Dark Night Or Depression

[BarbTherese]

Another very good article from Catholic Spiritual Direction:


Dark Night or Depression ; [url="http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/2012/01/22/dark-night-or-depression?utm_source=Catholic+Spiritual+Direction+blog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ab3d40ae21-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN"]http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/2012/01/22/dark-night-or-depression?utm_source=Catholic+Spiritual+Direction+blog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ab3d40ae21-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN[/url]

I can't cut and paste a small section of the article as my mouse is playing up. The article is not lengthy and as always written with clarity of expression.

A few key things to remember re The Dark Night and depression is that God treats every single soul as quite unique and a one only of - hence He treats each soul according to its unique needs. It is thus probably impossible to set hard and fast rules for anything in spirituality that will never vary, in the main anyway - although there are some signs that a problem is probably spiritual in origin.
There can be that ordinary everyday sort of depression when one feels 'down' but does not withdraw from others. Depression that is pathological will cause one to withdraw into oneself. In the main anyway. It cannot be said that it is impossible for one to be experiencing pathological depression and the Dark Night also, although probably vary rare - that is a pathological state needing medical treatment and a spiritual state needing spiritual support and advice as well.

[MaryJJD]

I like how Sr advocated spiritual direction to check out the possibilities though. I think asking for help from someone who would know is extremely helpful, like a priest, health professional or even a priest who is trained in both spiritual direction and psychology etc,

There's something easier and uplifting that happens when asking someone for their advice, even if they couldn't help as such, it just lightened the load so to speak Countless times in confession have proofed this true for me!

[BarbTherese]

[quote name='MaryJJD' timestamp='1327385299' post='2374311']
I like how Sr advocated spiritual direction to check out the possibilities though. I think asking for help from someone who would know is extremely helpful, like a priest, health professional or even a priest who is trained in both spiritual direction and psychology etc,

There's something easier and uplifting that happens when asking someone for their advice, even if they couldn't help as such, it just lightened the load so to speak Countless times in confession have proofed this true for me!
[/quote]

...................

[tinytherese]

Fr. Thomas Dubay talks about this in Fire Within.

[MaryJJD]

now THAT is a good book! Fr Dubay was amazing. He also wrote one called Prayer primer, which is very good and almost like a min-version or summary of the Fire Within in some ways, but doesn't really cover too much detail like the latter book does. I particularly like his idea, that we are ALL called to be Saints, first step: pray, second step: keep praying! Even if struggling, keep praying