Walking Together: Christian Communities & Faithful Responses to Mental Illness
Abraham Nussbaum, MD, MTS, Denver Health & University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry
Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD; Duke University Medical Center & Duke Divinity School
Jodie Boyer Hatlem, PhD; North Park Seminary
Miguel J. Romero, Th.D., M.Div., University of Notre Dame
Thomas McGovern, Texas Tech University (Moderator)
Contemporary Christian reflection on mental illness is often characterized by arguments about the utility of medical models of mental illness and of psychiatric technology, but only rarely highlights stories of ways that Christians, across history, have developed new and innovative models for walking with and caring for people with mental illness. In this panel, we turn to Christian history for four such examples: the pioneering work of Juan-Gilaberto Jofre, a Spanish monk who founded the first western psychiatric hospital (Romero); St. Francis of Assisi, a combat veteran whose Order of Friars Minor was initially comprised largely of fellow combat veterans (Kinghorn); the “moral cure” pioneered by Quakers in the 18th and 19th centuries (Hatlem); and the Mennonite mental health centers of post-war America (Nussbaum).
These presentations will summarize and reprise material formerly presented at a larger conference in Houston, TX, in February 2014, titled “Walking Together: Christian Communities and Faithful Reponses to Mental Illness.”
We argue that narrative exemplification – telling historical stories of communal practice – provides a powerful way to engage the imaginations of religious communities around practical ways to walk with and to care for persons with mental illness. At the conclusion of the panel we will discuss this theory-to-practice model as it relates to ongoing collaboration of Christian communities in the Houston area in the wake of the Walking Together Conference.
Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD; Duke University Medical Center & Duke Divinity School
Jodie Boyer Hatlem, PhD; North Park Seminary
Miguel J. Romero, Th.D., M.Div., University of Notre Dame
Thomas McGovern, Texas Tech University (Moderator)
Contemporary Christian reflection on mental illness is often characterized by arguments about the utility of medical models of mental illness and of psychiatric technology, but only rarely highlights stories of ways that Christians, across history, have developed new and innovative models for walking with and caring for people with mental illness. In this panel, we turn to Christian history for four such examples: the pioneering work of Juan-Gilaberto Jofre, a Spanish monk who founded the first western psychiatric hospital (Romero); St. Francis of Assisi, a combat veteran whose Order of Friars Minor was initially comprised largely of fellow combat veterans (Kinghorn); the “moral cure” pioneered by Quakers in the 18th and 19th centuries (Hatlem); and the Mennonite mental health centers of post-war America (Nussbaum).
These presentations will summarize and reprise material formerly presented at a larger conference in Houston, TX, in February 2014, titled “Walking Together: Christian Communities and Faithful Reponses to Mental Illness.”
We argue that narrative exemplification – telling historical stories of communal practice – provides a powerful way to engage the imaginations of religious communities around practical ways to walk with and to care for persons with mental illness. At the conclusion of the panel we will discuss this theory-to-practice model as it relates to ongoing collaboration of Christian communities in the Houston area in the wake of the Walking Together Conference.