How Christian Science heals mental illness

In the wake of the attacks in Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora, Colorado, among others, people are seeking ways to prevent such occurrences. Sandwiched between the debate on gun control and the negative influence of violent themes in entertainment is a concerted effort to understand what causes individuals to act out and bring harm to others as well as themselves.

Some feel that solutions are to be found in the pharmaceutical industry, which has accelerated its research and production of treatments for a host of what are considered dysfunctional brain maladies. Psychiatry points out that the perception people have of themselves and others is subject to an array of distortions and delusions, based on ever-changing activity within the brain. It suggests that intelligence, memory, behavioral responses, and reactions are subject to certain neurological connections. 

But are we all simply the result of neurological connections—or disconnections? According to the results-oriented and provable teachings of Christian Science, your identity and my identity are firmly fixed and permanently established in divine Love, the one infinite Mind. And since Mind is infinite, any disconnection is impossible.

Mary Baker Eddy puts it this way in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind. The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no control over God’s man. The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness” (p. 151 ). Further on, Eddy writes: “The brain can give no idea of God’s man. It can take no cognizance of Mind. Matter is not the organ of infinite Mind” (p. 191 ).

In a recent New York Times article, “When God Is Your Therapist” (T.M. Luhrmann, April 13, 2013), the writer said that, in her research, she found that people who prayed said they felt God’s love for them and were less stressed, less lonely, and had fewer psychiatric symptoms. That’s good news! 

So much of psychiatry and psychotherapy focuses, however, on merely coping with prevalent disorders, or the management of symptoms through combining medication with some form of face-to-face counseling or therapy.

The method for healing in Christian Science is not a mixture of various psychological or medical treatments. Christian Science is based solely on prayer that recognizes the allness of God, Spirit, as demonstrated centuries ago by Jesus in his healing ministry. 

In the New Testament of the Bible, there are accounts of people whose lives were changed forever through Jesus’ healing works. Cases of lameness, blindness, deafness, as well as insanity, were cured. People were even raised from the dead. And, whether the problem was long-term or short-term, acute or chronic, the cures were permanent. 

While there were times when Christ Jesus recommended a specific approach to prayer (see Matthew 17:14–21 ), he didn’t think of one disease as more serious than another. Nor did he categorize or classify an ailment. 

Scripture tells us that Jesus returned sanity to a man who lived among tombs and was believed to be possessed by devils. The man was extremely agitated, unrestrainable, and would cut himself with sharp stones. He experienced a broad array of emotional and mental maladies. 

In Mark’s Gospel, we read that villagers from a nearby town saw the man after he had been healed. He was sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed, mentally sound, listening intently to Jesus preach. He was now “in his right mind,” expressing his genuine, spiritual selfhood (see Mark 5:2–15 ).

The healing power of divine Mind is present right now.

Writing specifically about the healing of mental illnesses (as compared to physical difficulties), Eddy explains: “The only difference is, that insanity implies belief in a diseased brain, while physical ailments (so-called) arise from the belief that other portions of the body are deranged. Derangement, or disarrangement, is a word which conveys the true definition of all human belief in ill-health, or disturbed harmony” (Science and Health, p. 421 ).

We can refuse to be impressed, or oppressed, by various symptoms associated with what are categorized as mental illness. Each of us can be conscious of and claim our relationship to the one Mind, God. In divine reality, there is no unconscious, subconscious, fragmented, or disturbed mortal mind to separate us from the one Mind. 

The healing power of divine Mind is present right now. We don’t need to wait for or postpone good to make its presence felt. Nor do we need to delve into human emotions or past experiences to try to diagnose a condition, or even figure out how we ourselves would define it. Healing is inevitable as we accept and vehemently claim the spiritual fact that we are Father-Mother Love’s cherished child, and can never be separated from Love. 

There is no deterioration, no malfunctioning, nor can there be loss of any of the spiritual qualities inherent in our inviolate and established spiritual identity. The man and woman of God’s creating cannot be fragmented or disoriented and can never be manipulated by evil to commit acts of violence or to engage in erratic, self-destructive behavior. 

We can prayerfully refute and deny in thought any specific beliefs associated with mental illness. This denial, however, is not about ignoring disease. It is rather about vehemently refusing to acknowledge anything as real but the law of goodness, a self-enforced harmony of the one divine Mind. And this Mind has nothing to do with a brain, or any other organ.

The one Mind is always maintaining each of us; impelling us to know more clearly who we really are—secure, serene, intelligent, compassionate, intact, responsive only to good, at peace. 

As we continually remind ourselves that we already “dwell” in divine Mind as Mind’s idea, nothing can invade or interfere with this oneness with our creator, divine Love.