All right, morning everyone.
We're going to get going.
We're continuing our class about vocation, about faith and work.
And this morning Janet Leidenker is going to be speaking with us about faith, work, and mental health.
Janet works as a psychology researcher and she may tell a little bit more about that.
So let's pray for her as we begin.
Lord, we thank you for gathering us here this morning.
We thank you, Lord, for the wisdom that you give to us through your word, through your spirit.
Lord, as we learn through the different experiences that you lead us through in our lives.
We pray that we would benefit from what Janet has shared with us this morning.
Pray that you would empower her with your spirit.
We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
There we go.
All right.
Well, thank you all for being here.
I am going to talk about faith, work, and mental health today.
So I am going to walk through some of my experiences being a psychologist and being a Christian
and how I thought about integrating the two over the years.
I am going to start by explaining exactly what it is that I do
and then talk about a little bit of why I chose my profession
and my approach to treating patients and work-life balance
and some of the professions that are facing me and also my profession.
So by way of background, I am a counseling psychologist.
I work as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine.
And virtually no one knows what that actually means.
So I will try to explain a little bit about what that really is.
So I did my doctoral training in counseling psychology,
which is an offshoot of clinical psychology.
That means that during graduate school, I was trained to treat patients,
to conduct clinical research, and to teach,
and then to advocate for patients and do leadership in that sense.
So psychologists specialize in psychological or behavioral treatment.
So unlike psychiatrists who prescribe medication,
we do what's commonly known as talk therapy.
Our daily work ends up looking very similar to most mental health professions,
but we do have this additional element of clinical research
as well as advocacy and leadership in it.
So counseling psychologists have a particular identity within the field of psychology.
So we, like I said, are an offshoot of clinical psychology
that expanded the patients that we treat
and also our approach to how we do treat them.
So we see patients across the full severity spectrum,
so from normal life stressors all the way up through serious mental illness,
and across the full lifespan as well.
So I've literally seen patients between the ages of one and we'll go with over 80.
And I'm primarily trained as a child psychologist,
but with the idea that anyone in the full age spectrum is someone who I should and can treat.
As an approach, the difference between counseling and clinical psychology
is that we do emphasize the strengths of patients, including diversity.
So we have an additional emphasis on multicultural competence.
And then trying to pull from a person what their individual strengths are
in order to overcome some of their difficulties.
Advocacy is a big part of who I am as a professional
in terms of advocating for patient groups
and then also empowering individuals to advocate for themselves.
So that, like I said, is who I am as a professional.
So I wanted to spend a little bit of time now talking about vocation
and why I chose to do what I'm doing.
So back in college when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do as a career,
I wanted to help people.
And I thought that my personality and some of my skills
would be best suited to helping people through therapy.
And I do thoroughly enjoy helping people in this way.
But I struggled a lot with the idea of calling.
So after college, I worked for a couple of years
to try to figure out for sure what it is I wanted to do.
I knew I wanted to go back to school,
but I didn't know what kind of training I wanted to do.
And calling is or was something that I certainly struggled with
because of some of the inherent problems
in thinking about what a career actually is.
So if you think about a helping profession,
there's a lot of meaning in being able to help people.
But I think that's different from a calling.
I think wanting to do something
and feeling like you'd be good at doing something
are both very different from feeling as though
God is asking you to actually do a certain type of work.
In helping professions,
I know a lot of people,
the majority of psychologists,
are not Christian or have any faith of their own.
And yet still will say that they do what they do
because of the meaning that's part of it.
And because they like being able to help people.
So I struggled with,
well, that's not all that it could be
to feel like this is a calling.
And yet I did feel called to do the work that I do.
I was also surrounded by people in my faith communities
at the time who were doing jobs
that weren't helping professions
and that didn't have an obvious way
that people would say,
oh, well, clearly I'm doing the work of God.
And so it felt like a privilege to be able to say,
well, I'm helping people.
So therefore, it is a calling.
So I came across this verse, Isaiah 6, 8,
and this helped me a great deal
in how I reframed my idea of what calling was.
So I'm going to read the passage from the beginning.
For context, Isaiah is having a vision
where he's in the throne room of God
and ends by having a commission from God.
So this is Isaiah starting in chapter 6.
In the year of King Uzziah's death,
I saw the Lord sitting on a throne,
lofty and exalted,
with the train of his robe filling the temple.
Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings.
