Ep. 235: Understanding Mental Health (Part 2)

Welcome to the indoubt podcast, where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week, we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s word. For more info on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca or indoubt.com.

Erika:

Hey, it’s Erika, and welcome back to another episode of indoubt. We’re so happy you’re here with us and today’s episode is one you won’t want to miss. We’ve got Daniel here talking with Dr. Josh Kruse, a psychologist and pastor of counselling at Village Church. He is passionate about helping people heal and grow to be more like Jesus in every area of their life. Daniel and Josh are taking some time today to discuss mental health. What it is, how to practically improve your own mental health, and even support the mental health of those around you. We’re so glad you’re here and hope you enjoy the episode.

Daniel Markin:

Hey welcome back to indoubt, my name’s Daniel Markin, and I’m joined again with Dr. Josh Kruse, and we’re continuing a conversation that we were having around mental health, and anxiety, and depression, and how we understand this both psychologically and from a spiritual side of things as Christians. So Josh, good to be back with you.

Josh Kruse:

Yeah, thanks for having me back on the show, Dan. It was fun the first time, so looking forward to it.

Daniel Markin:

Sweet, so I’ve heard it said that much of PhD work is persistence. That you can have some of the smartest people in the world who won’t actually ever finish their PhD because they didn’t have the patience and they didn’t have the persistence that is needed. When you’re doing your PhD, the thing you need the most is curiosity about that one topic, and my question for you is what got you so interested in the area of counselling and Christianity, because you had to be super curious about that to go real deep. What was it that you discovered that you said, “I just need to know everything about this,” and integrating that, tell us a little bit about how you integrate your faith in psychology.

Josh Kruse:

I mean, that exactly was the reason that I did the deep dive, that first off general interest in people understanding why we tick, why we do what we do. Just even managing life too, whether it’s feeling anxious about this, or a little less motivated. Yeah, I mean, in high school, a little bit of trying to understand girls or women, they think different and I like her, so if I can figure out maybe a little bit more about what makes her tick, then maybe I can get her to like me, and that was some of the initial seeds of that. But no, as I started getting into… So I did master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy, and I got to learn all the psych stuff of our brain, understanding that and our thoughts or our views or perceptions of ourselves, of others, our emotions and how they impact what we do and was loving that and it was good. And I was able to then, because part of it, you’re training and coming alongside people, this is good. This is helpful, but then I started finding yeah, but my faith is such a huge part of my worldview, how I understand pain, suffering, plan, purpose, meaning. It has such a robust impact on who am I, who are others, why am I here on this earth? And a big part, especially in counselling, is how do I make sense of this difficulty that’s right in front of me, whether that’s, I’m feeling anxious, I’m feeling depressed, a relationship conflict, what’s next. I mean, that’s huge, but if we’re not ever then taught purely psychologically, how do we navigate that, what’s the right decision. We’ll talk about God’s will for our lives and the secular sense, a bit more of what makes sense or a pursuit of happiness, what matters in this world, but not knowing how to actually incorporate the two. And so I felt the tension between that, or let’s say I’m sitting with somebody and they’re talking about, “I’m just so discouraged. I’m feeling so down and depressed.” Yeah, my worldview, Christian worldview, is like, you need Jesus, but then I also have the legal, ethical things of what can I bring in, what does that look like? So how do I make sense of, maybe I’m not saying you need Jesus, but maybe I’m creating a safe space for them. I am in a healthy and appropriate way, loving them through providing counsel, am I actually helping them? Am I harming them? So that was the big impetus for the deep dive of, I need to know what I’m doing here. And then even hearing the opposition, some people like, “Whoa, psychology? You’re going that route. That’s dangerous stuff that has such a bad history.” And basically people need the Bible and they need Jesus, and psychology has no place.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, I guess, just to jump in, “Oh, psychology, that’s anti faith.” Right? “You don’t need to understand psychology. You need to understand God better.” And not understanding that well, God also created psychology, and he created our brains, and our personalities, and there’s this emotional field that all is a part of this too.

Josh Kruse:

Yeah, and so understanding the human person. So yeah, if God created us, which he did, then a deeper understanding of what makes us function, actually, I think, glorifies him even more so. We get to understand the creator as we then on a brain level, come into neurons firing, and neurons that fire together, wire together, and it’s beautiful, and understanding habits, and I mean, spiritual disciplines. Why am I not reading my Bible? Why am I? Well, let’s deep dive into what’s happening in our brains and maybe there are even some strategies around that, which can help me be in the word more so, well, I think that’s pretty valuable. And I mean, we do have to watch, and I get some of the kickback from the psychology realm and the history where it has done damage, or essentially you’re trying to find the power from within, it’s within, you find that, and that’s been the source.

