Article review “Is Mental Illness Catching?

People with psychological problems are always considered in a class to themselves as emotionally different then others and have mental handicaps. An article called “Is Mental Illness Catching?” introduces through scientific studies that mental problems may be just as common and no more unusual then any other disease.

            The purpose of this article is to bring to light some recent studies that have shown people who seem to get mental problems from strep throat and other infections. Kids have begun to suffer from mental illness after having sickness. They appear to develop symptoms of different disorders.

            This article concerns me because it does not go into greater explanation about how to handle the illnesses. They give a great deal of scientific cases and introduce the topic really well. There does appear to be a link between psychological disorders and mental illness. Not everyone with a disorder can say they got it from a common sickness at any time in their life. Many get sick and never experience symptoms of mental problems. Even with the date to confirm the possibility of these being disease it is still hard to put in perspective with apparently hereditary problems passed on down the family. The article does not go into the subject in depth enough to fully understand the topic.

            I have personal experience in my own life and family of a psychological disorder being passed down from generation to generation. Linking such disorders to childhood infections seems to me far fetched. However, the article does support the claims well and gives reasonable examples. When I go into the ministry I will be coming across mental problems from time to time and it will be good to understand how they came about better. It may very well be that the problems people suffer from are not just mental and emotional but also physical.

            The author of the article talks about three different mental problems, that appear to come up after infections in children. The first one is obsessive–compulsive disorder  has developed in children who have gotten ill and suddenly show symptoms of it. There have been cases of pregnant mothers catching colds and coming up with children who have mental disorders. Such facts are proven and are used to try to link illness to mental problems. Depression  and schizophrenia are also described in the article to apparently occur after a child has a flu or other sickness. Before these it used to be thought that abuse was the reason for OC disorder and is not a abnormal response of illness. Schozophrenia was thought to be from bad parenting and is not factors of biology and environmental. Depressed people were thought to be able to just get happy anytime but are not seen to have chemical imbalances.

            I agree with a few of the points of the article, that much of what we see as mental problems are chemical biological ones. The article is good at introducing the thoughts and giving examples for each. The mental disorders we now face may very well be grouped in the same category as cancer or diabetes.  

Article review “Insights on Anxiety from Charles Spurgoen”

A great problem we all deal with from time to time is being anxious. An article called, “Insights on Anxiety from Charles Spurgoen” written by Elizabeth R. Skoglund gives us some help with fear and anxiety. We will see five things Spurgoen has to say about anxiety and facing the fears.

            The purpose of this article is to get a better understanding of what anxiety is and how it related to the Bible and Christians. It is also important to know how to face the fears as they are real fears of real people. The author wants to help us to see what the famous preacher, Spurgeon, has to say so we can we can understand how we should look at fear and seek to overcome it.

            Since we all face fears and periods of anxiety I thoroughly enjoyed this article. It is relevant in a time when things are getting tense and seems like fear is greater these days. There are a lot of “what ifs” in life that we have to go through. The author is good at telling us who to go to when facing those fears. God and Christian friends are the best way to handle what life brings our way. Fear is not always a sin, as is not trusting the Lord. The article gives examples of King David being afraid, and even Jesus experiencing fear on the night of His betrayal. The Bible even tells us to have a fear of the Lord. Having a holy fear of the Lord is a good thing but fears of doubt and confusion are not. It is easy to let fear control you but we must not let it, we must seek to control fear.

            The Author gives us first an introduction using examples of people with fears in their lives. She then tells us how fear is a part of everyone’s lives including that of the great preacher Charles Spurgoen. From there five points are highlighted to talk about anxiety. First is a reminder that even God’s greatest followers have been afraid throughout history and in the Bible; King David is the example. Second we see that Jesus went through a period of fear in the Garden before His death on the cross. If our own Lord could be afraid then we sure cannot expect we will never suffer from anxiousness. The third distinguishes between being afraid sometimes and living in anxiety, the latter is worse because it can harm a person. The fourth point shows us that not all anxiety is sinful but we must also realize some is sinful. It is important to try not to be anxious, but expect it will happen. The final point made is that the fear of the Lord is good cause God commands us to fear Him. The last things the article talks about are causes of fear and facing those fears. The message of the article was good and informative. It helped me to have new insight into the psychological problem of anxiety.