I write from the perspective of a disease sufferer.

This past year, I developed a rare and severe autoimmune disease called dermatomyositis. It put me in the hospital for two weeks. I lost 15% of my weight, almost solely due to my muscle mass wasting away. I was barely able to swallow down the right part of my throat without choking and putting myself at risk of lung infection.

I am 33, married with two very young children, and I was dying. My life was saved thanks to modern medicine.

This is why I agree deeply with Dr. James about the value of modern healthcare. I am incredibly grateful for the many doctors who have treated me, for the cocktail of very expensive and powerful drugs produced by Big Pharma, without which I would almost certainly be dead.

Yet in my life I have also experienced very different phenomenon. I have been healed, nearly-instantaneously, three times in my life. I write more about these healings below. Each of them was outside the modern medical system. And so at the same time, I share Dr James’ deep concerns about the limitations of modern healthcare to actually and adequately address all our dis-ease. I agree that modern healthcare ignores the comprehensive array of factors that go into helping us to be well.

In my contribution to this conversation, I want to focus on one of the factors that Dr. James very briefly – too briefly! – mentioned. I believe this factor has been key to my own healings – both the instantaneous ones, as well as my current recovery from dermatomyositis. I don’t believe Dr. James gives it enough weight amidst the many factors he mentions. I want to explore this factor in much more detail, and, following Dr. James, sketch out some ways in which we might understand its importance Biblically.

I do not have any formal professional medical expertise, but I can offer my personal experience as someone who has desperately sought healing. That has taken me to the expertise of others who are more qualified, who I will reference in this response.

1) Dr. James’s Neglected Factor

I want to first reiterate with Dr. James that many of the ingredients of a Biblical Functional Medicine (BFM) approach are widely accepted by our modern medical system, and indeed, by anyone who is half-informed about health. We know that we should be sleeping earlier, exercising more, resting better, eating less junk, varying our diet, consuming less media (especially social), strengthening our relationships with our loved ones, reducing our stress. While these suggestions are much harder to practice, none of these suggestions are controversial.

Within the Christian world, these messages are similarly uncontroversial. I don’t think any struggling Christian would take issue with another Christian giving advice about the importance of sleep or reducing social media consumption. In this respect, I find that Dr. James’s foundational cornerstones of BFM are already well-established and accepted.

What is Dr James’ neglected factor? Psychological and emotional health. This factor, in contrast, is controversial – both in the Christian world and the wider world.

Dr. James very briefly mentions the ‘inner ear’, by which he means the messages that we hear internally, which he acknowledges are so often deeply related to our experience of our families, upbringing and childhood experiences. He also mentions ‘trauma’ that can result from these messages. In other words, Dr. James is touching upon the importance of psychology to our physical health. Yet, unlike diet or rest, Dr. James doesn’t develop this theme throughout his piece.

Many Christians would find the above topics – psychology, childhood, trauma – controversial. Suppose you’re part of a conservative, or especially a Reformed church. You mention in Bible study that you’ve become interested in psychology and your emotional health; or you had become more aware of how trauma had impacted your life; or you were starting to journal about your childhood experiences and upbringing. I reckon there’s a very high chance that your dialoguer would think you had started to go liberal in your theology. That you were engaging in worldly and unprofitable pursuits instead of Godly sanctification. That you were taking your discipleship instructions from Instagram influencers instead of Scripture. In short, these topics give off seriously woke vibes.

And, God forbid that you then made this link: suppose you then mention that you thought this psychological investigation might help alleviate some of those chronic medical conditions you’ve been suffering from. At this point, I would expect you to be referred to the elders at the earliest opportunity.

(Perhaps you think I’m exaggerating. I refer you to Doug Wilson’s bracing reaction to David Field in this Theopolis conversation, where David Field explored various (admittedly provocative!) questions relating to emotional maturity, psychological health, and the unconscious.)

And so I think it is worth focusing on the possible impact that psychology, emotions, and trauma have on the body. This seems to be an area that has been neglected by conservative and/or Reformed Christians.

2) Psychology and Health: The Proposed Links

The first thing to say is that this topic is gaining increasing prominence. It isn’t a fringe alternative medicine theory any more.

You have probably heard of ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by the psychiatrist Dr. Bessel van der Kolk – a no. 1 New York Times Bestseller for at least 27 weeks. The title makes his central point clear enough. Unprocessed trauma inflicts damage upon our bodies.