Daniel Markin:

Like a self-help sort of thing?

Josh Kruse:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

Because the way I’ve kind of thought about this is oftentimes the narrative throughout history that you’ve seen is you would look outside of your sphere to figure out who you are. So you’re looking outside to figure out, and oftentimes that was, what does your religion say? What does your family say? And that has a big influence on who you are, but nowadays in our postmodern, our post-truth, a lot of talk about finding your own story, your own truth. We actually look inward and say, “Well, what do I see inward about myself?” And then now I let that project outward. So in the past it was outside, then that shaped us inward. Now it’s well, what’s inward and I’ll shoot that outward. And well as, Christianity were actually kind of more of that old way of living.

Josh Kruse:

Yeah. Well, and even, so identity development, which is huge, it’s the core from a psychological and a faith perspective of who we are matters. I take me wherever I go, you take you wherever you go. And I mean, even look at big picture impact of shame and guilt in this world, where the enemy is just trying to heap that stuff on us, put us in a corner essentially, and say, “You’re good for nothing. You’re a fill in the blank.” All these shame messages. Well, scripture has a way to battle that. Who does God say I am? And what difference does that make in my life? I’m then a child of God. I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. He knows how many hairs are on my head. He calls me beloved, oh man, if we can actually embrace that, that changes everything. But if we’re looking outside of ourselves, then yeah, what’s mom saying, dad’s saying, grandma, grandpa, teachers, peers, bullies, all sorts of people, social media. And if that’s the sole source of who we are and our identity, well, that’s going to make such a big difference. Sometimes that can build us up and there can be an encouragement in that and a strength in that, but a lot of times it’ll actually tear us down or break us down. And then the who are we? Who am I in this world? I mean, faith and psychology have voices into that.

Daniel Markin:

So let’s talk about how our world views mental health issues. Let’s just go secular world. And I don’t want to make it like secular world, as this bad, everything is horrible and wrong in our secular world. A lot of good research in psychology has come from our secular world, but as we’ve talked about there is… And as you said, you’ve wrestled with how do you integrate Christianity because you and I would both say our Christianity actually gives us the answer, which is Christ in a very complex world. So if you could say, talk a little bit about how, what most people think about mental health in the secular world, and then maybe I’ll start off with this question, as you think about the study of mental health in our secular world, what breaks your heart the most?

Josh Kruse:

Yeah. Just even starting right there, I think the loss that comes from that. Yeah. I’m with you. Yeah. It’s not we’re doing all good, all bad, healthy, unhealthy. I actually think there’s quite a bit of overlap if we create the dichotomy of natural, supernatural, I think God works, I know he works in the natural as well, and that’s part of it as we were talking about earlier, studying the human person and how we function, how we think, and disordered thinking, and emotions, and what do we do with that, and actions, and habits, and what gets in the way of that. I think there’s a lot of overlap in that, but then if we take just a purely natural view on that, there’s such a… That’s where my heart breaks, of there’s such a sadness or a loss, an understanding of who we are as a person and our identity. A huge aspect is the source of the power for us to carry out anything. Man, we’ve got access to the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 3:20 talks about, to him who can do immeasurably more than we can think or ask by the power at work within us, and if I don’t tap into a power source, then I’m running naturally, and I’m going to run out before you know it. Yeah, it’s a huge source of then direction of empowerment in order to actually carry out the big picture of what on earth are we here for? What are we doing? And He speaks into that significantly. So I just, I see lost people that are lost in many ways, not knowing what is my next step, how do I manage what’s right in front of me, anxiety, depression, COVID, finances, health. We’re always going to have something in front of us to a greater or lesser extent. I grieve for people that are then… It’s like they’re groping in the dark. They’re trying to figure out where am I? What do I do with this? Is there any hope in this world? And that’s the beauty of the gospel. There’s incredible hope. Christ came down into darkness in order to bring light, and hope, and direction to help pick us up to then carry out the plans and the purposes that He has for us. Man, if you pull back on that, there are some great natural things we can do to manage life, and they’re good, and we need them. Like sleep, is great, we don’t have to, then… We can talk about it from a Sabbath and rest place, to more explicitly integrate faith into it, but that’s just a basic. Eat food. You’re hangry, put something in your mouth, because that’s actually going to help you function in this moment. And that’s where we need the natural and the supernatural, but to remove one or the other completely, we’re not functioning optimally, and I mean, it’s sad, really.

