On Maintaining Mental Health: Baha'i Attitudes and Practices

A signficant percentage of the population meets the criteria for one psychiatric disorder or another. Baha'is, too, are affected. It is quite possible to come across blogs in the blogworld by Baha'is who speak openly and freely about their struggle against the symptoms of their mental illness. Roguepixie incorporates her Baha'i practices in the effort, as she writes on LiveJournal.

I am working with therapist & psychiatrist & Doc on meds to help, changed bcp meds, additional antidepressants, a mood stabilizer,sleep meds, .... And in the complimentary medicine side, skills to help me not to panic or spiral-- and to change how I think under stress.

I have a meditation corner, I do affirmations each day, I incorporate my Baha'i prayers, and I am building new routines for exercise, I have new CDs on meditation and on relaxation from my therapist to use.Working all the toolboxes both medical and complimentary.

What still needed to happen, though, was me making one crucial change that I made at 2 AM this AM. The decision to let go of suicide as option.
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In a fascinating "report presentation of religious site visit" done as a blog, the blogger, a French Canadian nurse named Cybelete, writes, "Welcome on my paper about the Baha'i Community's perception of health and illness," and proceeds to outline not only her first encounter with the Baha'is but gives a nifty overview of the Baha'i view of health, including mental health. Here is an excerpt from one entry entitled "Conception of health and illness."

It was explained to me that there is three stages of illness in the Baha’i faith.

The first one is strictly physical. It has physical causes often easily identified by western medicine. I was given the example of a cut or a bruise. In those specific cases, the use of medical treatment is taught to be at least as important as prayers. Prayers might help, but “when you cut your finger, you need a plaster to heal the wound, prayers alone won’t do”. The Baha’i are open to the use of western medicine, with only a few limitations.

The second stage of illness is of spiritual nature. Mental illnesses are included in this category, but also losses of faith, adjustment disorders, marital conflicts, etc. The accepting precepts of the Baha’i religion, open to every one’s differences, were hinted to be good to prevent this form of illness. As for treatment, prayers and meditation were mentioned, but also social changes to end prejudices and intolerances.

The third level of illness is the most severe. It includes the illnesses that have a physical and a spiritual cause. Because the body and the soul are one in the Baha’i faith, they both are expected to interact and affect each other. Here, western medicine and spiritual guidance are both necessary for the person to fully recover.This mixture of the spiritual and the physical appealed to me, partly because I am an atheist. As such, I don’t believe in a soul disconnected from the body, but that the two are actually one. As a nurse, I also learned to appreciate the complex imbrications between the biological, the psychological and the social aspects of health and illness. Those views of mine, strangely, put me closer to the Baha’i conception of health and illness than I had expected.