Leisure and Christian Psychology

Much of our culture’s attitude to work is displayed in the way that we describe its absence.  In contemporary life, we think of Monday through Friday as a typical “work week” and tend to look forward to the “weekend” when we can have a “break” from work; even better than this are the intermittent “vacations” we are able to “take.”   But a careful look at these terms will indicate that they convey not a fullness, a presence, but rather simply a temporary cessation of “work.”  Our culture even justifies these “breaks” and “vacations” by recourse to productivity:  a rested worker is a happy worker, and therefore a more productive worker. 

Is "Malingering" a Pelagian concept?

As a psychiatrist at a university-affiliated teaching hospital, I spend part of my week in my hospital’s emergency department supervising psychiatry residents and evaluating patients who present in psychiatric crisis.  It is unpredictable and sometimes difficult work:  patients who present to a psychiatric emergency service are representative neither of the general population nor of those who seek outpatient mental health treatment.  We see people who are not doing well:  many are intoxicated with and/or withdrawing from alcohol and other drugs; many have no relationship either with a mental health clinician or with any other significant community of support; many are off any prescribed medications; some are agitated, belligerent, and even assaultive.  I try, though not always with success, to keep my trainees from becoming bitter and cynical about “frequent flyers” who present repeatedly in crisis.