Daniel Markin:

So then let me ask you this. What frustrates you the most when Christians talk about mental health?

Josh Kruse:

I think we have to be careful that sometimes we’ll, and I’m assuming well-meaning, we’ll slap a Bible verse on something, we’ll, especially when it comes to mental health of, well, have you been praying about it? Awesome question. Maybe you’d be less anxious if you prayed more. You know what? There’s probably some truth in there. I don’t… And it depends person by person, no matter what, of course we could be, can be, and should be praying more about it, but we have to watch the, what are we actually saying? And what’s the message received? Is my anxiety a direct result of me not praying? Or, because we have all different neuro-chemicals within our brain different levels, I think there’d be a lot more grace and less stigma if we could just have these little printouts on our forehead of, “Oh, your serotonin levels a little bit lower than mine and your dopamine levels a little bit higher, or epinephrin,” all those pieces in there. I think there’d be a lot more grace. And we would probably say that sort of stuff a little bit less of, yeah, you’re just not praying enough. Are you in the word? So I think we have to be really careful there. There’s truth in that, if we don’t come back to the source, we’re not spending time with God… I was actually just reading it this morning, in Hebrews, but talking about the drift is there, we need to meditate on these things, because we’re going to naturally, our proclivity is to move away from Him, and the source, and truth, and life, and light. And so we have to actively enter in. So do we need to read our Bible? Yes. All these spiritual disciplines, sure. For our thriving, and developing our relationship with Jesus, and tapping into the source, but let’s give a little more grace and maybe even a little more curiosity of, oh, what might be going on in their life right now? Let’s say somebody dies, and then we show up at that person’s house. So let’s say it was their sibling had passed away and say, “Well, they’re in a better place. God gives us hope and you should be fine. No more tears. Let’s go.” We don’t do that. That’s ridiculous, but do we do that to a lesser extent with other things? Can we give room for grieving? Can we give room for struggle in there without then indirectly condemning somebody or judging them in that? So, I find myself getting a little fired up, even as I talk about it right now, but let’s be careful. Let’s show love to people, and grace, and understanding.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Do you think that has impacted the way that Christians talk about mental health in the church? And what I mean by that is, it seems to me that in our secular world that you have things like, Bell Let’s Talk, which is a day a year where the company Bell is saying, “Hey, it’s actually really healthy to talk about mental health.” And they’re bringing awareness to this, that our secular world says, this is a thing that a lot of people deal with and by sharing this, it begins to some of the release of that, but do you think the classic, all the Christians slapping a Bible verse onto that, and you need to have more faith, is that sort of thing causing a lot of Christians to just be quiet about issues of mental health?

Josh Kruse:

I think so, because I think mental health struggles can also be… there can be shame with that too of, “Hey, do you want to struggle with this or not?” Well, I don’t. Nobody does, yet I do. How’s that going to be received by people? Sometimes it can be, even in the secular world, seen as weak. “What do you mean you’re not getting out of bed in the morning?” Or you have a hard time going to work or getting the job done and those messages come out. And so that has its own silencing effect, but then historically, I think as a church, we haven’t done great in talking about it. Whereas, I mean, there are great ministries out there, sanctuary ministries, one of them where we try to go into a church and let’s do like the Let’s Talk sort of thing. Let’s get this going. At Village, a couple of weeks ago, we did one around mental health. Why did we do that? We want to make it more normative, like we are in this together. Let’s not put people in a box. Let’s not put struggles in a box. If we are actually going to do life together, we’re going to have to go into these places, and what a gift it would be to actually be the church within this realm. People who are struggling to varying levels or degrees, because the risk would be, we’re not going to ask, we’re not going to talk about it, because either on the one hand, they don’t want to say the wrong thing, yikes let’s not go there. Or people just won’t even share what’s going on for them, because the shame, I don’t want to be seen in a different way in light of that, but the more normal normative we can make it, that’s where the power of our testimony is big. If we can… Like vulnerability helps bring about vulnerability, if I can share more vulnerably what’s going on in my life and what I’ve struggled with, then that gives permission to somebody else because we’re indirectly or unconsciously saying, what’s it safe to talk about here? And that’s where I think, as in terms of church’s leadership, the more vulnerable, they talk about leading from your limp, the more you can put those pieces out there, it’s like, “Oh, we can talk about that here. All right. You know what? I’m struggling right now.” “You too?” Or maybe I’m not struggling in the same way. That’s okay. I’m glad I’m in this with you. And can I listen? Can I pray with you? Can I resource you if you’re open to that? We can actually be the church to a greater extent.

