Many years ago, when I was still a doctor in France, I was asked about an artist. There was an outstanding iconographer in our midst who began to go crazy. His mother and sister did what many do: they did not want to upset him. And when he said that he smelled sulfur, they pretended to sniff and said: "Yes, really..." – while, of course, they didn't perceive any of this, because none of this happened!

When the disease began to progress, they turned to me, as a doctor, with a question. As I said earlier, I was a doctor at the time and I was asked as such. They told me: "We sprinkled him with holy water, he confessed, we served molebens, we anointed him, we communed him – and there was no healing. He still continues to get sick ... What should I do?" I said, "Just send him to the hospital to get electrotherapy." I remember with what indignation I was answered then: "Are you an unbeliever?! Do you think that the power of prayer cannot do what an electric shock can do?! And what if it is the devil who is at work in him?!" I said, "You know what, if it's the devil working in him, the electric shock won't do the devil any harm, but it can save the man..." This was met with great indignation, but the patient still had to be sent to the hospital. I worked in this hospital at that time and therefore saw him every single day. He was in the hospital for about a year. He blasphemed, he fought, he was completely insane. It was impossible to enter into any contact with him, to anyone... And then suddenly he came to his senses.

When he left the hospital healed, thanks to medical care, it turned out that what John of Kronstadt had spoken about had happened to him. Still inexperienced, although very gifted, not yet fully mature, the iconographer came out of the hospital as a mature iconographer, which he had not been before."

In most cases of mental disorders, a spiritual "diagnosis" is also appropriate. The borders here are very transparent.

And one more thing. More than once I have seen mentally ill people with a long history of illness, who, in the course of becoming churched, by the mercy of God, suffered from various incurable and incurable manifestations of illnesses. Prayer and the Holy Sacraments radically changed their mental state. Persistent delusions and hallucinations disappeared. Meaningfulness appeared in his eyes, and his well-being improved significantly. Instead of the "mask of a madman", the seal of spirituality was displayed on the face.

Professor D. E. Melekhov wrote in his work "Psychiatry and the Problems of Spiritual Life": "Under the influence of sin, the living human soul, which has not lost its conscience, experiences a sense of guilt, sorrow, torment and the need to be freed from sin. A believer goes to church for help, turns to a spiritually experienced person. He experiences spiritual pain and suffering, and sometimes bears the physical consequences of sin.

The spiritual father, as well as the psychiatrist, if he is a believer, has the first task – to make a "spiritual diagnosis", i.e. it is necessary to determine what in these sufferings of a person has a direct spiritual cause and is subject to spiritual treatment. At the same time, it is necessary to establish what in his experiences turns out to be a manifestation of a mental illness that has its cause in disorders of brain activity or the whole body, and therefore requires medical competence...

Or, finally, the newcomer has such psychophysical disorders that are an indirect consequence of personal or family sins and then need spiritual and psychiatric methods of treatment at the same time. In such cases, spiritual recovery can lead to psychiatric and physical recovery."

I will point out another very important spiritual observation: "The enemy has fallen with pride. Pride is the beginning of sin; it contains all kinds of evil: vanity, love of glory, lust for power, coldness, cruelty, indifference to the sufferings of one's neighbor; the dreaminess of the mind, the intensified action of the imagination, the demonic expression of the eyes, the demonic character of the whole appearance; gloom, melancholy, despair, hatred; envy, humility, many have a breakdown into carnal lust; tormenting inner restlessness, disobedience, fear of death or, on the contrary, a search to end one's life, and, finally, which is not uncommon, complete madness. These are the signs of demonic spirituality. But until they manifest themselves vividly, they remain unnoticed by many" (Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), from the book "Elder Silouan the Athonite").

Of course, there is still much to be comprehended, to understand much in order to better help (spiritually and physically) the mentally ill.

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