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| Families, Mental Health and Pastoral Care: A Day of Reflection |
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in October 2007, a small group from the Newport deanery joined Mrs Anne
Ballard, of the Archdiocesan Family Life Commission (FLC), at a national
conference on Families, Mental Health and Pastoral Care in the Community,
organised by the Marriage and Family Life Project Office as part of the
response to the findings of Listening 2004 and the subsequent initiatives.
This conference was arranged to explore the challenges of supporting
families affected by mental illness. There were experiences shared by a
sufferer, a carer and also professionals as well as workshops to help
implement pastoral care initiatives. As a
result the Edna
had addressed the national conference in October, giving a very moving
account of how she, “an ordinary mother of 8 children" had lived
through the nightmare of caring for her teenage daughter once she had been
diagnosed with severe depression. She tells her story in such a deeply
sensitive and emotional way that all are moved by it. The FLC invited her
to speak at our day of reflection and she willingly attended. After
our opening prayer and introductions, Edna spoke of her family’s
experiences, not only of dealing with her daughter’s depression but also
her mother’s tortured life as an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
sufferer. She described how her “once
happy family, was turned upside down”. As she talked, the mixed group of
attentive listeners started to nod and smile in agreement as Edna referred
to society’s labels for those with mental illnesses as ‘nutters’,
‘psychos’ and ‘loonies’ and for the mental health hospitals as
‘loony bins’ or ‘nut houses’. As her story unfolded there were
more nods of understanding as those listening found comparisons with their
own experiences. She explained her need to ‘experience Christ in the
flesh’, how she sought the pastoral care of her Catholic parish
community, but found that people’s ignorance and lack of experience
meant there was none. Feeling the need to be able to release her
frustrations, tears and feelings without being judged or told how to cope
and what to do, Edna revealed that she has formed a support group for
carers in her home town of
After
lunch the group heard from Mrs Val Evans, a retired psychiatrist who
shared her experience of helping to treat those with mental illness and
her own need for pastoral care. She had had to learn that prescribing
treatment was not enough and it doesn’t always work. Experience taught
her that if patients had a faith, a family, a home, a job, a friend, then
the prognosis was much better. She explained how despite all her training
(5 years to become a doctor, another 7 to be a psychiatrist) she struggled
with the level of suffering she observed in others, that she took this
suffering home with her and how it kept her awake at night. Yet there was
nowhere to deal with this element of her work. She did try to talk to a
priest but he had been embarrassed to talk about mental health. She joined
the Guild of Catholic Doctors in the hope that she could discuss such
issues confidentially with faith sharing colleges but found that the only
issues discussed were those relating to birth control and abortion. Val
did get some strength from going on a retreat for doctors during which
they were encouraged to see the face of the suffering Christ when they
encounter patients. She explained that this enabled her to cope with quite
severe cases of suffering in later dealings with patients. Having listened
to Val, many in the group admitted that as a sufferer or carer they had
not ever considered the need for support of those involved in the
treatment of mental illness. Before
concluding with a meditation, led by Sr Breda Gainey, discussions of what
could or should or might be done were held and are summarised as follows:
Anyone
interested in mental health and pastoral care within the Archdiocese or
requiring any further information with regard to this article is asked to
contact the FLC via Mrs Anne Ballard.
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