Celebrating the Healing Ministry of Christ in the Last Days
Originally published in Meridian Magazine and Millenial Star. See part one here.
Okay, let’s get more practical. What exactly can we do to bring additional emotional healing into our own homes? I’ve always been fascinated by that question, especially after learning about Dr. Kelly Turner, who interviewed many people who weren’t supposed to get better from cancer. She identified a wide variety of patterns, with nine specific themes showing up in virtually every story of healing. (Interestingly, only two themes involved physical changes – such as major dietary shifts – with all other themes centered on emotional, relational and spiritual improvements). I started to wonder, what more could we learn if we applied the same approach to depression and anxiety – bringing more focused attention to understanding the experiences of those who find deeper healing from depression and anxiety? That’s what I’ve been doing, with the help of a small research team. I’m going to read through the ten themes that have stood out so far in the stories of those who find lasting healing from depression and anxiety:
Retaining hope in the possibility of deeper healing
Making small and large life adjustments
Prioritizing the big three – nutrition, physical activity and sleep
Adjusting mental diet, mental activity and mental rest
Pursuing forgiveness and healing from past trauma
Working with thoughts and emotions in a new way
Increasing emotional connection with trusted people around us
Seeing yourself and life as having true worth, meaning and purpose
Deepening spiritual connection
Growing freedom from substances and behaviors on which you have been emotionally dependent
I gave a longer presentation on these ten themes at the Association of Latter-day Saint Counselors meeting this October (click here for slides walking through examples from each of these 10 categories). I’ll only comment on a few of them here.
First of all, notice the importance of holding onto hope. In interviews with other recovered individuals, another researcher concludes, “Over and over again, we heard, ‘I needed someone to believe in me.’”
I’ve also been struck that virtually every story of healing has involved people learning new things and growing in new ways – sometimes big, sometimes small. One person said, “I came to realize that I had additional hurts, habits, and hang-ups to deal with in my heart. Within me there was selfishness, control, anger…and much more I had been blind to.” Another person spoke of the impact of finding a little more stillness in his life: “I get up early enough to not have to rush in the morning. I take in the sunlight by standing at the window for a few minutes,” before sitting down to have a “slow, warm and quiet breakfast” – without interference from his phone.
Let me ask you this: If it’s true that lasting healing involves learning new things and making gradual changes in our lives, what if someone was able to convince you that there was a way to get feeling better without any changes?
Look around in society today, right? One of our friends years ago went to the doctor with severe back pain. He was quite overweight – and came back to us to share the three options: (1) steroid shots on a regular basis (2) surgery or (3) some new kind of medication that could help alleviate the pain. I was joking with him, so….the doctor didn’t have any other ideas?
Now clearly, there are lots of doctors that would say more than that. But we’re often invited to direct our attention away from changes in our own lives that could make a measurable difference. Indeed, for two decades now, parents with mentally ill children have also been told “oh, this has nothing to do with you.”
That’s just not true – not for our kids and not for ourselves. None of this means, of course, we should introduce blame and shame into the conversation. This is just about seeing clearly what’s actually going on. Unfortunately, we have long misunderstood mental and emotional problems – casting them as sheerly biological phenomena…having nothing to do with how we’re living and choices we’re making…nothing to do with our spiritual connection or God, etc.
As a result of this way we talk about mental health, I fear that sometimes we beg and plead for God’s help – giving priesthood blessings…and then go and do what essentially everyone else does in the larger world to try and make things better – relying exclusively on secular approaches, without considering the many kinds of life adjustments we’re exploring tonight.
Three more examples of healing changes to consider:
Don’t ignore the past. It’s also easy to overlook ways that painful things in our past influence us today – ranging from early abuse as a child to trauma that can occur within later relationships. That led one woman who had experienced emotional healing, Eleanor Longden, to suggest “instead of asking people what’s wrong with them, let’s ask them what’s happened to you.”
If there is something in your past that keeps coming up and interfering with your life? Please take it seriously – and don’t ignore it. Talking about it more with people you trust might actually help you escape its intrusions on your present. Speaking of painful emotions, Thomas McConkie once said: “If we don’t address them, if we shove them in the cellar, it’s not like they go away.”
This might involve working through all sorts of difficult feelings. But recognize that Jesus knows how to help you get beyond them. Listen to this story from a woman with a history of some difficult abuse, who recollects being “fully prepared” to kill herself – kneeling in her daughter’s room as she napped in her crib, where she “desperately prayed once more,” asking “What do you want me to know today, God? Because I am going to do it.” Then she said, “I closed my eyes. That’s when the vision began.”
