To the editor:

As a psychoanalyst, I wanted to respond to the article “The great divide” (Journal-World, July 30), which discussed a schism between mental health care and religious faith. This division attempts to simplify the human condition instead of struggling with the complexity of being alive. Freud actually taught that conflicting attributes within the psyche exist simultaneously. Emotional difficulties, consequently, result from many sources. Cultural factors such as poverty, economic envy, social assimilation and prejudices also factor into mental distress yet were not mentioned in the article. Emotional duress typically represents conflicts between aspects of an individual and their relationship to the larger world.

An unwanted pregnancy, for example, is a biological event that leads to a conflict between a woman’s faith and her fear about being a single mother in an expensive society. Her situation may come to the attention of a physician, leading to a categorical diagnosis, a managed care decision and medical intervention to reduce her suffering. Divides are as arbitrary as the concepts of disease, normality, medical necessity, body, Soul, conscious and unconscious mind.

In contemporary mental health care, clinicians are open to any solution that promotes sustainable well being. I appreciate that one solution alone will not eliminate anyone’s entire mental anguish. Faith in another person, a group, a cause or a higher power helps to transcend the personal. Reducing our experiences to “either-or” explanations is limiting to the human spirit. By appreciating the diversity of humanity, we grow as a civilization.

Dr. John R. Whipple,

Lawrence