Spiritual Crisis as Transformation

by Lael Ewy

reBIRTH - hommage un partie  by jtravism

Just about every faith tradition has some kind of story of death and rebirth, from the familiar tales of Persephone in Hellenistic mythology to the execution and resurrection that is at the core of Christianity. This idea keeps coming up because it is at work all around us: as the high season of summer declines through autumn and the earth seems to die in the throes of winter, we look forward to the verdant rebirth that is the spring. As physical bodies die, their matter gets turned back into the stuff of life through the bodies of scavengers, bacteria, plants--the cycles of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and water.  

The arcs of our states of mind, too, undergo periods of waning and waxing: from zenith to azimuth, we all go through cycles of suffering and joy.

Such intimate connections between our physical universe and our inner states of being underscore the fundamentally spiritual nature of psychological distress as experienced by many people. In an excellent exploration of the subject, Jeff Foster argues that depressive breakdown can be "a call to awakening," that what we emerge into during an emergency is as important as the stressors that push us there to begin with.

The Strengths Model of mental health care suggests that risk is a necessary part of recovery. With so many mental health services still focused on stabilization and maintenance, how can we use times of crisis to refocus on what can be gained from the experience, on how a spiritual death can lead to a new appreciation of actual life? As people experiencing mental distress, how can we help our providers understand that some of what we are experiencing is a necessary part of our growth? As providers, how can we have the faith (all puns intended) and confidence in those we serve and our  relationships with them to know when these processes are running their natural course?

And above all, how can we all support each other in learning the lessons spiritual death and rebirth have to teach?           

Rebirth by Antonio David Fernández