Comments on: Mental Illness and the I-35 “Miracle”

By: tantien

tantien — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:46:27 +0000

I worked w/mentally handicapped adults (some being bi-polar) and I want to say thanks for this important message and as always, well delivered. This is so unfortunate, aside from the larger implications of this movement what this boils down to is, it really damages people and puts them at risk. Lets hope James is safe under the care, support and guidance of a loving family.

Something important to note is that unfortunately if a “counselor” is affiliated w/a religious organization they are not held up to the same standards as a licensed therapist (CSW, MSW, psychiatrist or Psychologists) who’s not affiliated- this varies from state to state, but its very scary.

Furthermore I’ve heard the standard to which aacc, ncca, abc and other christian counseling associations hold their “counselors” to isn’t very high.

when will this awful madness stop?

By: Benton

Benton — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:27:32 +0000

I think for the longest time here was a notion in society that clergy = therapist. I had a class in seminary called “Pastoral Counseling.” My final paper for the class was why I thought the class name was a disservice. Pastors are not called to be counselors. Yes, they may be there to be supportive, but they are not (usually) trianed to be threapists. And the pastoral relationship can be threaputic, but it is NOT therapy. Clergy can be supportive but they need to REFER! I had a classmate who plopped a DSM-IV on the desk and said every pastor needed one of these on their shelf. I was offended. I took classes in the proper use of this tool and that he thought you could just pick it up and use it was offensive. Also, pastors are NOT supposed to be diagnosing their congregants.

Again, just because someone has Pastor, or Father, or Bishop in front of their name does not mean that they are therapists, they are THEOLOGIANS. If they want to do more, then get thee to a Ph.D. in psychology program.

By: Emily K

Emily K — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:24:09 +0000

Jim, thank you so much for following up on this. I am Bipolar and I know full well how devastating the effects can be when you don’t have the right support system. James Stabile is INDEED the luckiest in this story. And those who ignored the signs of his mental illness should be ashamed. James could have been violent, or suicidal, something much worse than a pathological liar.