Kehoe Reflective Book Review
I appreciated reading about Sister Kehoe’s journey getting her Spiritual Beliefs and Values class off the ground in the psychiatric inpatient setting. I find it very interesting that during her postdoctoral internship, while Sr. Kehoe was virtually “under cover” as a religious, she noticed the deeply embedded psychiatric fear of religion in relation to mental illness. I am profoundly grateful that her combination of credentials allowed her to bridge this gap, at least to the extent of having written this book, Wrestling with our Inner Angels. I also found her journey resonated with me on very deep levels.
Even though I wasn’t slated for life within a religious order as a nun, some of my most profound life experiences were very similar to the author’s. My two years in a Catholic boarding school from age 9-11 completely mirrored her experience of a religious initiate, being isolated from family, little by little being whittled down to nothing, with her skirt being too short, virtues being ignored, attitude being considered inappropriate. And later, I felt the same sense of loss and isolation she described as “the death of the last parent,” when my parents died within 18 months of each other when I was 18-20. “I had to face the concrete reality that there was no place I could call home: I had no spouse, no children or grandchildren who would be there for me” (p. 108). I felt severed from all roots that kept me attached to life on this earth.
I have always had a soft spot for people with significant mental health disorders. Perhaps because I felt like a misfit, I had more in common with them than others might feel. On two occasions, I made myself available to assist certified schizophrenics in dealing with life and death issues. One was a 59 year old woman wrapping up earthly matters while succumbing to terminal cancer. She was a hoarder and felt her roommate was coming into her room through the heating vent in the form of vapor. Although she was completely alienated from her children and had spent a significant amount of her adult life homeless, by using her Buddhist practice, she managed to improve her life condition to the extent that she found housing and died in a relatively elevated life condition. Another was providing hands-on healing as a last resort to a schizophrenic 45 year old AIDS patient with a failing liver, and finding that a happy side effect of the “spiritual” treatments, in addition to bringing about complete healing of his liver and kidneys, was restoring long-absent mental clarity, allowing him a reconnection to life and the ability to attend classes and make future plans. As I worked with these people, I learned the obstacles they had faced after being diagnosed. “Society’s perception is that the ‘mentally ill’ can’t work, don’t have healthy relationships, are to be feared, are not worthy of respect, and are relegated to the margins of society because they are ‘different.’ They are ‘worthless’” (p. 113). Fortunately, I had met both of these people within the context of our Buddhist faith, a practice I had begun at age 27, which encourages people to start from this moment forward and to create value with every thought, word and deed. I viewed us as having more in common than differences, and I saw much of my own pain reflected in their stories. Most important, they were able to use their Buddhist practice to improve the state of their lives and diminish the severity of their symptoms. I feel for this reason, that spiritual activity should be vigorously promoted to those mentally ill who feel so inclined.
“A major part of the learning process of life is accepting who you are in order to be of service to others” (p.112). The Pastoral Counseling piece affords suffering persons the opportunity to find peace in their circumstances and create value in their daily lives. As the author says, faith facilitates the journey to wholeness. That is something medication and institutionalization cannot do. As a Pastoral Counselor, I hope my life experiences will serve as vehicles to be more compassionate in my service to others. I hope to continue the process that Sister Kehoe was in, to bridge the gap between medical treatment and attending to the spiritual needs of the mentally ill. After all, mental illness is by its very nature, somewhat mysterious. Why should a statistical system of classification become the be-all and end-all regarding treatment? Buddhism tells us the depths of the spiritual world are unknowable to the mortal mind, and I never assume that a mentally ill person has a diminished or distorted view of what goes on between the veils of perception. In fact, I think those who “see things” may have a better understanding of what is happening all around us. So, one difference between the author’s stance and mine is that I don’t accept their limitations based on their medical diagnosis. While Kehoe learned something from the patients’ attitudes, I feel there is much more to be learned if we listen to their “delusions” and viewpoints with more spiritual ears.
I feel that Western medicine is missing an important part of the picture, especially if there is a sincere interest in healing the whole person. In Tibetan (i.e. Buddhist) medicine, all illness, both physical and mental, arises from the emotions. If addressing illness with compassion and love, which is generally learned in a religious capacity, brings about more complete healing, Pastoral Counseling deserves a place at least hand-in-hand with medicine. My personal opinion is that an emphasis on love, compassion and spirituality actually brings about greater healing than medicine and medical procedures, and that the tables should be turned to reflect that importance, placing Pastoral Counseling at the helm with medicine relegated to a support position. From that perspective, I think Sister Kehoe has vastly underestimated the value of the work she has done.
