The Reformation
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 60, No. 1 – Fall 2017
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
Darkness is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness. By Kathryn Greene-McCreight. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2015. 194 pages. Paperback, $13.98
Kathryn Greene-McCreight is associate chaplain at The Episcopal Church at Yale; priest affiliate at Christ Church in New Haven, Connecticut; and a theological writer who holds a PhD from Yale University. Her formal training is in theological studies, but her experiences have provided an education in mental illness. After an initial bout with postpartum depression, Greene-McCreight was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Her story arises from a mixture of her theological beliefs and her psychiatric hospital experiences.
As a transparent confessional diary, the author recounts her experiences as a psychiatric patient battling symptoms of mental illness while attempting to balance her Christian beliefs. This book is an effort to unveil her journey in order to identify with those who share in similar symptoms and diagnostic labels. The work is intended to be a guide for Christians to use when navigating the deep waters of mental illness.
The narrative is communicated in three successive sections. The first section is written in epistolary form with sequential entries that describe her descent into the depths of darkness. The author’s bouts with disturbed mental health resulted in a barrage of questions targeting her deep-seated faith. The second section catalogs her journey through those points of upheaval to a settled and stronger faith. The closing section offers practical advice for those who endure symptoms of mental illness, as a patient or a loved one, and criteria for choosing a path of therapy.
Greene-McCreight attempts to examine “the distress caused and the Christian theological questions raised by Clinical mental illness,” (xiii) without focusing on her personal pain but emphasizing “the working of the triune God in the pain of one mentally ill” (xxii). As a tertiary purpose and motivated by her agonizing personal experience, the author intends to alleviate the stigma associated with mental illness in the Christian community. While she accomplishes a few of her goals, each becomes overshadowed by several assumptions and implications offered.
Greene-McCreight demonstrates courage to disclose deeply personal and painful experiences. The reader can sense the healing nature of her intimate confessions. As someone who truly understands the agony and sorrow associated with debilitating symptoms, the author gains rapport with readers who share a similar diagnosis. The strongest aspect of the book is accomplished through her transparent identification with the suffering of others as she balances the honesty of her abnormal symptoms with authenticity as a normal person.
One substantial contribution in this work is to acknowledge the stigma of mental illness among the Christian community. “The mentally ill,” she expresses, “are one of the groups of handicapped people against whom it still seems to be socially acceptable to hold prejudice” (23). The author’s unguarded stories encourage resolve to alleviate the reproach. While there is stigma of mental illness in church communities, she correctly acknowledges it as a two-way street. Many in the psychiatric community, historically and currently, consider religious speech and ideals as “symp-toms of illness” (73). She spends considerable effort targeting the Christian populace to eradicate their bias, (53–61) yet she does little to warn the psychiatric community of their intolerance of religion.
The other segments of the book tend to stray from the proposed parameters. She had hopes that the book would contain valuable advice for clergy in dealing with mentally ill parishioners, yet failed to provide positive directives (xiii). The author’s advice to pastors in lieu of pastoral care was to, “refer, refer, refer to professional psychiatric care” (36). This answer seems particularly contrary to the scriptural call of pastors to bind the broken, strengthen the weak, and encourage the fainthearted (Ezekiel 34:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:14). Her suggestions seem to defeat her primary goal to encourage a distinctly Christian response to mental illness.
Her bias toward biological psychiatry is likely to ward off Christian intrusion. This inclination is revealed in her descriptions of her struggles. The author depicts her condition as a biological disease, faulty brain chemistry, chemical deficiency, or short-circuited brain (xix, 30, 43, 111, 115). Her perspective on mental illness is culturally and experientially informed but does not consider other scientific explanations. Recent scientific work does not support the author’s descriptions of her condition as a “chemical imbalance” or “short-circuited brain.” For this reason, the author’s suggestions for therapy are culturally accepted, but unscientifically founded. As she readily admits, there is no biological explanation for the cause of major depression, but her proposed remedies are rooted in the assumption of chemical imbalances of the brain.
One final critique that diminishes the Christian influence from her perspective is her dualistic approach to man. The remedies suggested by Greene-McCreight promote a narrative that makes the anthropological sphere impervious to Christian thought and intervention. She prefers the psychotherapeutic approach to mental illness, which suggests that the brokenness of the person is divorced from a Christian explanation involving sin, corporate or personal, along with the deterioration of the body. The author acknowledges that this is problematic because the secular therapist may not know how to handle spiritual issues when they arise, but she discourages pastors from being involved in treatment (145).
Darkness is My Only Companion is helpful in acknowledging the negative stigma that surrounds categories of mental illness. More attention needs to be given to assuage these problems. Greene-McCreight has earned respect in her willingness to unveil her struggles, selflessly, so that others who struggle may be helped. In the end, however, the book lacks a clear picture of God’s sovereign perspective and compassionate involvement in the lives of those who are afflicted physically or emotionally.