With two he covered his face,
with two he covered his feet,
and with two he flew.
And one called out to another and said,
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
And the foundations of the thresholds trembled
at the voice of him who called out
while the temple was filling with smoke.
Then I said, woe is me, for I am ruined,
because I am a man of unclean lips,
and I live among a people of unclean lips.
For my eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me
with a burning coal in his hand,
which he had taken from the altar with tongs.
He touched my mouth with it and said,
Behold, this has touched your lips,
and your iniquity is taken away,
and your sin is forgiven.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?
Then I said, Here am I, send me.
And after this, Isaiah gets the prophecy
that he's to deliver to people.
So the reason why this helped me is it shifted my idea of calling
as something that was a very specific call
that God had made exactly for me
to something that was much more flexible.
So there's a list of tasks that God wants and needs done
that will address a lot of the brokenness in the world.
And it's not about me or being selected and singled out to do something,
but it's a task that, in a way, I'm volunteering for.
And someone else could have built the space,
but it is still a calling.
It's still working for the Lord.
So at the time when I was deciding to go to graduate school,
this verse really helped me be able to say to myself
that this was the calling that I was choosing to do.
So I specialize in the treatment of eating disorders and obesity.
And I specifically chose to specialize in this
when I was starting to go to graduate school.
You have to pick an area of specialization,
but people vary in terms of how much they focus on it
versus how much they learn more of the general practice of psychology.
I'm highly specialized, even more so as I've gone throughout the years.
So as I started learning about eating disorders,
I took classes in college
and really had a fascination by some of these disorders.
And eventually when I started working with patients
with some of the extremes of how they were expressed,
I started to see eating disorders as conditions of ungrace,
of not being willing or able to accept self-compassion
or compassion from others or forgiveness from yourself or from others.
which is not to say that Christians can't have eating disorders.
I think they are a sign of brokenness that we're all susceptible to.
But when I'm sitting across from my patients,
this is a very glaring manifestation of brokenness
where some of the rigidity and patience
and the perfectionism seems to,
and the desire to be personally in control of everything,
just seems to make it impossible
or seemingly impossible for these individuals
to accept any sort of compassion towards themselves
or from anyone else.
Which really, which spoke to me.
And that I remember when I first started thinking about this
and was fascinated by it,
it just felt so wrong.
It really spoke to the advocate in me
and the compassion in me
that this was something that I wanted to be invested in
and work to try to help fix.
So, I'm often asked,
often asked whether I share my faith with my patients.
And this to me is a very difficult question.
I'm often at a loss for how to answer it.
In part, it's because there's a fundamental misunderstanding
of psychological treatment in the question,
but in part, it's something that I still wrestle with
and it's a case-by-case, individual-by-individual question.
So, my job as a psychologist
is to take the best treatments we have,
the ones with the most evidence,
and to deliver them as faithfully as possible to individuals.
So, I have to know what the areas are
where there is flexibility
and also the areas where there isn't
and where there are active ingredients in the treatment.
So, some particular intervention,
some way of working through
some of the thoughts and emotions that are problematic
that we know works and stick to that
because I know that's what all the evidence says
is going to help.
The areas of flexibility tend to be around
motivation and encouragement and coping skills
and how people think about themselves
and how to overcome their barriers
and make use of the different skills that we're working on.
So, in terms of sharing my faith,
I don't often have the place
where I would share my own personal experience,
but I do work with what patients put out there
in terms of their own faith,
and it almost always comes up.
And I think one of the biggest differences
between a Christian psychologist
and someone who isn't
or between me and my colleagues
who don't have any personal faith
is a willingness to sit with the faith of the patient
and to help them figure out
what that means for them
and how that works with
some of their psychopathologies,
some of their struggles,
and how we can maximize
the resources they have,
both personally,
thinking about how they cope
and how they pray
and how they think about the world,
and more instrumentally,
so thinking about the social support
and the other forms of support
they get through religion.
And that's not small.
So, even though it's not a main part
of an intervention that I would do,
I think a lot of my patients
who I've seen
and who have engaged with me
on using their faith
to try to reinvent
who they would be as a person,
that's been very powerful.
What is more difficult
is when the patient
doesn't have any faith of their own,
and a lot of times they get asked,
well, why wouldn't you just share
the gospel with them
if you know that that's what they need
and what would fix them?
And, again,
psychological treatment is difficult.