Daniel Markin:

So let me push back then, I’ll play devil’s advocate.

Josh Kruse:

Yeah, please.

Daniel Markin:

But is the danger in that, that now you’re enabling this type of behaviour? So if the goal is to be released from mental health, if pastors and preachers are constantly saying this, that it’s okay to be like this, it’s okay. Are people are going to now… The danger would be, “Oh, well, if it’s okay to be that, then I’m going to sit in this. I’m going to keep receiving this care.” Or maybe for on the wrong end of it, “I’m going to keep receiving this attention.” And by nature of that, the pastor is enabling this type of behaviour. So how do you balance that?

Josh Kruse:

Yeah, I think if I was going to lean one direction over the other, I would rather lean on enabling, because we’re talking about it and entering in, than on the other end of just almost condemning, shutting down. So if it’s grey, I would lean into, let’s just assume this is an issue for them and they need support. Yeah. Worst case you’re feeding into it somewhat, but yeah, I think a big part of it would be figuring out what is going on for them. If they’re holding onto it as more of an excuse type piece, then this is where it’s so important to have good, healthy relationships, because I think healthy relationships have room for challenge. We can challenge somebody. You have to be careful. I’m big on listen and understand first, be curious, and if they’re talking about it and, “Man, I’ve been struggling with depression for such a long time and I just don’t know what to do about it.” What have you tried? What does that look like? Don’t jump there too quick, but I imagine that’s hard and this is really difficult for you. How can I best support you in that? Or maybe you’re praying for them and that’s your way of entering in and meeting them in the midst of that. But let’s say it’s like, yeah, they’ve been in this for a long time and this is part of we just don’t know what we don’t know. Maybe it is more biological and they’re going to struggle with depression the rest of their life, because the neuro-chemicals are at a different level than for somebody who doesn’t struggle. And that’s why I’d say ere on the, we don’t know, but there are going to be times where if somebody is just not doing anything… Actually, here’s a better example. Let’s say with, whether it’s sexual addiction, or pornography, that stuff, “I’m struggling.” “I’m struggling.” “Oh, yeah struggling, struggling.” Is it actually a struggle? So I’m not trying to condemn or judge, but more of a… And I would ask, so what does that look like for you? What does the struggle look like? And maybe it isn’t a struggle actually for them. It’s like, no, this is just life, and I’m not actually doing anything about it. If you’ve got a loving relationship with them or at least some relationship equity, then I might just be like, “Well, what keeps you from leaning into it a little bit more?” “I don’t know. I’m just so defeated or discouraged.” Well then maybe now there’s room for encouragement in that person’s life, and we can be a support in that, but I’m big on asking questions, being curious. I think we do things for a reason healthy and unhealthy, and let’s try to figure that out together. And maybe in that there’ll be a discovery of ways that we could be a better support to them or sometimes in a loving way, challenge them like, “Hey Jimmy, you’ve talked about this being a struggle for a long time, but you haven’t gone to counselling for that. You’re not part of a program for it, like a Pure Desire, or a Freedom Session, or something along those lines. And then less of the judgment, “What keeps you from doing something like that?” “Is this something that you actually want to work on?” But hopefully you can hear in how I’m framing that it’s more of the coming alongside, and the risk would be, “Hey, I’m struggling with pornography.” Like, “Well stop it. Why haven’t you done this? Why haven’t you done that?” The message is, I’m on my own in this, and something’s wrong with me that I’m not doing anything. No. Can I come into this with you and understand it better and maybe challenge or encourage you?

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, and what you’re describing is one of the reasons I love the church, is that the church is a family. And what we’re doing is we’re inviting people to join into that family. And part of the invitation of that is to bear each other’s burdens, because guess what? I might be having a real difficult time in my life right now and Josh you’re, you’re helping me, but guess what? There’s going to be a time where you’re going to go through a really difficult time and I also want to reciprocate that and be able to come alongside you, because that’s what families do. Being part of a family, it’s not a transactional relationship. It’s more of a, hey, we are a… We know the church is a covenant people, we are a community, and we’re in this for the long haul. And that’s where I find it amazing when you hear about people who have been in churches for 30, 40 years, and they know people. They’ve gone through the ups and downs of church leadership struggles, they’ve gone through the ups and downs of family deaths. Maybe there was a young child in the congregation who passed away. There is this community of people moving with one another. And I just think, especially in our lonely world, having a community is something that I think is very attractive to even our secular world.

