Heath Lambert: The World Health Organization reports that 15 percent of men, 26 percent of women, seven percent of boys, and five percent of girls are on some type of prescription psychiatric medication. That means at least in the United States, and certainly, in terms of the Western World, many people are dealing with the kinds of difficulties for which they have sought help from prescription medication. That means that many of you listening to this are on, or have been on, a psychoactive medication, or you know people who are. And so, this is something that we need to discuss. It’s an issue that a lot of people have questions about, and Christians certainly have questions about it as well.
Question: So, should people feel guilty about taking any psychiatric medications?
Heath Lambert: Well, this is such an important question because so many people do feel guilty when they are prescribed psychiatric medication. In fact, in the literature, this often will be called medication guilt because people just feel guilty about it. And you know, really people should not feel guilty for taking medication and there are a couple of reasons for that. One is a profoundly theological reason, and it has to do with who we are created to be. God has made men and women in His image to be a body and a soul. Human beings are not just spiritual beings. We are physical and spiritual beings. We have a soul, and we have a body, and so the Bible’s teaching that we are a combination of a body, and a soul is an endorsement of our care for the body. And so, it is a blessing when we have medications that provide physical relief or physical cures for physical problems. You know, think about in 1 Kings 19, where Elijah, after his contest with the prophets of Baal, he runs and flees the wrath of Jezebel. And he is exhausted, and he collapses, and he’s waiting to hear a word from the Lord. But before God will speak to him, he tells him to take a rest, and he gives him something to drink, and he gives him something to eat. And then, after God has ministered to his physical needs, then he speaks to him giving him the word of God. And so, there is a really important principle there. At least the principle is that physical care is very important and can prepare the way for the ministry of the word. And so, biblically speaking, we are physical beings, and we need to care for that physical part of who we are. And we live in a very blessed time and in a very blessed place where we have all kinds of medications that can help us to do that. There’s another reason why we shouldn’t feel guilty, and that is because in order to get these medications, you have to go to a medical professional who is trained and licensed to be able to know what’s wrong with you and be able to give you this medication. And so, no person sitting out there can say I’m going to go on some psychiatric medication, I’m just going to go get it right now. You have to go to a professional who supposedly knows more about this than you do. And who is a credible authority to be able to dispense this medication and so we have to go to wise and trusted advisors and depend on their advice. And if a wise and trusted Medical Professional has encouraged you to take this medication, then you are right to trust their judgment.
Question: So why then do you think some people feel guilty about taking them?
Heath Lambert: Well, I don’t know, if someone’s listening to this, who feels guilty about being on a psychiatric medication, or if someone’s listening to this who knows someone who feels guilty. I can’t know in each and every situation why someone might feel guilty. But in my experience of talking with people who are on psychiatric medication, it occurs to me that there are maybe like four different reasons why people tend to feel guilty about this. First, there is a stigma in many Christian circles that being on a psychiatric medication is a sign of weakness. I disagree with that. For the reasons that I just indicated in the answer to the first question, but the fact remains that there is a stigma, and some people have to deal with that. Another reason why people often want to get off these medications or feel guilty for being on them is because of the side effects. It is widely reported that these medications, while bringing about many goods in a lot of cases, can provide a lot of side effects people can feel worse on them than they did before they started taking them. And so many people feel guilty or want to get off of them because of that. Some people feel guilty for being on them or want to get off of them because the medications aren’t working. There are a lot of reports that the medications aren’t as effective as we often think they are. In fact, a report out of Harvard University from just a few years ago indicated that the vast majority of the effectiveness of these medications came from the placebo effect, which means there’s nothing really in the medicine that’s working, but you feel better because you want it to work. And so, if the medicine isn’t working, people will feel guilty, or they’ll want to get off of it. And then another issue is sometimes people feel that they are using the medication to treat a spiritual problem, and that might be a place for some rightly placed feelings of guilt. If God’s word weighs in on an issue and calls it a spiritual problem, and you go, and you treat it like a physical problem. Well, there’s no pill that you can take to address your spiritual issues. I think of a man I knew one time who was violently abusing his wife and he went to the doctor, and the doctor gave him a psychiatric diagnosis and gave him psychiatric medication. And when I met with him and his wife for counseling, he said, “well, it’s not my problem; I have this disease.” And, of course, the Bible makes clear that violent abuse is not a physical problem. It is a spiritual problem. You don’t need medication for that. You need repentant faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, if someone is using medications to treat a spiritual problem, then they will feel guilty because they’ve got the biblical order out of whack. The Bible wants us to treat our physical problems with physical interventions, and he wants us to treat our spiritual problems with the person and work of Jesus Christ. And if we try to mix that up, it’s not going to work and we’ll feel guilty, we’ll feel bad, we’ll feel that we’re being ineffective. And so, for all those reasons, and probably, some more people might feel guilty for being on their medications.
Question: So, should I or should anyone tell anyone else to get off their medications?
Heath Lambert: No. So, this is a question that comes up again and again and again. It comes up with me and pastoral ministry, it comes up with me when I’m doing counseling training, and it comes up with me when I’m doing counseling. People will say, should I get off my psychiatric medication? It’s not working. I’ve gotten a lot better since I started taking it. I don’t like the side effects. Should I get off it? And what I want to say to anybody listening to this who’s thinking of getting off their psychiatric medication or to anybody listening to this who has a friend who’s talking with them about this. We don’t ever, and when I say we, I mean Christians don’t ever tell anybody to get off their psychiatric medication ever, we never ever do it. And the reason for that is because, in part, the answer that I gave to the first question, we are, according to the Bible, a union of physical and spiritual. The Bible endorses and honors the physical body. And because we care about the physical body because of our Biblical commitments, we don’t want to do anything that would harm someone. And the reality is if you are not trained and licensed to be able to make a judgment about these medications and if you, in many cases, are not the physician that put the person on the medication, then you don’t have the wisdom to know how to help someone get off of this. If you tell someone to quit taking their psychiatric medication and they just quit, they can have a severe reaction. They can be suicidal. And so, if you’re talking to someone, or if you are a person who is sensing, you know, I’m on psychiatric medication, and I want to get off. Then what you need to do is you need to go back to your physician, or you need to tell the person who’s concerned to go back to their physician. And have them say look, things have gotten a lot better since I got on this, or I don’t like this medication; it makes me feel funny. I would like to come off this and let them work with their physician about how to draw down the amount of medication about how to wean themselves off. But as Christians, we don’t ever get involved in medical decisions that we’re not qualified to make because people can get really hurt when we do that.
