PSYCHIATRY AND SPIRITUAL HEALING SIR,—As a medical practitioner of some
forty years standing, interested for many years in psychological and philosophical problems, as well as having been for some time a member of the Archbishop of -York's Committee of Clergy and Doctors, 1 would like to comment on the articles in your issues of May 21st and May 28th last on 'Physical Methods in Psychiatry and Spiritual Healing.'
The main thesis of the articles seems to be that the favourable results of physical treat- ment in schizophrenia and the depressive psychoses are analogous to the conversions produced by the powerful dramatic appeals to the emotions practised, and consciously practised, by Wesley and some modern American evangelists. As a corollary to this the writer suggests that the Churches have lost the power to change the lives of men, because they no longer practise such techniques.
I suggest that the writer has not made out his case. There is no evidence whatever that the mechanisms at work in shock treatments or leucotomy, and those which are operative as a result of mass hysteria, are related in any way. There are no emotional disturb- ances in shock treatment, and the leucotomy patient is qu:te undisturbed by the operation. It 'is significant that when the writer of the articles wishes to show that there is some similarity between psychiatric techniques and those of the evangelist, he chooses, not physical methods, but the method of abreaction, which is in a totally different category.
I think that most medical men would agree that he paints far too rosy a picture of the results of leucotomy. Whilst there .is t, lot to be said for any operation which transforms a bundle of misery, a nuisance to himself and everyone else, into a mild manic, or an anhedonic individual, one can hardly compare the result with that peace of God that passeth all understanding. And if the result of effec- tive evangelism is the production of such an apathetic condition, then one cannot com- mend it. the bitter pains of eternal death "7 And why should the appeal be made only to the emotion of fear Christ Himself, when addressing the publicans and sinners, said little about the wrath of God, or the torments of Hell. His message was the message of the Love of God, in speech and in. action. And that message is a far more devastating one than a gospel basing its effectiveness on an appeal to terror. I would suggest that what the world is waiting for is not the techniques of the spiri:ual scalp-hunter, how- ever modern and psychological they may be, but for love in action, and this is a matter, not for the skilful evangelist, but for the Church as a whole, layman as well as minister. --Yours faithfully,
Previous page
