Psychological Healing
in the Roman Catholic Mystic Tradition

Bipolar Disorder

 
Persons who seek treatment for mania (as in bipolar disorder) or hypomania, a less severe form of mania (as in cyclothymic disorder) often find themselves stuck in an unconscious philosophical impossibility. But more about this in a bit.

First, mood stabilizers, such as lithium and valproic acid, are common medications for mania. Lithium, for example, is a natural salt that helps to stabilize a person’s mood, so that the peaks aren’t so high and the valleys aren’t so low. It’s a fairly simple chemical though it can have some unpleasant side effects, such as a metallic taste in the mouth. But these side effects usually dissipate within a week or two. A mood stabilizer also tends to have a small “window” of efficacy, such that too little does no good and too much can be toxic; therefore, you will need regular blood tests to monitor its serum level. All of this should be fully and clearly explained by your prescribing psychiatrist.

One other effect of a mood stabilizer will be its success: you will lose the “high” of manic expansive creativity. You won’t be a “zombie” like some persons who must take highly sedating antipsychotic medications; you will just be ordinary. And this, in fact, brings us to that impossibility I mentioned earlier.

Even though mania has organic causes that involve brain chemistry, mania also has a psychological cause. Its psychodynamic roots lie in a desire to avoid a mature understanding of life and to escape into the pleasurable, uninhibited, and expansive aspects of life. Any attempt to stabilize these expansive moods will feel like a grave threat to the “part” of the personality that uses flight into expansive fantasy as a defense against its inner emotional pain.

And there is the problem. That part of you that uses flight into expansive fantasy as a defense against its inner emotional pain “knows” full well that all human social constructions are empty illusions, and so it yearns for something “meaningful” in life.

Please notice that I speak here about unconscious motivation, not about what you think you feel or believe consciously. Sadly, our entire social structure has its unconscious basis in the need to “hide” feelings of vulnerability and helplessness with feelings of power and grandiosity. Just look at our political system, our law-enforcement system, and our military system. It’s all filled with overblown rhetoric and pride. And look at some of our most profound social problems today. Certain elements of certain societies feel oppressed and disavowed. So, to make themselves feel powerful, they lash out with violent acts. Those who are terrorized feel momentarily helpless, and then they respond in turn with grandiose acts of retaliation. So, if our entire culture has oriented itself around power and retaliation as a response to fear and vulnerability, imagine how difficult it can be for one individual to be healed from the depression and grandiosity that result from this unconscious cultural infection. And that is why Christ calls us out of what we merely think we are and, through an experience of true love, leads us into the depths of a pure heart.

Healing from bipolar disorder, therefore, can seem hopeless unless you can disentangle yourself from the unconscious thirst for grandiosity that surrounds you in our culture and can accept the true spiritual realization that meaning comes only through a humble submission to something greater than the “self.”

	I willingly boast of my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I am content with weakness, with mistreatment, with distress, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ; for when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong.
	—2 Corinthians 12:9b-10

 
In intense psychotherapy with someone who really knows his job, or through intense spiritual purgation (as described by Saint John of the Cross), you will learn wisdom and humility as you encounter them in the healing process. But until you reach that place of full emotional commitment to looking beyond what you merely think so as to peer deep into your unconscious motivation, you will always be trying to argue with life (and your psychotherapist / spiritual director) ^[1] the same way dysfunctional adults argue with children. It will seem that life, in all its empty vanity, is treating you just like a distracted parent treats a child: with expectations, not nurturing. You will want desperately to rise above everything that seems foolish and, as an expression of your deep, unconscious anger, poke holes in it with brilliant intellect.

But because the manic defense is just another vain illusion like all the other illusions it seeks to escape, it is always bound to fail. Moreover, all this grandiosity will open you right up to the influence of the devil. To realy care for your soul, your own inner pain must be understood through the psychotherapy, not hidden away with flashy slight-of-hand. In essence, you must learn to treat yourself with the honest, gentle, and compassionate understanding that your parents never gave to you. 

Needless to say, this will be quite distasteful, more so than the taste of lithium. And so a mood stabilizer may be your easiest solution.^[2]

The best—not the easiest—solution, though, is simply to overcome grandiosity by dying to it, as Christ told us to do: Take up your cross and follow me in pure humility through suffering, obedience, and prayer.

The Litany of Humility

 
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1. They will even try to argue with the truth of what is said right here. Still, I say it anyway.

2. If you need medication to stabilize your mental condition, then take it joyfully. Just remember that psychiatric medications are not curative—they work only for as long as you continue to take them. Therefore, you should never be taking psychiatric medication without also being in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, when combined with the wisdom of the Catholic mystics, can lead you to the roots of your unconscious motivation where you can find permanent—and eternal—healing.