Responding to the growing mental health crisis as a Christian: clinical and theological perspectives

ISCAST–NZCIS Conversations 2025: Mental Health and Faith!

In collaboration with the Centre for Theology and Psychology at Melbourne School of Theology, the first of this year’s ISCAST–NZCIS Conversations series explores the growing mental health crisis and how Christians can respond.

In this webinar I will address the question: how might Christians think and respond, both clinically and theologically to the growing mental health crisis? Rather than focus on the global mental health statistics, I will give an overview of the field of psychology, from my 32 years of clinical experience in Counselling Psychology as well as from the foundation of my Christian faith. Concluding that I am more hopeful about the field of psychological healing than I have ever been, despite the dire statistics. Recent development in trauma-informed approaches has also given me hope. The leading traumatologist, Bessel Van der Kolk has hailed Dr Richard Schwartz’ Internal Family systems (IFS) as an approach that “changes the way therapy is practiced.’ I will give a very brief overview of Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach which addresses the following dimensions of attachment healing: intra-psychic, interpersonal and transcendent. This has ushered in the legitimate emphasis for spirituality to be honoured in psychological healing. All of these developments I feel have more alignment with my Trinitarian theological anthropology, seeing humans as Imago Dei, made in the image of God as a relational community of mutual, reciprocal, unconditional love.