It's one of those challenging times
when people are so vulnerable
and have so much pain
and avoidance
of many parts of their lives
that it's difficult
to be too proactive
about something as important
and as integral to identity as faith.
So, there is quite a strong potential
for more harm than good
with trying to be overly aggressive
and sharing faith.
So, again, it's case by case,
it's individual by individual,
and it's something that I struggle with.
But, ultimately,
I end up praying a lot for my patients
and hoping that God is planting seeds
and growing them
in a way that I can't necessarily plan to do.
There is a lot of hopelessness
in eating disorders,
excuse me,
in eating disorders and obesity,
where eating disorders in particular
are the hardest
among the mental health conditions
to treat
and have the highest mortality rate
of any mental health disorder.
And obesity,
which is my other area of specialty,
is such a chronic condition
that we really don't know anything
about how to help individuals
who are working on it,
but really don't have any powerful treatment
for either of these conditions.
And so,
some of the,
some of the problem
that we have for both of these
and the reason why it's harder
to make advances with individuals
and more broadly
is the stigma that comes
with both obesity and eating disorders.
And this, in more recent years,
in the past few years,
has become a major focus
what I do on a day-to-day basis.
So if you think about
mental health conditions broadly,
there's a lot of stigma about,
a lot of fear
directed towards patients,
a lot of blame.
You must have done something wrong,
your parents must have done something wrong.
The list goes on and on
about how we do blame individuals
with mental health conditions.
We see this quite a bit
with eating disorders.
I can't tell you the number of patients
who have come to me and said,
well, my uncle said I needed to
stop being so vain
and stop looking in the mirror
and I could be all set.
Or my mother said
I just grew out of it.
It really,
there are lots of
hurtful and misunderstood
messages that patients get
and that really deeply
come into
how they see themselves
in a way that's,
it's hard to uproot.
And it's very discouraging
discouraging for me
as a provider
trying to fight
this environmental
challenge as well
as help individuals
with their particular struggle.
We see the same thing
with obesity.
We're actually seeing it
more and more
even as rates
of obesity increase as well.
There's a lot of blame
for individuals saying,
well, why don't you just eat less?
Well, why don't you just exercise more?
We need to have more self-control.
And that's just not true.
It's just an oversimplification.
If that were all that it took,
we wouldn't have this problem
that we have in the United States
and now actually around the world.
There are so many other factors
that are outside of people's control,
including genetics,
but many, many, many beyond that,
that make it difficult
for people to lose weight
and to treat their obesity.
So a big part of my professional identity
is to try to help people
become aware that stigma's there
and to help patients understand
that they don't deserve
to be treated this way,
that it's unfair,
that people will say
these particular criticisms to them
and help them to advocate
for their own rights.
Potentially, most painfully,
we do see it in healthcare a great deal.
So again, I can't tell you
how many patients have said,
well, I really don't want to go to my doctor.
I know you're telling me
that my blood pressure is high,
but when I go,
they just make me feel horrible
and tell me I need to lose weight
and I need to stop eating junk food
and then I wouldn't have
a blood pressure problem.
And it's well-meaning.
It's trying to help the patient
understand the importance of their health,
but it's often when patients
are seeing either in treatment,
so they're making every effort
that they can to lose weight
or to get their weight
in a healthy range
in the case of eating disorders.
And so hearing that
they're just not doing enough
is damaging
and will cause patients
to not go back to their providers.
So again, a lot of my job,
and this comes from
my professional identity,
but also from my faith,
is to help people realize
that they do have dignity as a person
and that no matter what
their mental or physical health condition,
that they do deserve
to be treated with compassion
and with understanding
and certainly with respect.
So psychology is hard.
One of the major themes,
one of the major things
I've thought about over the years
is the idea of this to happen
and of rest.
Freud called the profession of psychology
an impossible profession
and said, in a nutshell,
that no one who delves so deeply
into human suffering
can come out unscathed.
And that's true.
We have this idea of compassion fatigue
where it is exhausting
and it's traumatizing to some extent
to hear people suffering
over and over and over
if you're not taking care of yourself
at the same time.
So I started looking into the Sabbath
in college.
My small group decided to observe the Sabbath
and we looked a little bit
at some of the writings
and some of the scripture on it.
I'm sure you all remember this
from earlier this summer
in Exodus.
We are commanded to keep the Sabbath,
to take a day of rest
once in the course of a week.
So in college,
when I first started studying the Sabbath,
I have a very vivid memory
of a paper that I wrote
for a psychology class.
