Beyond the Medical Model

Abstract

<jats:p>Recent first-person memoirs of Christians living with mental health challenges helpfully confront stigma and encourage care-seeking, while also reinforcing the individualistic and technical logics of modern medicine. This clinical framework, however, is inadequate to the realities indicated by rising rates of depression, anxiety, substance use issues, and deaths from overdose and suicide. Because mental health challenges are bound up with political realities, a more politically-attuned framework for Christian engagement with mental health is necessary. By attending to the witness of Jesus as revealed in the Gospel of Mark (3:20–35, 5:1–20, and 5:21–43), we can better receive the stories of people deemed by our society as mentally ill and so better perceive the interconnected personal, communal, and cosmic dimensions of illness and healing.</jats:p>