The Intersection of Chronic Pain, Spirituality, and Medicine for a Roman Catholic Psychiatrist
Michael Redinger, MD, MA, Western Michigan University School
of Medicine
During my psychiatry residency training, I have come across a number of patients who present with suicidal ideation triggered by the frustration, and ultimately despair, that comes with living with severe, unrelenting, treatment-resistant chronic pain. These patients have caused me to reflect upon my own conceptualization of how people relate to pain and how to engage these individuals psychotherapeutically. As a Roman Catholic, I have access to a repository of theological thought on the purpose and meaning of suffering as well as personal models, such as Pope John Paul II who have demonstrated how that spirituality is lived out. Yet, many patients, lack a religious background, Christian or otherwise, which makes my perspective inaccessible and leaves them searching for a secular answer to the meaning of their pain. They confront this challenge in the face of a Western perspective that elevates the power of the medical sciences to deity-like status, which leads to further psychological confusion and disorientation resembling a “crisis of faith”. This paper will examine how the lack of a secular conceptual framework for chronic pain and a shared cultural mythological belief in medicine leads to psychic pain, and the implications this has on the work of a Roman Catholic psychiatrist.
During my psychiatry residency training, I have come across a number of patients who present with suicidal ideation triggered by the frustration, and ultimately despair, that comes with living with severe, unrelenting, treatment-resistant chronic pain. These patients have caused me to reflect upon my own conceptualization of how people relate to pain and how to engage these individuals psychotherapeutically. As a Roman Catholic, I have access to a repository of theological thought on the purpose and meaning of suffering as well as personal models, such as Pope John Paul II who have demonstrated how that spirituality is lived out. Yet, many patients, lack a religious background, Christian or otherwise, which makes my perspective inaccessible and leaves them searching for a secular answer to the meaning of their pain. They confront this challenge in the face of a Western perspective that elevates the power of the medical sciences to deity-like status, which leads to further psychological confusion and disorientation resembling a “crisis of faith”. This paper will examine how the lack of a secular conceptual framework for chronic pain and a shared cultural mythological belief in medicine leads to psychic pain, and the implications this has on the work of a Roman Catholic psychiatrist.