients. There are just so so many stories of them seamlessly talking about their faith, their own good news, and sharing prayers. And although I’ve spent a lot of time here at FriendtoYourself talking about how hard many find it to bring God together with psychiatry, the truth is that there are many who don’t struggle with it at all. I am in awe. I realize as I type this up, that probably I should be looking more to them.

My girlfriend from medical school recently reminded me from CS Lewis, “We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.” She is also a writer, a much more voracious reader than I and won’t touch an audible book, and she sees me. I got to go visit her recently for just two days. I felt watered and like new leaves, buds and blossoms had popped up all over me.  So I write to understand.

In the 10 Commandments we read, “Thou shalt not take thy Lord’s name in vain.” For most of my life, I thought that meant that I can’t say, “Oh my God!” and I lived in total fear that in a moment of extreme emotion, oops! “Oh my God!” But God is a little more secure than that I’m learning. And he didn’t write that into stone twice for Moses so people wouldn’t use his name alongside expletives. Rather what is so beautiful is that it, like the other commandments, this has to do with who God is and how he feels about each of us. God is always inviting us back into covenant with him. He, even in this, says, you are the carrier of my name. You hold it. And when you come to someone, you open your hands and lay it down. They can see who I am. I love them. We get the fabulous privilege of being part of his eager desire to love on others this way. But if we give a picture of a God who is manipulative, who is moralizing how they feel and behave, or misuse power, those are examples of taking God’s name in vain. That really stinks. I’ve done worse than you probably.

I can see how, in this, there is a precious responsibility in psychiatry, when working with those in deep psychic suffering, to not take God’s name in vain. To be gentle. God says to those, in the paraphrase of Me, “better a millstone be tied around your neck and get thrown into the sea than treat someone like that.”

So thank you, for letting me learn from you, with you, and grow in this. This is going to be fun.

Question: Would you tell us when you have seen God and psychiatry presented well? Lived well? Speak! We need your story!

Self-care Tip: Be gentle as you care God’s name.