It was a very humbling experience.
So I started from the perspective
of believing that we were called
to observe the Sabbath
as an act of obedience
and a discipline,
but that it was something
that God would honor our faithfulness,
but it wasn't quite rational.
It didn't really make sense.
I was coming from all of the many years
of being told not to procrastinate,
that if you have a certain amount
of stuff to do,
then you spread it out
over as much time as possible
because if you condense it,
you have too much stress.
And so I thought,
well, of course,
it would be the same principle.
If you work for six days
instead of seven,
you're going to have more stress
and you're going to be worse off,
and yet we're called
to be obedient in this
and to give up some of that control
and be faithful to God.
I could not have been more wrong.
So like I said,
it was a psychology paper,
so I looked at all the science
that goes into this idea of resting.
They wouldn't call it the Sabbath,
but it is a direct correlate.
So we have this idea
called the self-regulatory hypothesis,
and basically it says
that self-control is like a muscle,
that it's something that you work,
you exercise over and over and over.
You try time and time again
to have self-control,
to stick to those habits,
stick to those practices
that you want to stick to,
and then you need to rest it.
So like with exercise,
like with a muscle,
you break it down
and you get the additional strength
in that rest period
when the muscle builds back up.
So self-control is the same way.
So being able to do work
is the same way.
Being able to think about
difficult problems
to write and to keep going,
to give of yourself to patients.
All of the many tasks that you do
fall under this idea of self-control,
that if you don't take that rest,
you are just continually draining
and you end up with
what we now call compassion fatigue,
that you're just kind of flat and dead
and can't pull up resources
that no longer exist.
So that was understandably
convicting to me,
that we have this idea in Scripture
that we should be keeping the Sabbath
and science supports it,
that from both directions,
it really does seem to be
what is best for our well-being.
So I have tried
over the years,
in particular in graduate school,
to keep the Sabbath,
so to take a day
in the course of a week
when I don't do work.
Keeping the Sabbath
means a lot of different things
for a lot of different people.
There are some who
don't do chores,
don't cook,
don't spend money.
There are lots of different ways
to express this.
For me,
where I spend so much of my time
writing and doing
and thinking
and doing work,
I just don't do my job
for one day a week.
I like the way
Tim Keller talks about Sabbath.
He has really great writings
and sermons on it
where the bigger picture
is that not being able
to take a rest
is a form of slavery
or oppression.
So even as we're called
to obedience
and resting for one day a week,
it's also a freedom
and it's something
that we can take delight in
and take joy in.
And my experience
has certainly been
that having that day off
has been the time
when I've had
the resources
to put into relationships
to actually think
and spend time with God
and I don't think
I've ever regretted
taking some time off.
But I also,
I don't know
that that's totally true,
I also think
it has made
a lot of my work
the other six days
or five days of the week
more productive
and with greater insight
and ability
to focus
and to work hard
and conscientiously.
I also think
that the Sabbath,
just like I had
rationally hypothesized
at the beginning,
is a nice way
to remind myself
that it doesn't
just rely on me.
That taking a day off,
nothing,
nothing is really
a problem
on the day
when I don't show up
to work
or on the day
when I don't
try to push things
a little bit further
that it really isn't
about me.
So this is
my verse for the year
and it comes
out of both
the two ideas
that I've been talking about,
the idea of vocation
and then also
the idea of rest.
So 1 Corinthians 15, 58,
therefore,
my beloved brethren,
be steadfast,
immovable,
always abounding
in the work
of the Lord,
knowing that your toil
is not in vain
in the Lord.
So,
we've talked about
compassion fatigue,
we've talked about burnout,
where,
without taking care
of yourself,
we just don't
have the ability
to help others
as well.
We've talked about
the idea
that
we do work
for the Lord,
whether it's
a specific calling
or something
that we've decided
to do
with a more broader
understanding
of calling.
It has
an additional
importance,
an additional value,
because we're working
for the Lord
and not just
showing up
and doing
what we can
for purpose.
A lot of,
when we talk
about burnout
and meaning
within the profession,
we talk a lot
about self-care
as well as
what our daily
habits are
and daily patterns
are that will
help us
be more productive.
I think that
this verse,
the three parts
of it,
I do love
how they come
together
to ground
me
in how
I approach
work.
One thing
we haven't
talked about
too much
is
academia
itself,
which is a
very challenging
environment.