You may also have come across Dr. Gabor Maté, the family doctor and psychotherapist. He has written a number of works on this theme which bring together psychology, biology, trauma and medicine, including ’When the Body Says No’ and ‘The Myth of Normal’.

Both authors – as well as many others – describe the biology and science behind their thesis. Unresolved emotional issues, such as adverse childhood experiences like abuse, neglect, trauma, chronic stress, emotional suppression – these place the body, particularly the nervous system, in chronic ‘fight-or-flight’ mode (as opposed to our ‘rest-and-digest’ mode). Stress hormones then fill the body, which then over time disrupt the regulation of many systems essential to our health: the hormonal system, the digestive system, the immune system, as well as the operation of the brain. We all have an intuitive acute experience of this – how difficult periods in our lives lead to upset stomachs, more susceptibility to illness, low moods, and less energy. It should therefore be uncontroversial that prolonged and unresolved difficulties in life can accumulate increasing damage to the body. So – and here’s the first controversial suggestion – both Dr. Maté and Dr van der Kolk describe how this pathway can lead to health problems such as autoimmune conditions (such as my own), mental disorders, susceptibility to cancer, gastrointestinal problems, chronic pain, and neurological conditions.

That’s the controversial diagnosis. Where Dr. Maté and Dr. van der Kolk become even more controversial is in their suggestions that psychological and psychotherapeutic models can have an enormous role in healing from conditions such as the above. If we can healthily process the trauma and difficulties of our lives, develop a healthy relationship with our emotions, and learn how to live with compassion, we can go some way to calming our bodies from ‘fight-or-flight’,  as an aid both to physical healing, and a deeper personal healing of the self and of the soul.

3) My Own Experience

My own three, near-instantaneous healings were informed by this perspective.

In each healing, I had been suffering from a painful and debilitating chronic condition. First it was years of painful RSI which stopped me from being able to type anything more than an email. Then it was searing prostate pain, often causing me to wince and grimace in the middle of a conversation. Then it was chronic low-level Achilles pain which had stopped me from exercising for years, despite being a keen basketball player in my youth.

All three conditions were healed suddenly, at different points of my life. These healings were thanks to the theories of a physician and medical professor, Dr. Sarno, who was an earlier pioneer in proposing the link between emotional suppression (particularly of anger) and chronic pain conditions like back pain, RSI, and migraines. After reading his book ‘The Mind-Body Connection’, my debilitating years-long RSI wrist pain disappeared almost instantly. A similar understanding and process helped heal my other two chronic conditions.

As for my current, severe autoimmune condition, I developed it during the most stressful and devastating period of my life – and it was at this time that I started to read Dr. Maté’s books and found much resonance with his theories. But it wasn’t simply stress that caused my illness (which again would be uncontroversial). I didn’t know how to deal with the emotional turmoil that was triggered by my circumstances. My wife also went through the same ‘external stresses’ as I, yet didn’t develop any diseases; we’d both agree that she’s far more emotionally healthy than I was (and am). I lacked any psychological health or experience to deal well with my terror, rage, despair, and shame.

To flesh this out, it’s worth quoting at length Dr. Maté’s definition of ‘emotional competence’ from “When the Body Says No”. Maté argues this as central to the ability of our bodies to heal ourselves, to manage stresses without them becoming chronic.

“Emotional competence requires:

•  the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress;
• the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries;
• the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past. What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood.
• and the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others.

Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis. Chronic disruption results in ill health…‘[1]

Speaking from my own experience, it’s been almost a calendar year since my first muscular symptoms appeared. It’s been a year in which I’ve undertaken intensive psychotherapy and read around the subject more widely. I’ve started to develop some of these ‘emotional competence’ skills. Thanks to many months of convalescence, I’ve had the space to reflect and grieve on some of the difficulties of my childhood, so that they are less present; I’ve developed a deep appreciation for the concept of boundaries and my marriage and relationships have hugely improved; I’ve become much more conscious of and unthreatened by my emotions. Life feels much less burdensome on a psychological level. I’m also recovering from my disease.

