Editorial July 15, 1967 Issue

Mental Health

Helen Wood Bauman

The widespread scourge of mental illness indicates an imperative need of understanding true mental health and how to maintain it. Mental health is mental self-control, and according to Christian Science, one expresses true self-control in the degree that he is controlled by God, man's source, or divine Principle. This Science reverses the general belief that mind is in the brain and is subject to chemical, physical, and electrical disorders. Denying the validity of a carnal, or mortal, mind, Christian Science affirms that there is but one Mind, God, and that man reflects the self-control of this Mind. Man is Mind's immortal image, God's reflection, which can never go out of control.

Health in any direction depends upon the demonstration of the eternal relationship of Mind and man. A realization of their inseparability as cause and effect brings the real self to light and helps to dispel the illusion of a mortal self controlled consciously and unconsciously by the intricate mechanism of a material brain.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy explains how the truths of Christian Science are applied to conditions of mental illness. She says, "The arguments to be used in curing insanity are the same as in other diseases: namely, the impossibility that matter, brain, can control or derange mind, can suffer or cause suffering; also the fact that truth and love will establish a healthy state, guide and govern mortal mind or the thought of the patient, and destroy all error, whether it is called dementia, hatred, or any other discord."^{Science and Health, p. 414;}