I am tied to a cross. No nails are used. There is an eerie darkness everywhere. I am outside in a barren landscape. There are no buildings; there are no trees, no vegetation of any sort. There is no sun, no moon, no stars, no clouds, no color of any kind….I am dirty and filthy, and I feel disgusting. I have a sense that I am two to three hours from death and I just want to be over with. I am past anger, past fear, past caring. Whatever it is I have done, I know I am deserving of this fate.
In the distance, I notice a man dressed in a clean white tunic walking among the crucified. I know instinctively that this man is Jesus. Soon he is coming toward me, an ethereal light surrounding him, and I am suddenly filled with dread and self-loathing before the most holy of persons. I feel shame in every fiber of my being. I am tortured in my nakedness and vulnerability, and, as he comes toward me, looking right at me, I am terrified. What will he do? Will he rebuke me?…He nears me, speaking not a word. The time has finally come. The judgment is upon me.
And then Jesus placed a step stool in front of my cross and raised himself up to where he could reach my arms. With scissors, he cut the ropes from around my wrists and body and I fell into his arms, onto his body, even more ashamed now of my filthy condition. Then he carried me a short distance from the cross and laid me down on a pure white blanket, where he began bathing my naked body, lovingly and tenderly, as if every part of me was precious, just as I had washed my daughter when she’d been ill as a baby. The water he bathed me in glowed with light.”
All the while, Jesus looked into my eyes with a deep knowing and an incredible depth of love and compassion. When he was finished, he cradled my head and offered me food for strength, and something to drink in a crystal chalice. I ate of the food…then he dressed me in a clean, white robe with a gold sash. All the while, he never said a word.
Seeing truthfully what’s happening inside. What if you have thoughts or feelings inside that scare you?
What most people do is just take this as further evidence of how sick, deficient, and defective they are – emotionally, physically in their brain. Don’t do that.
Try this instead: Learning to push back on your thoughts and learn to relate to them like weather patterns overheard. Some days, that internal weather might be clear and sunny – other days stormy. This sounds weird, but it’s something you can learn (check out the Mindweather class at the bottom). One man spoke of how shocking it was to learn that he doesn’t have to believe everything he thinks – and that he can push back on thoughts and just observe them. As he put it, “What was previously experienced as this kind of torture, being enslaved by the thought process, I was able to push back from that and just notice it as something a lot more innocuous, kind of like lying down on the bank of a river, just watching the stream float by.”
In this way, you can learn to rest in a place inside yourself that is deeper than thoughts, emotions, sensations – a place some people call “awareness” and that Christians would call “spirit.”
Does this apply to threatening emotions? I’ve had a panic attack before – and have helped people facing panic. What normally happens when a painful emotion like that comes – is we understandably go “not okay!” We get agitated about it – and panic about panic. But what if we could learn to somehow observe the panic arising…without just freaking out?
One of my mentors was on the way home from a mindfulness retreat on the Golden Gate bridge – and a panic attack struck. So she goes, “okay – I’ll try it.” And she basically meditates – focusing on her breath – and lets the panic do what the panic does. And what happens? The panic comes…and goes. Like a wave. It exhausts its energy – and dissipates. For the first time in her life, she realizes that there’s something she can do to help the panic pass sooner! (You can hear Vicki share her story here in our free Mindweather class – which says a lot more about working through painful thoughts and feelings in a skillful, calm way).
This is definitely not what she had been told – and not what any of us are told, right? What we’re told is that something needs to be done TO you to control it. You’re not supposed to feel that kind of discomfort, so let’s do something to ‘make it stop!’
That kind of attempt to control our emotions almost always backfires. That’s true of all the difficult emotions – anger, sorrow, craving. My sweetheart Monique sometimes gets mad at herself for being mad. But instead, what if you let the anger come – swell up, crescendo inside…and then burn away?
We can do the same for craving that come through the body – letting it move through us and pass away, in something called “urge surfing” (learn about that here for cravings for substances and here for pornography urges).
Decreasing emotional dependance. One clear pattern in those who find lasting healing from depression is they don’t stay centrally dependent on any substance long-term. Not a supplement. Not drugs and alcohol. Not CBD. And not Prozac.
If you currently feel dependent on some kind of substance, join the club! It’s almost a universal human experience for most of us. If what you’re leaning on is really critical to your well-being right now, of course, keep doing whatever you need.
