Growing in the Spirit

Bob Johnson considers the link between emotional health and spiritual growth

by Bob Johnson 19th September 2014

Sixty years ago I worked at The Retreat, the pioneering Quaker mental hospital in my home town of York. I was about to start medical school and this was a holiday job as an orderly. It was wonderful. I shall never forget the peanut butter sandwiches we ate during break times. The most challenging disease there was labelled schizophrenia, so naturally I set my life’s task to find a talking cure for it. I didn’t know at the time that Quakerism itself is therapeutic, but I do now.