A US-based Catholic association dedicated to mental health ministry has released two new online resources to help Catholics understand the signs of mental health struggles and how to better accompany those seeking help. Source: OSV News.
Sometimes a loved one or acquaintance seems “irritable, emotional or just absent from things they used to love. But you’re not sure what’s wrong. Most of us don’t. We weren’t trained to recognise mental illness,” a trailer for the free video courses said.
“We want to help. But we’re afraid of saying the wrong thing, making it worse,” it said, especially by offering the usual platitudes: “Time heals all wounds”; “God has a plan”; and “God never gives us more than we can handle.”
Different members of the International Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers presented the trailer for the courses at Vatican News headquarters on Saturday, World Mental Health Day.
The news conference was part of its international meeting being held in Rome and at the Vatican, dedicated to “A Healing Presence: The Church’s Call to Mental Health Ministry.”
The new one-hour-plus video course on “mental health literacy” aims to help people recognise some of the signs and symptoms of the most common forms of mental illness, such as depression, bipolar disorder, addiction and trauma.
The two-hour course on “psychological first aid,” said Deacon Ed Shoener, founder and president of the CMHM global association, is “much like physical first aid, where you can approach someone who may be in trouble or hurting, patch them up, so to speak, help them along, accompany them, and then direct them to professional care.”
The courses are not meant to train people how to diagnose problems or to provide clinical treatment or advanced spiritual care.
What they do is merge faith resources with the skills to recognise, speak about and support people showing signs of a mental health struggle or crisis so that everyday Catholics can learn how to be part of a mental health ministry team for their parish – not how to be a licensed therapist or counsellor.
The new videos are at catholicmhm.org/act-videos.
FULL STORY
New online courses help Catholics comfort those struggling with mental health (By Carol Glatz, CNS via OSV News)
