Having had the merit of moving to Tsfat several years ago, I have found that my understanding of health and healing , mind, body, and soul, integration and compartmentalization have dramatically shifted.
Living in Tzfat has allowed me to get off the hamster wheel , take a step back and try to see if what I am doing, is what I ought to be doing. And if it isnt, what am I going to do about it. Most of my understanding has been with and during conversations with my husband Rabbi Ephraim Goldstein, whose learning of Torah thought, outlook, planning and achieving has opened my eyes to life’s potential. I can not thank you enough Hashem for creating such a person for me to share my life with.
Having worked in the psychiatric field since 1994, I have seen many achievements in care of individuals with mental health issues. In crisis, there are few other doors left now to knock on. Once upon a time,family, Rabbi and community were the mainstay of support. We no longer live in that world.
At the same time, there is clear indication that there are many demerits to psychiatry care. The points I would like to focus on is the revolving door in and out of inpatient and outpatient care with questions on what is being achieved in decades long care without aiming for cure . Another point is the explosion of care needed in the general population for life stages and changes that were once called life, and now require illness level support. In the rush of giving reassurance and “saving the situation “, we have inadvertently caused lifelong patient status.
Torah thought and Psychology/psychiatry are running on opposite tracks at this time and neither the two shall meet. We have come to a “parting of the ways” and the testimony to this is the worldwide chaos, with broken individuals, homes and families, despite the increasing methods, medications, and billions in research thrown at mental health care.
To compare the differences in thought , I would like to start at the beginning, highlight where the difference lie, and why it matters. The cost in time and life lost in figuring out the truth is why it critically matters.
Rav Hirsch on Breishis states all the world and its actions stand and fall on the first three words of the Tora. In the beginning G-d created- a world from nothing. Everything he made was perfected for the job at hand.Taken to its end it means the entire world with all its beauty and horror, individuals and groups, creations and destruction, giving and taking were created with the supreme thought of a world that will give you the best possible options to help you achieve what you came here to do. This in and of itself is a world of discussion, of pain which can lead to understanding and growth,
The world of differing ideology consistently knocks this concept and stating there was a bang and order was created out of the material chaotically here. G-d did the best job he could with the material provided. The hidden need for this belief is to absolve oneself for the responsibility at hand by stating what could be expected from me to do? G-d himself made a messy job, what can be expected from small little me.
This is a lie
The start and father of psychiatry was credited to Sigmund Freud. A scientist who if he would use his methods today would have gone to prison many times over. The harm he did by claiming his understanding of mind, using his research subjects for a theory of mind function. But the more difficulty was his theories which permeate and underlie all current thought of mental health, which is we are animals, bags of desire premeditated, and therefore unable to be held to account for our choices, and actions. In his claims on morality, he stated people should do as their own morality dictates, so they don't feel guilty in their society. Would he say the same if he saw where it led to today. Today, we can provide skills, pills and methods to put the beast within, but in essence it will come out in other more cruel ways, never transformed. He believed religion was a childhood neurosis on the way of maturity of man to be a self god. Maturing into his own power. It hasn't quite worked out this way. As psychology forms more and more of our education, societal rules and morality, it has screamed loud and clear to kick G-d out of country and out of man. Kicking G-d out of man, has left only beast behind- as is well attested to in the daily world.
More directly, questions abound as to why with increasing treatment modalities, available medications, education knowledge- is the mental health needs exploding rather than diminishing How is it when we add supports in schools and communities instead of children using them and becoming whole, more and more are added to the roster
How is it that we were taught to prescribe medication to replace those who are self medicating with substances , and now we prescribe these self same mind altering substances to order thoughts?
The push to legalize cannabis was supposed to lead to improved Mental health, when these did not materialize, suddenly we are prescribing pcp ketamine ecstasy amongst others, and when warnings by prescribers that they aren't able to hold the patient to the prescribed dosing which increases due to tolerance, they get it on the street. Have we become drug pushers who are screaming about the drug epidemic at the same time?
The method that I have chosen to point out the differing viewpoints is by taking one or two points from the Parsha to gain clarity and truth of the critical underpinning of the thoughts and methods to achieve true integration.
Thank You for taking the time to read and think, hopefully eventually we can figure out what to do
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