So,
even in the
midst of treating
patients,
there's this
additional level
at a medical
school or in
academia
where everything
is about
your reputation.
So,
everything is
about how
well you're
known for
the work
that you do
locally or
more broadly,
whether it's
being a fantastic
clinician or
being known
for research
and for
publishing.
There's this
idea that
everything
comes down
to your name,
which makes
it an
environment of
ego threats.
so a
place where
there's a
lot of
defensiveness
because if
you lose
your name
or if you
don't hold
up whatever
standard you've
set,
then you
are failing.
So,
these pressures
of wanting
to help
people and
also wanting
to succeed
can feel
hopeless at
times.
So,
this verse
has been
helping me
in terms
of sticking
to doing
the actual
work,
being steadfast
and immovable
and remembering
that it is
work for the
Lord.
So,
abounding in
the work for
the Lord,
not just
abounding in
work,
but in
the work
that I
have that
additional
value within.
And I
really like
the last
part of
this,
that it's
not in
vain.
So,
if you're
working for
the Lord,
then it's
not in
vain.
It won't
come to
nothing.
What it
does come
to is
unclear,
but it
won't be
nothing.
When I
first started
seeing
Patience,
my church
where I
went to
grad school
was doing
a series
on hope
and we
had this
definition
of hope
from biblical
scripture as
opposed to
modern
understanding,
which I
still hold
on to.
Hope is,
what I
have written
here,
the confident
expectation
that God's
work will
be successful.
I love
this definition.
So we
think about
hope in
the modern
understanding
where it's
more of a
wish.
So wishful
thinking,
something
seems like
it's unlikely,
maybe possible,
and I wish
that it would
happen.
That's how
we think
about hope.
But in
a lot of
the verses,
there's more
of a confidence
in it and
an expectation
that you can
rely on God
that,
just like this
verse says,
it's not going
to be in
vain,
that efforts
will come
through because
God's behind
it.
So that is
something that I
use very often
with patients,
but also in
how I think
about the
work that I
do and
trying to
figure out
career path
and what that
actually looks
like,
which is
always changing.
So,
some of the
challenges
that I
believe I
face and
my profession
faces,
I've tried to
outline here,
and these
are also my
prayer requests.
So personally,
I think the
themes we've
talked about,
so having
continued awareness
of calling and
what that means
in terms of
career path and
how it's
expressed,
there are
really infinite
possibilities for
how it could
come out,
and my
prayer is that
I continue to
pay attention
to it.
And then
continued
encouragement
amidst all
of the
challenges and
wisdom about
what work-life
balance really
means and
what rest
means and
how to
incorporate
that.
For my
individual
patients in
my patient
groups,
so individuals
with obesity
and or
eating disorders
more broadly,
that God
would protect
them from
harm,
including but
not limited to
harm that
comes from
these societal
attitudes that
are so
pervasive,
where stigma
and blame
and criticism
is compounding
some of the
attitudes that
they already
have towards
themselves that
they've
internalized.
and then
for my
colleagues,
psychology,
even among
the mental
health professions,
I think,
is particularly
secular.
So very few
Christians are
psychologists.
I was fortunate
enough in
graduate school
to have an
unusual number
of peers in
my cohort
who were
Christian,
and we
certainly talked
about and
struggled with
how faith
and work
interacted in
the brutal
challenges of
graduate school.
But I think
broadly for the
profession,
I would pray
that my
colleagues would
have a
grounding for
their identity
and something
more than
just academia
and would
start to see
a need or
a potential
for what it
would mean if
they had a
faith in
Christ for
their work
with patients
and then
more broadly
in the
practice of
psychology.
And it
will actually
end there
since I'm
losing my
voice.
I had some
discussion
questions over
the three
points,
but I wanted
to open it
up to
questions about
anything that
I talked
about or
anything more
broadly about
psychology or
eating disorders
deserve this
faith.
Are there
any questions?
Yeah.
Thank you for
your talk.
Obviously, it
relates to your
last prayer
request, but
I think it's
very commendable
that you are
a person of
faith in the
psychology field.
From a
patient standpoint
or a patient
advocacy standpoint,
I've definitely
seen providers
who are
apathetic at
best to
faith or
antagonistic and
dismissive at
worst.
So I
appreciate your
position.
I'm wondering
how do you
balance your
faith with
treating and
leveraging someone
who is not a
Christian?
