As a social worker, Melody George feels passionate about what she calls “mental diversity” in faith communities. How are Quakers in a unique position to build this diversity?
Read Melody’s in-depth Friends Journal article on this topic:
Imagining a Trauma Informed Quaker Community
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Transcript:
My work really helps me to understand and remember my own humanity and my own struggles and fragility. It just keeps me human and keeps me connected to God by being around these folks who have this really deep, cool expression of faith.
Quakers and Mental Health
My name is Melody George, I live in Portland, Oregon, in the southeast Portland neighborhood. I am a licensed clinical social worker here in Portland, and I work with people with pretty severe mental illnesses who have been institutionalized for decades and who have some pretty sad, hard stories with stigma and with trauma. One of the things that I’m passionate about is mental diversity in faith communities, and those people finding community.
Fear and Stigma Around Mental Illness
There is so much fear and stigma around mental illness and around the expressions of that, I think people kind of get shut out of community because of fear and stigma. I think Quaker communities have a really unique opportunity to invite people in and include people, because we do believe in that of God in everyone, and that God speaks for all of us.
Mental Health Diversity as a Gift
I really see mental diversity as a gift to a community, and that the folks that I serve and that I’ve worked with are very resilient. If they tell you their stories about how they’ve gotten through their traumatic situations and what’s helped them to keep going, faith is a huge part of that. And we have a lot to learn from their strength and resilience.
It’s pretty amazing when a community can open their hearts and their minds to someone’s gifts and to the gift of mental diversity, and I think it’s also good for the individual because they want a place to give back and a place to contribute fully; I think we all want that.
Contributing to Community
A lot of the people I serve, when they try to enter a community, people are afraid, people put up barriers, people put up boundaries and people want to help them by referring them back to the mental health system—which I’m a part of so I’m not against—but I think we can work together, because I feel like there’s more to life than your mental health. A person’s identity is so much more than that and they have a lot to offer and contribute in community.
That of God in Everyone
Our testimony to that of God in everyone and to equality is really unique in that we can be a safe place and we can be an affirming place and we can be an inclusive place that welcomes people, really welcomes and values people with different experiences and helps them heal, and they can help us heal. It’s kind of cool that way.
Discussion Questions:
- Melody says that while often people want to help and so refer a person to the mental health system, there is more to a person than just their mental health. How can Quaker communities be open and supportive to those with mental illness beyond referring them to institutional help?
- Melody George says that people with mental illness have a lot to contribute to our communities, including helping us heal. Do you have an experience of healing as the result of a relationship with someone who has a mental illness?
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
As a clinical psychologist, I really appreciated this video (although I love them all!). I think the concept of embracing “mental diversity” might be expanded to include “cognitive, emotional, and behavioral diversity.” There are so many varieties of experience, and people experience reality in so many different ways. We, the Society of Friends, can benefit from all the different ways that God (or different individuals’ higher powers) speak to them, and then to us.
A good discussion starter. Having someone like Melody in a Meeting who is willing to help members grapple with this challenge must be very helpful. Some concrete examples for the rest of us would be instructive. Thanks for the thoughtful video.
Thanks for the comment! For those interested in exploring this topic further, Melody goes into greater depth in her 2016 Friends Journal article, “Imagining a Trauma-informed Quaker Community”.
Don’t forget those living with dementia! Too many people with dementia are not taken to faith services, or to a restaurant, or anywhere else, because they may say odd or inappropriate things. Many people with dementia may indeed become anxious or overwhelmed in large or crowded settings, and if it is stressful or no fun for them, well, that is obviously a different matter. But many would feel happy, supported, and still part of the world if they were included in their churches, if they were taken to the county fair (even for just a half hour), if they could eat out once in a while. So what if they say funny things? Eighty percent of us either will care for someone with dementia or someday need such care ourselves. Time to stop treating it as something shameful or embarrassing.
This video really spoke to me. My nephew lives in the Pensacola, FL area and I have recently been made aware that he is schizophrenic and in and out of jail. His father, my brother, seems to have abandoned helping him and I’m afraid to get involved – not having seen this young man since he was a child – he’s now about 30 years old. Any suggestions? Maybe I should reach out to a social worker in the Pensacola area for help. I can’t find a Friends Meeting in that part of Florida. I want to do more to help.
Nice introduction, reminding us all of our professed commitment to seeing that of God in everyone. It might be even more helpful to have some meetings who have worked well with members who have mental illness struggles tell their stories. I am blessedly a member of a large meeting with many skilled social workers, psychologists and therapists who have supported a few Friends for many years and helped the meeting set some boundaries and feel compassion. What do small meetings without those skilled members do, I wonder?
Hi – thank you for your message.
I work as Mental Health Development Officer for The Retreat York Benevolent Fund – a small Quaker mental health charity in the UK. I describe my job as: “giving Friends the information and the inspiration to discern our response to issues around mental health.” Part of my role is highlighting how mental well-being is an issue for everyone; exploring how Meetings do/could respond when people need support and how much we are able to accept our different emotional and psychological experiences within a holistic inclusive community.
I don’t know if it would be possible – but it might be really good to connect with Melody.
In Friendship
Alison