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Troubled
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TROUBLED MINDS
The God
Shaped Brain
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MENTAL ILLNESS AND THE CHURCH’S MISSION
well, that it is a very difficult thing to share, especially with everybody. But in the same
instance, it is very brave because it is the only way to really help people understand what
the situation is.
One of the things that I tried to do in the book is to give people a better understanding of how families
are affected by especially serious mental illness because it really is, like you said, incredibly disruptive
to a family and it is also something that is difficult to share and difficult to explain, especially to peo-
ple who haven’t been down that same road. I did try to give people a bit of a glimpse into how families
are affected and how individuals are affected by
serious mental illness and some of the difficulties
that come along with it, so that they can have a
better framework for approaching people and in
figuring out how can we come along side people;
what do they actually need from us.
— just over one in
four Americans
(and that’s just
ages 18 and over)
— have a diag-
nosable mental
disorder
EOF: We are going to discuss Troubled Minds. I loved it, by the way, I think it is some-
thing that should have been brought forward frequently and openly. But before I get
too much on a soapbox, why don’t we start with you telling the readers a little bit about
what it’s about?
The subtitle summarizes it pretty well and that is, Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission. Basically
what I’ve tried to do in this is pack in a few things. One: my own personal family story and how it
relates to serious mental illness. Also, the experiences of a lot of other people who have similarly been
touched profoundly by mental illness and its effects. And then third, a lot information about mental
illness and how churches can better help support people who are affected by it and essentially fulfill
what I feel is the mission of the church as it relates to people who are affected by mental illness.
Starting off with that, you discuss quite a bit of your personal journey and I know
from my own personal experience because my brother had a serious mental illness as
I don’t remember the exact numbers from
when I was reading this, but it was stagger-
ing to see both how many people suffer from
any type of mental illness in the U.S. plus the
numbers for serious mental illness. Do you
recall what they were? It was a lot.
Most people are really surprised to learn that
26.2% — just over one in four Americans (and that’s
just ages 18 and over) — have a diagnosable men-
tal disorder in a given year. That doesn’t include
children. About one in five children have a diagnosable mental illness in a given year. As far as seri-
ous mental illness is concerned — and that’s illness that is more highly disruptive to a person, things
like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, things like that
— they affect about 6% of the population and that’s about one in seven adults. Which is also, like you
said, a surprising and really significant number of people.
It tells me that there probably isn’t a family that isn’t touched in some way or fashion,
really.
I think that’s true and just anecdotally, as I have written about mental illness and shared my own
family story and in interacting with other people, it has been amazing to me that just about everyone
I know has come up to me at some point now and said, “Hey, let me tell you about my own story. Let
me tell you about how I have been affected.” A lot of people I don’t know, also. It just feels like pretty