More on psychological suffering

~ sparedbygrace@yahoo.com

Back to psychological suffering. What is the difference between psychological and spiritual? Can one be psychologically healthy and spiritually heathy? Can one be spiritually healthy and psychologically unhealthy? Does healthiness in one area necessitate healthiness in the other? I remember being challenged with those questions in psychology classes while in graduate school at Wheaton College. I am still pondering those questions.

Let me borrow from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spirituality-and-psychology_b_941242.html

“Ultimately, psychology and spirituality do not need to be distinct, but it can be helpful to make distinctions between them in order to understand the primary function of each in relation to the other. We can then discover how these approaches complement and support one another, together forming a more complete approach to human understanding than either one alone can provide.”

I include the web citations for a place to start. I neither fully embrace, nor disagree with the quote. Like a recipe, fuse the ingredients and you get something more/different/other than the sum of the parts, Food for thought as I venture into my discussions.

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Published by sparedbygrace@yahoo.com

I am Richard Brewer—a Christ-follower, psychologist, husband, father, grandfather (Papa) sometimes writer, and lifelong student of people. For much of my professional life, I've had the privilege of sitting with people as they wrestle with some of life's most difficult questions—questions about faith, suffering, grief, relationships, identity, failure, hope, and what it means to live well. Those conversations have changed the way I see people and the way I understand my own faith. They have taught me that life is rarely as simple as our explanations of it, that people are almost always more complicated than they appear, and that sometimes the wisest response to a difficult question is to empathize and to keep asking better questions. I am a committed Christ-follower, but I am not interested in pretending that Christianity eliminates mystery or that faith means having an answer for everything. Faith invites us to pursue truth honestly, to think deeply, to acknowledge what we do not know, and ultimately to trust the God we do know. Mediocre Meanderings is where I explore some of those questions. I write about faith and psychology, grief and suffering, leadership and relationships, aging and ordinary life—and occasionally whatever else catches my attention along the way. I do not write from the perspective of someone who has figured life out. I write as someone who has lived enough of it to know that I have not. These are my thoughts, questions, observations, and occasional attempts at wisdom. Take what is useful. Challenge what is not. And, if you would like, meander along with me.