Previous | Next 

Prayer or Prozac?

Beatrice Klassen

At one time, for a Christian to admit that he suffered from depression was unthinkable. It was a source of tremendous guilt, because people insisted that if you trusted God enough, you’d get over it. If depression was linked to lack of faith and therefore to being spiritually weak, it was easier to keep your true feelings and needs tucked well behind your Sunday morning smile.

The truth is, even mature Christians can suffer from depression. I don’t mean the blue moods most of us get occasionally, but the feeling of hopelessness that hangs in, the knowledge that something is wrong without necessarily knowing what or why. Someone who is depressed feels a prolonged disconnectedness from other people and even from God, and feels helpless to make things better.

Depression, although on the increase, is not a new condition. Both David and Elijah in the Old Testament experienced severe depression. Depression is not a sign of spiritual weakness, just a sign that something is wrong and help may be needed.

Diagnosing and healing depression is not a cut-and-dried matter. Multiple causes pile up and require slow, careful, piece-by-piece removal. People descend into depression for various mental, emotional, historical, spiritual and physical reasons. Although depression can arise from sin that has not been dealt with, as in King David’s case, that is true in only a relatively small number of people. Most of the time, it is an emotional or biological condition.

One of the greatest aids to the modern treatment of depression is antidepressants, prescribed by a psychiatrist or other qualified medical practitioner. They are as important as insulin for the diabetic or digitalis for the heart patient. Although we do not usually hesitate to take digitalis or insulin, some Christians feel guilty about taking antidepressants. They see depression as an emotional problem, and they somehow believe that if they have enough faith in God, they should be able to control their emotions. As if suffering from depression is not bad enough, taking antidepressants compounds their feeling that they are lacking faith.

It might help to examine exactly what antidepressants do. Antidepressants boost chemicals (neurotransmitters) in the brain. Those neurotransmitters shuttle electrical signals back and forth between nerve cells through spaces called synapses. These chemicals regulate feelings and behaviours, even thoughts. One of the crucial chemicals is serotonin, which primarily affects sleep and emotions. When the serotonin level drops too low from stress, genetic predisposition or other causes, people’s moods fall with it. They may experience sleep loss, diminished appetite and diminished sexual desire. Speech and thinking processes slow down. Self-esteem decreases, and they turn negative about themselves and everything around them. In short, they plunge into the mood disorder called depression. Antidepressants speed recovery from depression by restoring the brain to normal chemical levels and returning the sufferer to a healthy emotional life. Some people do get better with just counselling therapy, but it takes longer, and the recovery rate is not as high as with antidepressants.

If patients don’t suffer from chemical imbalances in the brain, most antidepressants won’t affect them. When taken and monitored properly, the medication does not turn people into emotional zombies. Rather, it allows their true personalities to come forward, complete with the normal range of emotions, instead of the off-the-chart highs and mind-numbing lows. Antidepressants are not addictive. For most people, antidepressants heal faulty synapses and eventually erase the need for medication. They work best when combined with psychotherapy, spiritual accountability and healthy living habits. It is important to treat the whole person.

Beatrice Klassen is a counsellor with a background in psychiatric nursing, based in Niagara Falls, Ont. Some of the technical information in this article is found in “Serotonin and Judgement” (Society for Neuroscience, 1997).

Previous | Next 

Last modified March 28, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
Masthead and usage information.