But realize that last year during the pandemic, supply chains got disrupted to the point that some psychiatric drugs weren’t available. It’s not hard to imagine that happening more in the future. To prepare for that, I’m working with several other experts on an emergency prep guide for people forced to stop a medical treatment suddenly. That is not ideal, of course, because the gold standard is very, very, very gradual titrations back – for those who have the luxury and prompting to do so.
Most people, of course, have never even known that was possible or advisable. That’s a personal decision between you, family members and anyone else you trust, including professionals. But it’s important to know that if you feel that prompting, there is a way to do it gradually, gently, wisely – hopefully with support and supervision (check out the Withdrawal Project for a lot more good information on how to do this, this this profile of a woman who successfully tapered and this interview I did with Robert Whitaker for discussions of relevant science).
Other changes. Okay, so these are examples of some of the more serious changes people can pursue. There’s a lot of other smaller adjustments that make a difference – to our sleep, physical activity, sunlight, diet.
The cool thing is each individual adjustment can make a real, incremental difference emotionally. One study found that people who changed their diets (and nothing more) made significant improvements with depression compared with a control group. As the author, Dr. Felice Jacka, said, “Eating a salad is not going to cure depression. But there’s a lot you can do to lift your mood and improve your mental health, and it can be as simple as increasing your intake of plants and healthy foods.” And researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and Harvard have also found that getting to sleep one hour earlier “corresponds with a 23% lower risk of major depressive disorder.”
You’ll know best what you need and feel able to do. But what’s most exciting is what happens when some of these small and big changes start to add up.
A new momentum of healing. One man facing depression and anxiety describes how he experimented with being “choosier about what [media] I watched, and who I hung out with because I had a really clear sense of how it was affecting me. And that influenced my sleeping cycle. And I started to rest more; and I realized I felt really good when I exercised. And I noticed what foods made me feel good and what foods made me feel sick.” He described his story as a “domino effect… that cascaded into other fortunate turnarounds.”
Neuroscientist Alex Korb argues that these kinds of “upward spirals” are central to “reversing” the course of depression “one small change at a time.” As he explains it, “In complex systems like the brain, even a little shift can change the resonance of the whole system”:
For example, exercise changes the electrical activity in your brain during sleep, which then reduces anxiety, improves mood, and gives you more energy to exercise [and interact with others]. Similarly, expressing gratitude activates serotonin production, which improves your mood and allows you to overcome bad habits, giving you more to be grateful for. Any tiny change can be just the push your brain needs to start spiraling upward.
I worked with this teenager struggling with depression. We looked at all the different things contributing, and he was like “there’s no way I’m going to make changes to my diet – but…I could get outside more. So, he and his dad would play basketball or go on a hike each day. I came by his house 2 weeks later and he was feeling a little bit better. So, he said, “okay, I’ll try experimenting with my diet. So, I gave him this mindful eating challenge: “eat whatever you want this week – but pay close attention to how you feel after. I want to know which 3 foods lift your mood the most – and which make your mood tank.” I came back 2 weeks later, and he was mad at me, because he found out that those florescent Doritos (that look like they survived a nuclear incident) actually tanked his mood.
As you can see, this is not about “changing everything” in dramatic fashion. Even small adjustments – in “small and simple” ways – can correspond to more dramatic improvements in mood.
Healing at home. The best news of all is we don’t have to go somewhere else to find this – some clinic across the country. Just as we can make our home “true sanctuaries of faith” as President Nelson has taught, we can take steps in our own lives and families to counteract these forces around us – and follow the inspiration of the Spirit in making our homes sanctuaries of healing, both physically and emotionally.
That’s not a new idea. In the 19th Century, a Quaker religious community in York, England tried an experiment to help loved ones ailing emotionally. What would happen if we take these, our brethren and sisters who are hurting, and surround them with soft music, uplifting reading, good food, warm company and beautiful gardens?
The answer surprised them: people started to get better – really better. The outcomes of these ancient experiments remain some of the most encouraging ever to be documented in the treatment of serious mental/emotional conditions. I believe it’s time for these to become more than ancient experiments – in your own home! And in our own local communities.
A reflection of the gospel itself. None of this, as a reminder, is something “extra” from the gospel – like some “new-fangled approach” you’re getting sold on. Going back to that list of patterns in people who find more lasting healing from depression, ask yourself how many of these we’re encouraged towards in the Church of Jesus Christ: Retaining hope…Making small and large life adjustments…Prioritizing nutrition…Pursuing forgiveness…increased connection… Seeing yourself and life as having true worth, meaning and purpose, etc.