Josh Kruse:

Yeah. We’re not meant to do life on our own. We are so deeply relational. It’s part of how God wired us ultimately to be in relationship with Him, but then with each other in the midst of that. And so we’re not meant to carry the whole load on our shoulders anyway. That’s why we need others and we need community. And so what better way to love somebody then to reach out and say, “Hey, how are you doing,” or indirectly saying, what are you carrying right now? Can I have a piece of that? Because I mean, if you look at depression too, a lot of times, and this isn’t across the board, it can be that person is carrying this heavy load and it’s just on their shoulders, and then they start to implode, essentially. I don’t have it in me. I am so tired emotionally and physically in this, but imagine if they could give a piece to someone else, and another piece to someone else, and that may not make it disappear, so to speak, but now we’re starting to lift each other up because yeah, like you said, at some point that person may emerge out of it. And they, and this is the beauty of God working in sanctification, and growth, and health, they may have strengths that they didn’t have before because of what’s emerged from the journey God’s been walking them through, and they may be able to enter into somebody else’s depression in ways they wouldn’t have had they not experienced that themselves. It’s beautiful.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, definitely. There is this aspect… We talk about Jesus being the wonderful counsellor, and one of the things I love about that is the reason we can call Jesus the wonderful counsellor is because as a human being, he went through the same pain, the same emotions that we as humans have been through. If we’ve been betrayed, so Christ was also betrayed by his best friends. If we feel abandoned, Christ was abandoned by his best friends, he was also abandoned by God on the cross. So you have all these instances where Christ can relate to that, and so he’s the wonderful counsellor, but he also, as we’re his ambassadors, we are part of his kingdom here on earth. And by our going through some of these things, we don’t know the impact that we could actually help in the future with other people, and I think that’s a beautiful thing.

Josh Kruse:

Yeah, I think we model Christ by coming alongside people. As we were talking about the secular psychology and the faith Christianity, that was probably one of the biggest aha moments or the connecting moments for me when I realized that… I mean, the scripture talks about if somebody’s thirsty and you give them a drink of water, that’s quite practical. Yeah, it wouldn’t necessarily be a no, no, no, you don’t need water because you actually need Jesus. This water’s not going to get you to heaven. Sometimes people are thirsty and they need a drink of water. But to see that coming alongside supporting someone and even asking, how are you doing? We’re basically, we’re modelling Christ to them. That is powerful, whether we then share Jesus with them or evangelize, and sometimes there’s room for that, and sometimes there isn’t, there’s still, we are then being Jesus to them in the midst of it. And we can do that explicitly or implicitly. And I think that was probably the biggest aha for me, because I don’t have to then run around and wear a sign, Jesus loves you, in there. I’m wearing the sign by actually loving somebody, by asking them how they’re doing. Maybe even more explicitly praying for them in this. That’s how we impact the culture, that’s how we impact society, because Jesus understands, he lived it for us so that we can then live it out here on earth by his power. And we’ve got the Holy Spirit in us to actually help cue us to, “Hey, go talk to that person, they need you right now. Pray for that person, either with them or for them.” That’s that natural, supernatural, that saddens me that we wouldn’t then tap into that more so, because we’ve got direct access to, I got the wonderful counsellor that walks around with me everywhere I go.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Well, Josh, thank you for being a part of the program again, and just wanted to say thank you for your wisdom, your insight, and you using your practice and all this knowledge you accumulated just to share it with others. So really appreciate it, and look forward to having you back.

Josh Kruse:

Yeah, thanks for having me Dan.

Erika:

Thanks for listening today. We can’t stress the importance of mental health enough. So thanks to Dr. Josh Kruse for joining us for part two of the conversation with Daniel, and giving us some practical tips for a healthier state of mind. Whether you struggle with your mental health or not, it is something that has impacted each and every one of us, which is why this episode has been so critical in our time today, where mental health and mental illness are so prevalent. Indoubt is all about answering the tough questions of faith in God and the Bible. If this is something you’d like to be a part of, would you consider partnering with us? Your gift would mean so much as we continue answering the tough questions of life and faith that young adults are asking. Check out our website to give today. If you’ve been enjoying the end out podcast, we’d love to hear from you, shoot us a message on social media. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or send us an email to info@indoubt.ca letting us know how indoubt has shaped your worldview or answered some of the toughest questions that life has thrown at you. And we can’t wait to see you next week when Isaac is here with guest Rick Hiemstra for a conversation about young adults, the church, and why so many young people are abandoning their faith. Thanks again for listening. And we’ll see you then.

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