Say someone who
is a devout
Muslim or a
Jewish, somebody
who their faith
is important to
them in a
similar way that
yours is important
to you.
How do you
balance?
Sure.
So as a
patient, if
they were sitting
across from
you, yeah.
I think my
approach is that
there are far
more similarities
with people who
have faith than
there are
differences.
And a lot of
the ways that I
would help
people make use
of a Christian
faith are
certainly applicable
to other
faiths, Judaism,
Muslim, any
other faith.
I do think
I've worked
over the
years to
have an
awareness of
what that
means,
particularly for
eating disorders
and obesity.
So when I
have a
patient, for
example, who
practices Islam
and who observes
Ramadan, I
work to try to
ask and be
sensitive about
what that means
for eating
patterns and
for body image,
and there are a
lot of complications
with that.
So I think
part of the
respect for
patients is
showing an
interest and
being aware of
what their
faith means to
them.
You distinguish
eating disorders
from obesity.
I do.
Do you see
that in a
different level
of culpability?
Not culpability,
but they are
two distinct
fields.
We struggle
a lot with
this as
psychologists
but also as
providers.
So eating
disorders and
obesity, if you
imagine a
Venn diagram,
they are too
distinct, but
there's a big
area of overlap.
We actually
have much
more of an
overlap these
days than I
think we were
aware of even
10 or 20
years ago.
my particular
specialty these
days is the
overlap between
the two and
patients who
have both
obesity and
some form of
eating disorder
and how they
manage both
of them.
So in terms
of what it
looks like to
have obesity or
an eating
disorder, there's
just a spectrum
for each of
them.
both, they
can be minimal
and more
developmental all
the way up
through very
severe for
each.
But when both
are there, I
think there are
additional
struggles and
additional
pressures that
make it more
complicated.
Does that
answer your
question?
Yeah?
So in the
field of
eating disorders,
has there been
more of a
correlation over
the years
correlated to
developmental
trauma and
neglect and
people over
compensating their
adult lives?
Yeah.
What's your
neglect?
Yes.
I don't think
it's increased,
but it's always
been there and
we're certainly
more aware of
it now.
So eating
disorders are
highly related
to childhood
and adult
trauma.
part of it
gets at that
idea of
personal control,
so feeling
out of control
or having
emotions that
are in
chaos or
overwhelming
and feeling
like, well,
I can control
what food I
put into my
mouth or I
can escape by
eating either
direction and
having that be
as part of the
response.
There are
patients who
will benefit
from treating
trauma and
those who
need eating
disorder treatment,
so it varies
on what
seems to be
the presenting
problem, but
they are highly
related.
There are some
professionals who
will say that
every single
eating disorder
patient has
had some
form of
trauma.
It's certainly
up there, I
think, saying
eating
bristle is
far too
far, but
it's highly
related.
Other
questions?
Yeah.
Do you have
thoughts on
how can
we as a
church be
helpful to
those within
the church who
are struggling
with eating
disorders or
with obesity?
Are there
positive things,
you know, you
mentioned some
of the negative
things that
people can do
or sort of
like thoughtless
comments people
make or something,
but are there
biblical truths
that are helpful
for Christians
that are struggling
with those things
that you've seen?
Are there ways
that we as
fellow believers
in Christ can
that is a
great question.
So how can
we help
patients with
eating disorders
as a church?
I do think
the primary
thing we can
do is not
try to go
overboard and
push too far
and try to
offer advice.
Particularly with
severe eating
disorders,
assuming the
person's in
treatment, which
is probably a
big way that
the church
could help
if they
identify an
eating disorder
that needs
treatment, is
trying to get
the individual
engaged in
treatment.
But if they
are, they're
dealing with a
lot.
So the
treatment process
is intense.
And so forms
of social support
and coming
around someone
in a way that
gives them
space, so not
watching everything
that they eat,
but also makes
them feel like
they're loved
and supported
by people who
aren't just
their therapist
or their family
who's entrenched
in the treatment,
I think goes
so far and
wide.
Often my
younger patients,
my adolescents,
will talk about
how their whole
life becomes
treatment and
they just want
to talk to
someone about
something that's
not exactly
what they ate
or whether they
moved their
leg in order
to burn some
calories after
lunch.
so almost
being a
respite.
You've
talked about
some of the
challenge is
for these,
the needs are
so profound,
so deep,
you're involved,
you're compassionate,
you can feel
yourself drawn in
and then as a
Christian,
this sort of
demand for
neighbor love
could get
you to pour
yourself out
completely.