The Church of Christ on the earth is a remarkably sophisticated and incredibly comprehensive prevention and intervention approach for our emotional and physical health. If you haven’t fully tapped into that power, don’t give up!
One suggestion: Please don’t relate to this gospel as a big ole’ list to get through and be busy about – instead, let yourself enjoy it as an excuse to step away from the madness around us, to be still – and know God and His ways.
He really is the way. You might notice how different this is from how we sometimes talk about mental health and spirituality. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people minimize the gospel – “Sure, the gospel is great and can help…especially with some mild issues…But let’s not get carried away! It’s not like scriptures and prayer are going to help much when it comes to more serious issues like depression…”
Translation: the gospel is irrelevant to these “serious” emotional issues. Yet most of us nod our heads – not realizing how we are recasting God and his intercession as an inadequate, disappointing remedy.
Dear brothers and sisters, the message and covenants of our Lord are not a secondary support for depression and anxiety. God is central to any lasting deliverance. Just like with addiction.
You may not be aware that some of the folks who started the 12-steps for alcohol found so much freedom that they started applying it to these emotional areas. Some couples whose marriages were in trouble said “hey, we’re stuck in our marriage – just like we were hopelessly stuck in alcohol.” (That’s the first step). But then they would say, “we do believe there is a power greater than ourselves that can restore our marriage to sweetness and intimacy” – and we are going to give our lives and our marriage into his hands wholly…to lead us forward (see Recovering Couples Anonymous).
I also used to facilitate an Emotions Anonymous group that applied all of this to depression, saying – “look, I’m stuck emotionally” – “I really don’t know how to get out of this,” before coming “to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore you to emotional wellness” – and then, the biggest step, “making a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God.”
We know how to do this as believers when it comes to sin – but not always so much with healing. “Sure, Jesus – he’s great for sin. But depression? Come on. That’s not his thing, is it?”
Have you ever heard anyone say something like:
“My anguish is so great that I feel as if I’m dying…”
“The sorrow in my heart is so great that it almost crushes me…”
“My soul is overwhelmed [and crushed] with sorrow to the point of death.”
Those are several other translations of Matthew’s record of what Jesus said in the garden. The Lord knows what it means to hurt emotionally – and be “acquainted with grief.” Author of Believing Christ, Stephen Robinson, who also faced depression in his life, wrote:
All the negative aspects of human existence…Jesus Christ absorbed into himself. He experienced vicariously in Gethsemane all the private griefs and heartaches, all the physical pains and handicaps, all the emotional burdens and depressions of the human family. He knows the anguish of parents whose children go wrong. He knows the private hell of the abused child or spouse. He knows all these things personally and intimately because he lived them in the Gethsemane experience. …[where] he lived a billion lifetimes of sin, pain, disease, and sorrow.
Grief. Sorrow. Sickness. Pains. Afflictions. Infirmities. These are also Jesus’s specialty. And what He was sent to free us from. But he doesn’t just snap is finger to change things. As Stephen Robinson adds:
God uses no magic wand to simply wave bad things into nonexistence. The sins that he remits, he remits by making them his own and suffering them. The pain and heartaches that he relieves, he relieves by suffering them himself. These things can be shared and absorbed, but they cannot be simply wished or waved away. They must be suffered. Thus we owe him not only for our spiritual cleansing from sin, but for our physical, mental and emotional healings as well, for he has borne these infirmities for us also. All that the Fall put wrong, the Savior in his atonement puts right. It is all part of his infinite sacrifice – of his infinite gift.
I believe it’s time to celebrate the healing power of the Lord – yes, right here in a day when disease abounds – and will likely increase. As one Christian leader, Francis Chan, said last year in the middle of the pandemic, “I’ve never appreciated and loved being a follower of Christ more right now – just to know I can be secure in him, just to know that He really did conquer the grave so I don’t need to be afraid of death. That doesn’t mean I go out and do stupid things, but I’m just not fearful.”
We don’t have to be either. He wants to heal us, dear brothers and sisters – and prepare us to be mighty instruments for Him in the days ahead. If the Christians are angry, sad, scared, and lonely – who is going to share hope with the world? We need to be the people sharing hope, peace and joy with the world
That might be hard to hear if you’re still hurting in agonizing ways today. But don’t forget, that’s Jesus’ specialty – even and especially if we’re feeling desperate and lost.
