{"id":18077,"date":"2015-01-02T08:38:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-02T14:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intranet2.valpo.edu\/cital\/?post_type=professorial_lecture&#038;p=18077"},"modified":"2025-02-21T08:39:52","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T14:39:52","slug":"early-christian-views-of-mental-health-and-their-influence-on-contemporary-western-thought","status":"publish","type":"professorial_lecture","link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/professorial-lecture\/early-christian-views-of-mental-health-and-their-influence-on-contemporary-western-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Christian Views of Mental Health and Their\u00a0 Influence on Contemporary Western Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Mental illness has been recognized as a problem since classical Greek and Roman times.\u00a0 During the classical period, three worldviews offered a foundation for different visions of mental health.\u00a0 The sacred worldview of Homeric times saw mental disturbance as coming from powerful outside forces of a divine or spiritual nature.\u00a0 The medical worldview of writers like Galen saw mental illness as a function of bodily imbalance.\u00a0 Finally, the philosophical worldview of Platonic and Stoic authors was broadly moral in its orientation and explanations.\u00a0 With the advent of Christianity, a number of writers were able to effect a kind of synthesis of these worldviews, a holistic vision of mental health that discussed the somatic, psychological, behavioral and spiritual aspects of psychopathology and its cure.\u00a0 However, many Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinkers challenged this synthesis, making it difficult to address mental health issues in a holistic fashion. These problems could be overcome with a significant shift in our attitude toward mental health problems and their remediation.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mental illness has been recognized as a problem since classical Greek and Roman times.\u00a0 During the classical period, three worldviews offered a foundation for different visions of mental health.\u00a0 The sacred worldview of Homeric times saw mental disturbance as coming from powerful outside forces of a divine or spiritual nature.\u00a0 The medical worldview of writers&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5883,"template":"","academic_year":[178],"class_list":["post-18077","professorial_lecture","type-professorial_lecture","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","academic_year-2015-2016"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/10\/Picture2-7.png",101,141,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/10\/Picture2-7.png",101,141,false],"medium":["https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/10\/Picture2-7.png",101,141,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/10\/Picture2-7.png",101,141,false],"large":["https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/10\/Picture2-7.png",101,141,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/10\/Picture2-7.png",101,141,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/10\/Picture2-7.png",101,141,false],"Profile":["https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/10\/Picture2-7.png",101,141,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"heather.bricker@valpo.edu","author_link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/author\/heather-brickervalpo-edu\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Mental illness has been recognized as a problem since classical Greek and Roman times.\u00a0 During the classical period, three worldviews offered a foundation for different visions of mental health.\u00a0 The sacred worldview of Homeric times saw mental disturbance as coming from powerful outside forces of a divine or spiritual nature.\u00a0 The medical worldview of writers&hellip;","featured_img":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2024\/10\/Picture2-7.png","coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/author\/heather-brickervalpo-edu\/","display_name":"heather.bricker@valpo.edu"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 11 years ago","modified":"Updated 1 year ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on January 2, 2015","modified":"Updated on February 21, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on January 2, 2015 8:38 am","modified":"Updated on February 21, 2025 8:39 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","tax_additional":{"academic_year":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/academic-year\/2015-2016\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">2015-2016<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">2015-2016<\/span>"],"slug":"academic_year","name":"Academic Years"}},"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/professorial_lecture\/18077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/professorial_lecture"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/professorial_lecture"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/professorial_lecture\/18077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18078,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/professorial_lecture\/18077\/revisions\/18078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"academic_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/academic_year?post=18077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}