You talked
about the
tension of
just kind of
self-preservation,
but are there
concrete things
that you do
in the midst
of all of
these needs
to help
calibrate
what does
love call
me to do,
but what does
wisdom call
me to refrain
from,
just any
practical tips
on how to
navigate if
we find
ourselves,
as we all
do in some
sense in a
fallen world,
in which the
need around
us is ubiquitous
and deep,
and the
call to
love,
like the
Samaritan,
is profound,
and yet we
find that
challenge of
how do we
not just
completely
trust ourselves.
Yeah,
absolutely.
I can tell
you what I
do.
I don't know
how prescripted
it would be,
but I can
certainly
describe it.
In the
moment,
sitting across
from someone,
it's been a
hard lesson,
but an
important one
to learn
that I
can't
actually help
them more
than they
want to be
helped,
so I
often find
myself trying
to go that
extra mile
and help
them despite
some barrier,
some unwillingness
to change,
and that's
a problem,
and that
is probably
the biggest
source of
drainage or
exhaustion.
So that,
I would say,
is the wisdom
in the moment
and certainly
consulting with
colleagues to
figure out,
well, do I
go further,
is this the
time when I
step back and
give them some
space to
hopefully create
some change
in that way?
Personally,
so outside of
the therapy
room,
I do a lot
around this
idea of rest
and stepping
away,
so trying
to have
boundaries
from leaving
work at
work and
being outside
of work when
I'm not
there,
which is
mostly
successful,
but not
ever completely.
I do
appreciate
the commute,
so when I
walk home
or when I
walk to
work,
part of that
is in order
to have a
separation
between
what happens
at work
and what
happens outside
of work
and being
able to
separate that
with the
time and
the head
space of
being in
two different
locations.
I had a
friend when I
did my residency
in Charleston
who had a
amazing bridge
that goes over
one of the
rivers there,
and every time
she crossed the
bridge, she
just turned
off work and
said,
well, no,
now I'm done.
I'm past this
bridge, and I
love that idea
of having that
visual marker.
Now I'm
leaving this
there.
I also guard
my mood
pretty strictly,
so in terms
of media
consumption,
I have a
hard time
reading books
or watching
movies that
are very
depressing,
because I
just need a
time without
some of that
setness and
seriousness.
I do things
like that where
I pay attention
to, well, if
I do this, if
I consume this,
how will I
feel after
and try to
separate out.
thank you, Janet.
Let's pray for
Janet and for
some of the
prayer requests
that she
mentioned.
Father, thank
you for Janet
this morning.
We pray for
your continued
guidance on
her personally
and her work
and her resting
and her personal
life.
Lord, we pray
that you would
guide her in
her career path
and her desire
to do all
that she is
doing for
your glory
and in honor
of you, Lord.
We pray also
for the patients
that she's
working with,
for those who
are struggling
with eating
disorders or
obesity.
We pray that
you would
protect them
from harming
themselves, even
when they feel
like they want
to do that.
Lord, that you
would show them
a better way,
that you would
restrain them,
and that you
would also pour
out your grace
upon them.
Lord, that they
would know
your kindness
and that we
don't have to
deserve that
and that we
never will,
and yet you
pour out your
kindness to us
every day,
even in preserving
our bodies
and our souls.
Lord, we pray
that many people
would know
and be transformed
by the grace
of Christ.
And Lord, we
pray for
Janet's colleagues.
We pray particularly
in a field
that is very
secular.
Lord, for
openness,
for openness
to conversations
about faith,
for openness
to the
importance of
a patient's
faith in God,
for openness
to conversations
with Janet
about what
faith means
to her, Lord,
and for her
colleagues to
sense their
need for you,
Lord, to see
that though
psychology and
counseling are
helpful in many
ways and can
be instruments
of your
common grace,
Lord, that
they cannot
save us at
the deepest
level.
Lord, that
her colleagues
would long
for what only
you can give
us.
And we pray
for Janet
that as your
word says
you'd be ready
to give an
answer to
everyone who
asks the
reason for the
hope that we
have.
Lord, that you
would sustain and
strengthen that
hope within
her and give
her opportunities
to share that
with people who
would desire to
know more about
that.
We pray all
these things in
Jesus' name.
Amen.
We're not going
to set up any
tables.