His pain and our pain. Truly, “He knows our pain – to our weakness is no stranger.” Sometimes, though, I think we take a wrong lesson from His anguish. It’s true that the Lord told Joseph Smith, “The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?” which we can sometimes take to mean, “oh come on – Jesus suffered even worse than you. Why are you complaining?”
To that, we might say – so what if His pain was worse? My baby is still hurting! My friend is still on the edge of hurting himself. My co-worker is still having terrifying panic attacks.
What does a comparison with that pain long ago really mean for all this suffering today? As we’ve been discussing, that pain long ago means everything when it comes to reducing our suffering now.
Pardon another family story. During a time when my little brother was sick going through cancer treatment in the hospital, my other brother – like all of us – hated seeing him suffer and wished he could take away the pain. So, he prayed one night, asking the Lord to let him take away Daniel’s pain at least a little. He described to me how the most awful feeling came over him for a few minutes – leaving him in agony – then it passed.
The difference, of course, between Sam’s prayer and the Savior’s intercession, is that Christ has power and authority Sam didn’t have. Our Lord brings a super heroic power to our redemption that, like we tell our boys, make the power of spiderman and superman pale in comparison.
Standing in His place. The rest of us don’t have the fullness of that power or love described earlier, but we do have an opportunity to take whatever portion of these we have and minster in his place as President Nelson has encouraged – acting and speaking as he would.
Easier than it sounds. And harder than it looks, right? I’ll never forget trying to minister to a woman in our singles ward who was battling sharp depression. I was joking with her – trying to distract her a little– and she interrupted me, “stop Jacob. I just need you to be here…with me.”
The term compassion comes from the Latin com-passion or “to suffer with.” That’s what the Lord asked of his own apostles in Gethsemane. They couldn’t take away the pain he would face. They couldn’t fix that. But at least they could make sure he wasn’t alone in it, right? He seemed to have that hope. So, he said, “Tarry ye here, and watch with me” – meaning, “just stay close…don’t leave me alone….Stay awake…please.”
Writer Henri Nouwen admits this kind of watching and attention is “hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are wea, vulnerable, lonely, and broken.” Our natural tendency, by comparison, is to “do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it…And so, we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. Those who can sit in silence with their fellow [brothers and sisters], not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart.”
One of my favorite stories about this kind of ministry comes from author Parker Palmer went through a period of severe depression and describes friends saying, ‘Gosh, why are you sitting here being depressed? It’s a beautiful day outside” – things sometimes we say with the best of intentions. But then he says:
There was this one friend who came to me, after asking permission to do so, every afternoon about four o’clock, sat me down in a chair in the living room, took off my shoes and socks and massaged my feet. He hardly ever said anything. He was a Quaker elder. And yet out of his intuitive sense, from time to time would say a very brief word like, “I can feel your struggle today,” or farther down the road, “I feel that you’re a little stronger at this moment, and I’m glad for that.” But beyond that, he would say hardly anything. He would give no advice. He would simply report from time to time what he was sort of intuiting about my condition. Somehow he found the one place in my body, namely the soles of my feet, where I could experience some sort of connection to another human being. And the act of massaging just, in a way that I really don’t have words for, kept me connected with the human race. What he mainly did for me, of course, was to be willing to be present to me in my suffering. He just hung in with me in this very quiet, very simple, very tactile way. And I’ve never really been able to find the words to fully express my gratitude for that, but …it made a huge difference.
We’ve felt that same kind of tangible presence in our own family this last year. Whatever burden Monique and I have had to carry for our hurting baby girl, it’s been abundantly clear that many other neighbors mourn with us – and carry some of the load.
I’ve come away from the whole experience feeling how sweet the love in Zion is. It makes me think of how many people are going through hard things without this support right now!
I can’t resist one more awesome story of ministry from our own history. Listen to this experience from that summer of sickness in 1839, where John Lyman Smith recalled the prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum visiting and administering to them since their father was “delirious from the effects of the fever.” As he recalls:
Their words comforted us greatly, as they said in the name of the Lord you all shall be well again. Upon leaving the hovel Joseph placed his slippers upon my mother’s feet and sprang upon his horse from the doorway and rode home barefoot. The next day Joseph removed father to his own house and nursed him until he recovered.
