Bishop asks why mental health doesn’t have a Nightingale, Wilberforce or Fry

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During this week’s General Synod debate on mental health, the Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Revd Christopher Herbert, has asked why there is no heroic figure of the stature of Nightingale, Wilberforce or Fry associated with caring for the mentally ill.

He said: “If I mentioned Wilberforce you would respond immediately with ‘slavery’ or Fry and you would talk of prisons, or Nightingale and you would respond ‘hospital’. There is no such person I can think of, about whom we would then say ‘mental health.’

“Why aren’t they there? Possibly because we have complex highly difficult relationships with mental illness. Possibly because mental illness can challenge some of our more simplistic understandings of what it is to be human and what it means to be ill and what it means to be well.”

The Bishop did associate the care of the mentally ill with images of Christ, in particular the 15 th Century Isenheim Altarpiece which hung in a hospital run by the Antonine Order of monks. For them, the image was central to their care of ergotamine poisoning sufferers who experienced profound mental disturbance. The image it shows is of Christ’s cross bowing under the weight of his body and of our sin. “An astonishingly powerful piece,” Bishop Christopher reminded the Synod.

Speaking with deep appreciation for the work of mental health chaplaincy, the Bishop praised the role of chaplains and Christians working with mental health patients, continuing today long after the asylums, some of which were in St Albans Diocese, have gone. “Those working with people who are desperately ill have to enter deeply into the chaos and pain of individual lives and therefore they need our full and unequivocal support.”

The Synod passed a motion which encourages parishes to make the support and care of people with mental health problems, their carers and NHS staff a priority for the Church’s ministry.

15 February 2008

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