When one of my friends sent me a link to this conference, I immediately signed up. I’ve talked about my feelings towards mental health and Christianity before, so I wanted to continue that conversation by recapping the conference and sharing some of my thoughts.

Mental Wholeness and the Church is a three-day conference organised by Yio Chu Kang Chapel (check) and GraceWorks. I attended both the first and third days. The first day (Thursday’s session) was a talk on “When Christians struggle with Anxiety, Depression, and Suicide” and yesterday’s session was a half-day event consisting of four talks and two workshops. The four talks were:

1. Ministering to our Souls through the Psalms
2. We can’t “Pray Away” a Mental Health Condition: Stigmas & Misconceptions of Mental Health
3. The Church: United in Christ to be a Community of Hope and Healing
4. Synergy between Mental Health Services and the Church Community

The workshops I attended were:

1. Depression & Despair: When we don’t know what to do
2. The Road to Recovery: What is the Church’s Role?

Key Takeaways from the Conference

To give detailed recaps for everything would make this post far too long, so I’m just going to share my key takeaways:

• Mental Health conditions are not a moral issue and it is wrong to practice extreme reductionism (whether by turning it over entirely to the doctors or attributing it entirely to spiritual causes)
• The Church must give practical help to both people who suffer from mental health conditions and their carers and create an environment of safety where everyone can share their burdens.
• Pastoral staff are not immune to mental health issues – please give pastors time for self-care! Each Church should also have a platform for pastoral staff to come together (either with each other, staff from other Churches, or with other Christians) and be supported.
• Education on the basics of mental health is important as there are still many misconceptions about it.
• Mental Health care has to be holistic – mind, body, and soul. An interdisciplinary approach that combines medicine (where appropriate), counselling, and support from the Church works best.
• CHIME for mental health recovery – Connectedness (where the Church can play a huge role), Hope and optimism, Identity, Meaning and purpose, Empowerment.
• Motivational Interviewing: This was just an introduction and we were encouraged to contine about it, but the OARS technique was introduced – Open-ended questions, Affirmations, Reflections, and Summary.

My thoughts

Firstly, I’m incredibly relieved at the stance the conference (and from it, the Church) is taking. It was stressed repeatedly that mental health issues are not a moral issue. Yes, we believe in spiritual forces, but all the speakers were very clear that discernment is needed to judge each case and that the hurtful and unhelpful thing to do is to assume that the root cause is always spiritual.

On a more secular note, I was also very glad that unhelpful myths about mental illness were addressed. For example, the idea that depression is a sign of weakness, that psychiatric medications are addictive, and that talking about things makes them worse. These myths are very prevalent not just in the Church, but in Singapore society in general and it’s good that there was education on this.

I also liked the fact that the speakers were split pretty evenly, with about half of them being pastors and pastoral staff and the other half being psychiatrists. I thought this gave the conference a good balance and let it address both medical aspects (myths about mental illness, options available in Singapore) and spiritual aspects.

Since this is organised by a Church, everyone was unanimous in saying that there is a role for us to play. The conference started with a call for the Church as a whole to repent of our neglect (and/or perpetuation of misconceptions) of people with mental illness, which I thought was needed. I think that an acknowledgement of where we, as a Church, have failed is the first step to moving past our mistakes and towards a more inclusive Church community.

While the emphasis was on the Church and what we could do to partner with psychiatrists and counsellors, pretty much all the psychiatrists said that a community is important to those suffering from mental health issues and their caregivers. So even if you’re not Christian, I hope that you can either find a community you’re comfortable with or, if this is something you feel like you should do, reach out to help those in your community who are struggling with mental health problems.

Things we all can do include:

• Encouraging and accompanying people to seek treatment
• Reminding friends, if they need and express a desire for this, to take their medicine, eat proper meals, etc
• Offering caregivers time off from care-taking so that they can take care of themselves as well
• Avoid careless words such as telling people that they should ‘snap out of it’ or trying to make something all about them (sharing your experience may help some, or it may just be a huge turnoff to others – you must be able to determine which side the person you’re talking to falls under before talking about yourself/your experience!)
• (for those suffering from mental health issues) Set aside time for recovery, it is a long haul journey

For Christians, additional things we can do:

• Make sure you don’t use Scripture as a weapon – some verses tend to be quoted out of context and instead of encouraging someone, just end up adding guilt. Imagine struggling with a mental health issue and someone says something like “ask and you shall receive” and having to deal with guilt that your issue is not resolved on top of that. This is not the purpose of the Word of God and we shouldn’t be quoting verses as an ‘attack’.
• While providing practical support, continue to provide spiritual support by praying for, and with, your friends. The Church has had the tendency to leave everything to professionals, which end up depriving people of a source of support – let’s not continue this area of neglect.
• Meditate on the Word of God. A pastor suggested using passages that we are familiar with as truth anchors, so that when our inner reality becomes stretched or the negative voices in our heads become too loud, we have something to cling on to that can provide support.
• Respect God’s timetable for healing. We may want immediate deliverance but we also need to know that things don’t happen according to our will. If someone is not healed immediately, it doesn’t mean that their faith is lacking or anything. We are all walking towards Revelation 21, where everything will be made new – we must remember that not everything is going to be renewed immediately.

There is a bit on caregivers that I have thoughts on as well, but because this involves not just me but other people, I’ll need some time to think about how to talk about what I’ve learnt and what I think about that. My current plan is to share in the next newsletter, rather than a post, so that I can be a bit more open while maintaining more privacy than a public blog post (although I will definitely not go into identifiable specifics in the newsletter if possible – it’s just that because this is part of my life, people who know me will probably know what I’m talking about even without too many details!)

Overall, I’m very glad that this conference happened. According to the organisers, we had 500 people from 80 Churches on Thursday – proof that there is interest in Churches across Singapore to work to address the issue of mental health. Given that one in seven Singaporeans will experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime, this is not something that the Church cannot ignore for much longer. The Church must provide the safe harbour that Jesus promised – “for my yoke is easy and my burden is light” – to really be the representation of God on earth.

Resources

Here are some Singaporean resources (websites and hotlines) mentioned in the conference. They are a mix of religious and secular resources, so please take a look and choose whatever you feel best suits your needs.

Websites of various organisations

Singapore Association for Mental Health

Singapore Anglican Community Services – They provide psychiatric services to the community, alongside Senior and Family and Children services.

Clarity Singapore

Hope Alliance

Caregiver Alliance

eCounselling Center: I’ve gotten e-counselling from here and would recommend it if you want free online counselling. You do have to book a session in advance so if you need something immediate, call the hotlines.

CHAT (Community Mental Health Assessment Team): I was recommended my counselling from this group after receiving a mental health assessment.

Friendship and Mind Enrichment (FAME) Club

Hotlines

Emergency Helpline (IMH): 63892222 (open 24 hours)

SOS (Samaritans of Singapore): 1800 221 444 (for suicide prevention and crisis. This is open 24 hours. You can also head to the A&E department of any hospital if you’re experiencing suicide ideation and want someone to keep an eye on you)

Counselling Youth Line: 6336 3434 (open Mon – Fri, 8.30am to 6pm)

Tinkle Friend (Counselling for primary school students): 1800 2744 4788 (open Mon – Fri, 9.30 am to 11.30 am and 2.30pm to 5pm)

Information is accurate as of Sep 2019.