Sarah Jones, pictured in a café in Vienna which was regularly attended by neurologist Sigmund Freud.
As we look towards World Mental Health Day on Thursday 10 October, we explore the mental health support provided by the Diocesan Professional Counselling Service (DCPS).
The Diocesan Professional Counselling Service (DCPS) exists to help provide support with some of the challenges facing clergy and employees in the diocese.
Diocesan clergy and their spouses and children, ordinands and their spouses and children, and diocesan employees and their spouses/partners can refer themselves to the DPCS directly, or they can access the services through a referral by the HR and Safeguarding department.
Sarah Jones is one of the co-ordinators for the diocesan counselling service, and she has noticed that there has been a sharp rise in the number of her referrals in recent years.
In 2014, she only received two referrals, and in 2015 and 2016, she had 11 referrals combined. By 2021, that number had soared to 37. So far this year, she has had 20 referrals. Other referrals have gone through the other coordinator, Sheila Appleton.
“It has really grown”, Sarah noted. “Society is generally more accepting and understanding of the fact that we all have mental health issues, to a greater or lesser extent.
“People come to the service for so many different mental health reasons. It might be depression, grief, bereavement, stress, trauma, relationship issues, OCD. Struggling with retirement is one that is often overlooked, or suddenly having to give up work through illness or redundancy.”
Sarah said: “We are a bunch of individual therapists who come together to offer a service to those working in and for the diocese. We don’t usually make a point of specifically observing world mental health day, but the extraordinary provision offered by the diocese suggests we observe it every working day.”
The DPCS is a resource committed to the individual, with no prior agenda or judgment. “We do not push faith onto people. We are there to facilitate them in the journey they need to take. There is a plethora of approaches we take in our counselling, there is almost a different one for every person we see,” Sarah said.
The service recognises that faith and mental health can intersect in positive and negative ways, and they encourage people of faith as well as non-faith to seek mental health support. Sarah said, “Some people may feel that they should be able to overcome mental health challenges through faith alone. There can be a belief within Christian communities that becoming a Christian solves all your problems. God, in his wisdom, sometimes performs miracles, but he mostly uses the mind’s natural abilities to heal itself, usually through relationships with others. A key relationship could be seen as being a healthy relationship with a loving, heavenly God, but often we can only feel that love through the love of those who are physically present.
“Giving space to really hear what another person is saying without feeling a need to rush in with answers, can be incredibly healing. Loving and valuing each individual can be transformative.
“It is also important to note that having a relationship with God, or a healthy understanding of this, can help mental health in terms of knowing that we are loved and of value and are forgiven. Healing can come through learning how to love each part of our God given personality. However, poor mental health often goes along with a perception of a God that appears to be critical and unloving.”
Sheila Appleton continued: “Frank Lake’s Dynamic Cycle is a way of understanding this. The ideal way of living as shown by Jesus, is to know acceptance by God, to take time out for nurture, to know your identity and your status as a child of God. From this, achievement flows.
“Many people, both from faith and non-faith backgrounds, are able to reverse what Lake called the Cycle of Frustration. People in this Cycle gain identity through their achievements, rarely take time out, and only know acceptance because of their achievement. It leads to exhaustion and burn out.”
Sarah encourages everyone to prioritise self-care in their lives, and to access the available resources to them if they need it: “One of the most important things to do is to look after your own mental health – how can we give out when we are empty? Are we modelling good mental health? Working out what depletes you, what resources you, and getting a balance between the two is a good starting place.”
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