To some Christians, such topics are again a big red flag. I’ve heard the common accusation: we shouldn’t engage in ‘dumpster diving’, we don’t need to be ‘picking at the scab of the past’, we just need to trust and obey, repent and believe. Some metaphors, in reply: Sometimes we must deep clean the dumpster, lest the mould multiply and contaminate the rest of us. Sometimes we need to go beneath the scab in order to treat with the infection that’s beneath it and stop it from spreading. Sometimes repentance and faith might mean turning from deeply seated patterns of thought and behaviour, whose origins in us are not immediately obvious and need some investigation, in order that we can trust Christ for and in the deep and wounded parts of our soul.

At this stage, it’s vital that I make an important clarification and caveat. Many sufferers of chronic conditions can read such theories as the ones above and feel blamed, as if the suggestion is that disease is all ‘our fault’. This is not at all the intent. If this is a question that you’re thinking, I highly recommend reading Dr. Maté’s FAQ on this page, under the section ‘Are you actually saying that I’ve created the conditions for my own disease? And if so, aren’t you blaming the victim?’

It’s also worth saying too, that this is not intended as a comprehensive theory of disease, nor a comprehensive theory of healing. Emotional competency is not implicated in all disease or remedies. It is not a cure-all remedy. As Dr. James notes, diet, sleep, exercise, rest, are all vital – as are all the blessings of modern medicine. And it goes without saying often disease afflicts us simply because we live in a fallen world. But I do believe that emotional competency is a neglected area, especially for Christians. Since we are not gnostics, we should be open to the idea that the health of our inner lives might sometimes have profound implications for the health of our bodies.

4) Some thoughts towards ‘Biblical psychological healing’, or why Christians should pay more attention to this area

The first reason why Christians should pay more attention to this area is practical. I believe many Christians lack the emotional competency that may be implicated in developing diseases later on. As Dr. Maté describes it, harmful emotional incompetency consists in ‘the inability to say no, the need to take on other people’s problems as your own, the driven need to always be “nice” or “helpful” or “positive” or not “rock the boat”, even if that means suppressing one’s own emotions’. But many of us have misunderstood the Bible’s precepts as recommending such an attitude! ‘Deny yourself’. ‘Bear one another’s burdens’. ‘Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you’. Could our (mis-)interpretation of these passages be making us physically sick? This is a vital question.

This leads us on to a second reason to take this concept seriously. Just as Dr. James models taking a Biblical approach to functional medicine, so we are obligated to do the same with any psychological approaches to medicine. There are many theological and exegetical implications that need to be worked through and evaluated. At the same time, there may be theological opportunities. Genuine blessings and insights from the secular world may help us to see unnoticed themes in Scripture ‘through new eyes’. For example, as I have gradually stopped repressing my emotions, I have experienced various degrees of healing; but what does that mean for the right understanding of the normative emotional life of a Christian and my understanding of commands like Matthew 5:22? This continues to be a period of theological wrestling for myself. Yet, as one might expect from a Theopolis conversation, I’ve been helped hugely by the Psalms: both in how they depict the vivid affections of the Lord, and how they depict (and thus promote) the vivid emotional life of the Psalmists. For example, when I was wondering whether it was sinful for me to feel my anger, I came across Psalm 7: ‘God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.’ Well, in that case, maybe it’s okay that I also feel and process my indignation at all the harm I’ve suffered.

To make another Theopolis link, Trevor Laurence’s 2021 James B. Jordan Prize-winning work on the imprecatory Psalms has also been an unexpected source of healing for me. I wept with gratitude and relief when I read this line: ‘‘the psalms of wrath’ are necessary for proper communion with God, capable of healing, cultivating virtue, and providing a witness in a world gone horribly wrong’. After a lifetime of repressing my ability to feel anger and viewing that as a Christian virtue within myself, and then feeling the conflict of experiencing anger as a necessary part of my healing, I was beyond relieved to see a Christian theologian describing wrath as a necessary part of my communion with God.

Think of your church and its members. Do we think that professions of faith, Christian discipleship and church life have moulded us into emotionally healthy adults? Or is something missing? In my experience, the Christian emotional life that has been modelled to me has been something much closer to stoicism. Particularly in certain denominations, emotional repression seems prevalent or even commended. A similar problem is when Christians teach or model that only positive emotions of joy, gratitude and cheerfulness are permitted. Yet when I read the Bible, I see a Lord whose days were marked by weeping, anger, pity, rejoicing, sorrow, frustration, lament, indignation, zeal, gut-wrenching compassion, blood-sweated agony, and joy-filled feasting. Importantly, the Lord Jesus also expressed all of these emotions. They were noticed by his disciples and then recorded in Scripture. If we wish to become Christ-like, then emotional repression (which is very different to emotional regulation) or constant cheerfulness must be no part of it.