It’s true we’re not always sure we can do this. I had a woman tell me once, “but I’m not a therapist – I’m just a mother!” Professionals can do some special things to help. But the reality is we don’t need professional training to be there in powerful ways for someone in distress. We know all believers are called to teach and testify as part of the “harvest” of the last days. But Elder Holland once taught that this harvest also “surely” includes “a call to heal one another as well” going on to ask us “to be a healer, be a helper, be someone who joins in the work of Christ in lifting burdens, in making the load lighter, in making things better.”
Closing. Maybe that’s what you need right now: something or someone to just make your own heavy load a little lighter. Brothers and sisters, however confusing your situations is, I testify God is not confused! And He can guide you in exactly what you need to do.
Instead of trying to figure everything out, just take the next right step.
That’s not something many even consider, because they don’t think there is any healing to be found in this life. If nothing else, I hope this has helped dislodge that belief.
Let’s do this together. You’re surrounded by awesome neighbors – every one of which has a capacity to minister. There are professionals available for especially tough situations. I would also be happy to help, not as a therapist, but just as a brother of faith (I’m serious – jzhess@gmail.com).
I pray this upcoming Christmas season may be for you a time not of winter doldrums only, but of fresh hope and finding more of the “joy to the world” Jesus brings – and not just when He comes in the flesh. As ancient King Benjamin taught, “whosoever should believe that Christ should come, the same might receive remission of their sins, and rejoice with exceedingly great joy, even as though he had already come among them.”
Imagine how awesome his real presence will be – “Ris’n with healing in his wings…. good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”
That would be great, yes, but what if we could find that – not in some glorious future day – but right…now? “The hopes and fears of all the years met in [Him] tonight.”
We began speaking of a brother and sister whose lives were changed anciently by one encounter with a Healer who saw the full truth about what they faced – and possessed the power to make them “whole.”
In his presence. With His perfect, personalized help.
I believe the same Lord who healed this woman and this man – the very same – stands ready to heal and deliver us, His people.
Yes, some of that will await the coming day of His return and our resurrection. But not all.
There is more He can do. Right here. And now.
For us. For you and your family. For our baby girl.
“O God, Where Art Thou?”
He’s here…right here.
My prayer is that we can find him – all of us – and therefore receive the full scope of healing He wants us to find.
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An audio version of some of these remarks is available here. And see the first part below:
I’ve gathered some additional resources below:
The Mindful Way Through Depression (Mark Williams, et al.)
Hopeful Science Proving That Deep, Lasting Healing from Serious Mental Illness is Possible
“Your Urge to Die, is Really an Urge to Live Differently”: Laura’s Story
If More Treatment Is the Answer, Why Haven’t the Numbers Gone Down?
Why Have Suicides Increased Even After Enormous Efforts to Reduce Them?
And here is the free online class I created: Mindweather 101: An Online Course Exploring Creative Ways to Work with Intense Thoughts & Emotions
As one way to help broaden the mental health conversation, I worked over several years with wonderful partners and supporters to create a free, mindfulness-oriented online class that individuals and families facing mental health distress could watch. [To see the full class, go to Mindweather.org and you can check out the Introduction & Background of the class here). Or you can click in and view individual segments of the class below]:
Part 1 Making Sense of the Problem
Lesson 1 The brain’s role in mental distress: One view
Lesson 2 What we believe about the brain matters: First installment
Lesson 3 The brain’s role in mental distress: Another view
Lesson 4 What we believe about the brain matters: Second installment (Part I, Part II)
Lesson 5 Just being there: Insights for family and friends (Part I, Part II)
Lesson 6 Different ways of thinking about recovery (Part I, Part II)
Part 2 Responding to the Problem
Lesson 7 One way of responding to mental distress (Part I, Part II)
Lesson 8 Can making it go away, make it worse? (Part I, Part II)
Lesson 9 Another way of responding to mental distress (Part I, Part II, Part III)
Lesson 10 Lesson 10 Surrounded with gentle acceptance: More for family and friends (Part I, Part II)
Lesson 11 Can a gentle approach make a difference for mental and emotional pain? (Part I, Part II)
Supplementary Intro on Mindfulness
Part 3 Working with Difficult Thoughts
Lesson 12 One way of thinking about thinking (Part I, Part II)
Lesson 13 Re-thinking thinking (Part I) (Part II; Part III)
Part 4 Broadening the Conversation
Lesson 14 Exploring the full range of contributors to mental/emotional distress (Part I, Part II)
Lesson 15 Considering the full range of options (Part I, Part II, Part III)