Meetings and mental health
Carol-Ann Hooper writes about mental wellbeing concerns
Mental and emotional distress are widespread. Many, if not all, of us suffer at some point in our lives, and many also seek comfort, support and friendship in spiritual communities.
Last year Quaker Life sent out a survey to all Local Meetings with the aim of exploring how Quaker Meetings cope with mental health issues, what impact they have and what support might be helpful.
Eighty-three people responded to the questionnaire, from fifty-six Local Meetings. They included those with personal experience of mental health issues, those with relevant professional experience outside the Quaker community, and those actively involved in mental health work within it.
The survey is not a representative sample of either Quaker Meetings or Quakers but a snapshot of the views of interested people. I volunteered to analyse the survey because I came to the Quaker community during a mental health crisis myself and am grateful for all the support and kindness I have received within it. I also have a professional interest in trauma and other aspects of the social context of mental health issues in my academic social policy work. This article aims to contribute to an ongoing conversation about how we can best respond to those in emotional distress in our communities.
Complexity and sensitivity
Some Meetings have a considerable number of people with mental health issues, and/or caring for others with mental issues, or affected by them. Other Meetings are aware of no such situation. Some Meetings have clear strategies for supporting Friends with mental health issues and/or tackling associated difficulties that may arise in the Meeting. Others do not. Many Friends emphasised the complexity and sensitivity of the issues – the different and continually changing requirements and resources of each Meeting and of each individual – and also the need to consider what the Quaker community can do itself, and where professional skills and attention outside it are needed.
There is a long history of Quaker concern and innovation in relation to mental health – with The Retreat in York at its centre. There are increasing resources available, such as the publication Encounters with mental distress: Quaker Stories. A range of views was expressed in the survey, however, on the appropriate role of Quaker Meetings. Some saw the whole area of mental health as integral to the role of Quaker communities in relation to both members and attenders, and, potentially, as more than that: as a way we can offer something to the wider world. Comments included:
The Quaker traditions of nonjudgemental acceptance and embracing difference are, in my opinion, an ideal basis for us starting to be useful in this direction.
Others were more cautious:
We continue to uphold one another practically and in prayer. We should not try to undertake what professionals do. Goodwill is one thing, professional, detached help is quite another and more helpful in the long run.
Some of the cautious respondents were concerned about the risk of those with good intentions being ineffective in providing help, or even doing harm – for example, by being insufficiently sensitive to the diversity of individual conditions and needs. Some sufferers had found it painful that their Meetings ignored mental health issues; some had experienced difficult encounters within them; others, though, had received excellent support.
Finding the words
Some Friends felt that their Meetings were more confident in talking about and supporting those with mental health issues than others did. One person’s response summed up many of the barriers to openness for sufferers:
Many Friends within Meeting would not feel able to talk openly – because we are shy and reserved, because of stigma, because we feel we should be able to cope, because we can’t find the words and don’t trust that we will be heard.
For Meetings as a whole, the barriers included: fear and nervousness; lack of awareness/understanding/experience; lack of confidence in getting alongside people to offer support and in dealing with difficult or challenging behaviour; conflicting views about what should be done (sometimes expressed with strong feeling); lack of resources and lack of clarity about responsibilities or guidance; the culture of Meetings – focusing on the spiritual and/or the political at the expense of the personal; and uncertainties about issues of confidentiality (particularly in larger Meetings).
Openness
Friends were asked: ‘What facilitated openness?’ By far the most common theme in responses concerned the kind of community we are. Comments included: ‘because we are that sort of Meeting’; ‘an honest interest in each other’s lives’; ‘a culture of openness and trust’; and ‘being a welcoming community’.
Other contributors to the subject of openness included people with mental issues talking about them (including in ministry), which helped others to open up; Friends with necessary skills (especially in listening) and commitment, and particular Friends with professional experience in the field; informal and social groups (and smaller local groups in large Meetings), which helped people to develop trust and offered space to check on personal lives; local workshops and Meetings for Learning; and those with oversight and involvement in relevant organisations, such as the mental health charity Mind.
A cautionary note on the goal of openness was offered by some, who emphasised how important privacy is to many who are suffering from mental health issues.
Other practices identified as helpful to sufferers included: holding several Meetings for Worship across the week with smaller and shorter gatherings, which suit some people better; a healing prayer group to which members and attenders could add themselves or family members to be upheld by prayer when they have physical, mental or emotional problems; visits to Friends in hospital or at home; support for carers; mutual support between families with similar concerns; and financial help – either through collections or for Friends attending Woodbrooke for mental health courses.
The survey sought views on what help and assistance Meetings would welcome in relation to mental health issues. By far the most popular response was area and regional workshops, with local workshops too. Woodbrooke courses and written guidance were also favoured choices.
Benefits
The proposal for a named advisor in Friends House in London, to be appointed to advise and support Meetings as mental health issues arise, was welcomed by many. Alongside such a resource many emphasised that the overall quality of relationships within our communities is the foundation for dealing with mental health issues. Two examples illustrate how such relationships can directly help those suffering:
The main benefit I received from my Meeting during [a time of significant mental distress lasting several years] was the honest and ordinary friendships that grew in depth and understanding. Meeting sometimes provided a holding space for confusion and distress, but specific friends provided hope (when I had none) and normalised my experience by sharing their own joys and sorrows with me. They also provided opportunities for me to help them, and to help others, which is the very best therapy.
If, as individuals, we open a space to ‘share’ (and that won’t always be appropriate), then we must truly be prepared to share as friends; vulnerability must be two-way or it is, frankly, dangerous. Beyond that, we must seek to bear with one another, forgive one another and aspire, in the best everyday sense, to be ‘friends’.
