The Image of God in Suicidal Persons

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The Image of God in Suicidal Persons

• Susan Anderson

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A presentation on The Image of God in Suicidal
Persons - agenda

• Introduction to the problem
• Heuristic component
• Phenomenological methodology results
• Theological reflection
• Conclusions and Implications

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Prevalence and relevance of the Problem

• Worldwide
• World Health Organization global suicide rates
  (deaths per 100,000 population) increased by
  about 70 in the past 50 years.
• Canada
• 4,000 suicidal deaths annually.
• Alberta
• second highest provincial suicide rate

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• Iceberg of suffering (Eckersley Dear, 1998)
• Likelihood of covert suicidality in clients

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Heuristic Component

• The Support Network experience
• St Stephens College
• Introduced to the image of God concept
• Theologically reflection on a personal
  experience of suffering.

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I found god inside myself and i loved her. I
loved her fiercely. - Playwright Natasha
Shange, 1980
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Research Questions

• What is the experience of painful emotions and
  the image of God in suicidal persons?
• What are the implications for pastoral
  counselling practice?

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Methodology

• Heuristic phenomenological approach
• Participant recruitment
• Observers
• Interviews

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Role of co-researchers

• What is perceived by people as real, is real in
  its consequences.
• - Thomas Thomas, 1928
• Nothing about us without us.
• - statement by involuntary psychiatric patients
  to their program evaluators (cited in Patton,
  2002)

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Emergent Themes
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Theme 1 - Markers of the experience of
emotional pain when suicidal

• Feeling overwhelmed by the pain.
• Wanting the pain to stop
• Having thoughts of suicide
• Feeling alone
• Not really wanting to die Ambivalence
• Feeling frustrated at unmet psychological needs

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Theme 2 -The role of others

• What helps
• What does not help
• Hiding the pain
• learnt responses to pain

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3 - Beliefs about God in relation to emotional
pain

• Gods motive for emotional pain
• God disapproves of emotional pain
• God is external to painful emotional experience
• Believing retrospectively in Gods supportive
  presence

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4 - Relationship with God when not in suicidal
distress

• As personal God
• As a male or described using masculine pronouns
• As a reflection of cultural learning
• As reflection of ones early relationships

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Theme 5 Experience of God when in suicidal
distress

• God is absent
• God is silent

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What was Jesus experience of psychological
distress?
Michael D. O'Brien
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Theological Reflection

• What is a theological reflection
• Reflection on the Gethsemane accounts
• Themes marking Jesus experience

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The Gethsemane account of Jesus emotional
distress - Mark 1432- , NIV

• They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus
  said to his disciples, Sit here, while I pray.
• He took Peter, James and John along with him and
• he began to be deeply distressed and troubled.
  My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point
  of death, he said to them

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The Gethsemane account of Jesus emotional
distress Matthew 26 36 - , NIV

• Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place
  called Gethsemane, and he said to them, Sit here
  while I go over there and pray. He took Peter
  and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and
  he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he
  said to them, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow
  to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch
  with me.
• Going a little farther, he fell with his face to
  the ground and prayed, . . .

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Markers of Jesus emotional pain- a soul
overwhelmed with sorrow

• - A soul overwhelmed with sorrow

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• The very core of suicide always relates to
  overwhelming psychological pain. . .
• Edwin Shneidman

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Jesus experience of emotional distress Marker 2

• . . . to the point of death,
• he said to them. (Mark 14 34, NIV)

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Drawing on my faith tradition

• I am so full of sorrow, I would rather be dead.
• I am so sad I want to die.
• Paraphrases of Jesus in Mark 1434 by J. Warren
  Holleran, Gethsemane scholar

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Markers of Jesus experience of emotional distress
Take this cup!

• Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and
  prayed that if possible the hour might pass from
  him. Abba, Father, he said, Everything is
  possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not
  what I will but what you will. Mark 14
  35,36 NIV
• My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be
  taken from me. Matthew 26 39 NIV
• Wanting the pain to stop

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• Overwhelming psychological pain and the urge
  will to stop that pain are the core of
  suicide.
• - Edwin Shneidman

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Markers of Jesus emotional distress Unmet
Psychological needs

• Then he returned to his disciples and found them
  sleeping. Simon, he said to Peter, are you
  asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?
• Mark 1438 NIV

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Then he returned to his disciples and found them
sleeping. Could you men not stay awake with me
for one hour? he asked Peter. Matthew 26 40 NIV
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Marker 5 of Jesus Emotional distress - A
tortured soul
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Jesus experience of emotional distress Marker
6 Alone and abandoned
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Markers of Jesus image of God when in distress

• Silent
• Absent

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Metaphorical and Apophatic Theologies

• Words about God both are and are not about God.
  Sally McFague
• God is a questioning of God.
• - Theologian Charles Winquist, 1986).
• I pray to God to free me of God.
• - 13th century mystic Meister Eckhart

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Markers of Jesus image of God

• Abba!
• A radically original address of God

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Conclusions

• Jesus and co-researchers shared markers of
  emotional distress
• Overwhelmed with sorrow
• Thoughts of death
• Wanting the pain to stop
• Frustrated psychological needs
• A tortured soul - ambivalent
• Feeling alone abandoned
• Image of god in suicidal persons
• Absence
• Jesus use of unique Abba metaphor

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Implications for Pastoral Counselling

• the experience of feeling suicidal is a
  legitimate human experience
• Attend to and nonjudgmentally explore deeply the
  experience of pain and suicidality
• Examine, deconstruct and re-image God

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• Your comments or questions are welcome email
• For copies of the thesis
• susaneanderson_at_shaw.ca