Hans Rookmaaker once said: ‘Jesus didn’t come to make us Christian. Jesus came to make us fully human.’ In our emotional lives, are we conservative Christians sometimes in danger of trying to be ‘too Christian’ to be fully human? And if so, are we aware of the possibility that it is doing real damage to our bodies?

Two final points on the importance of this topic. My own thinking and research, since I became sick, have convinced me of the late Tim Keller’s concerns about Protestant spiritual formation (or rather our lack thereof): ‘we need to really redo Christian education. Completely.’ I believe that conservative Christian dismissals of psychology reflect a deeper hole in our approach to spiritual formation. After all, psychology used to mean the study of the soul, the psyche. One Theopolitan application: we shouldn’t be afraid if the secular world generates powerful insights into our inner lives more quickly than Christians do; this is simply Jim Jordan’s Enoch Factor at work.

But that’s not to say that Christians have always been ignorant of the inner life. A second Theopolitan application: I have had to turn to other branches of the church to get Christian insights on emotional health. Firstly, I’ve benefited greatly from the perspective of the Eastern Orthodox. Orthodoxy is much happier to integrate and respect the findings of modern psychology into their pastoral care and practical theology. Given the Orthodox emphases on the interior way, inner peace, sin as a sickness, and the practice of undertaking a life confession, it’s no surprise that they are much more concerned for our psychological depths. Secondly, since experiencing the benefits of regular psychotherapy, I have mused on what the Protestant church has lost in doing away completely with confessors, and the sacrament of confession. And then, within a completely different branch of the church, I believe Pete Scazzero (non-denominational charismatic evangelical) is doing excellent work on ‘Emotionally Healthy Discipleship’. This is an area where many denominations need to do a lot more work in their models of change regarding pastoral care, discipleship, and spirituality – not least if there are physical implications.

Finally, Christians need to get involved in this area because there is also real spiritual danger here. To engage with the therapeutic world, of which Dr. Maté and Dr. van der Kolk represent a very respectable and MD-certified face, means entering an arena where there is much potential harm as well as much potential healing. To take a negative example, both Dr. Maté and Dr. van der Kolk recommend psychedelic drugs like ayahuasca or ecstasy as potent healing agents – something that no Christian should be engaging in, given the clear Biblical prohibition on pharmekeia. So, if there is much true in what they say, Christians should be on the forefront in sifting through the wheat amongst the chaff, the medicines from the poison.

5) Conclusion

On reflection, I’m not sure I ever grew in the skills of emotional competency in over a decade after becoming a Christian. To be sure, when I first believed in Christ as Lord over a decade ago, I experienced a great and abiding joy bursting into what had been a very dark period in my life. But despite all my (eager) participation in church life, my various roles in various ministries (both full-time and as a volunteer), and my study of theology, the area of emotional competency was never one that was prioritised. The impact of my past on my present was never inquired on. Very difficult present relationships in my life – and their impact on me – were not explored, but instead met with brief and limited compassion plus Bible verses to be believed and dutifully obeyed. My lack of emotional expression was felt as a strength: I was reliable, resilient, a faithful soldier. But was I Christ-like? Or was there instead a deep and abiding sickness within me, firstly within my soul, that then later on manifested itself in my body as well? I believe so, and I am grateful to Dr. James for opening up this conversation on the the wider factors that go into making us whole, well, and ultimately more human.

I want to finish on a positive note. Whilst I believe the church (at least in the West) has a lot to learn from the way psychology can make us whole and healthy, the reverse is also true. Therapists and mind-body healing advocates alike extol the benefits of self-compassion and self-forgiveness in our healing. And if self-compassion offers great healing benefits, how much more might Almighty God’s lovingkindness bring healing into our lives – if we allow him to work deeply enough in our souls?

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Hin-Tai Ting is a teacher living in London, UK.

^[1] Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No, Chapter 3: “Stress and Emotional Competence”