Mental Health and Spirituality Part 2/5 Male Speaker: Dr. Jeffrey Rediger is the Medical Director at McLean Hospital Southeast and the Institute for Psychological and Spiritual Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is an instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He earned a Master of Divinity Degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and publishes in the fields of Medicine, Psychiatry and Spirituality.Jeffrey D. Rediger: I believe that there—that many illnesses are not only about the illness. Theyre also very significantly related to how a person feels about themselves. Do they feel like they matter in the world? Do they know how important they are? Do they know that they bring something good and important into the world?Male Speaker: According to Dr. Rediger, when treating someone who appears to have psychological problems, its important to examine that individuals life in a more holistic way.Jeffrey D. Rediger: I believe the truth is most of our illnesses have deep spiritual and psychological underpinnings or roots and its helpful to understand the larger picture. I often tell people that according to diagnostic criteria in psychiatry, they may have depression but dont pathologize this or overly medicalizing. Lets look at whats really going on in your life. Whats going to help you get a life that matters to you.Male Speaker: Dr. Verna Benner Carson is the co-author of a book called, “Spiritual Care Giving: Health Care as Ministry”. She is the National Director of Behavioral Health at Staff Builders Home Health and Hostess. She was an Associate Professor of Psychiatric Nursing at the University Of Maryland School Of Nursing for 21 years. And as the author of four books including “Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice”. Dr. Carson has a passion for understanding how spirituality and psychology relate to one another.Verna Benner Carson: So in fact you know when I first started doing my research, and the first book I wrote I remember the editor said to me, “Well these all sound like psychological issues.” I said, “Well many of my psychological is a manifestation of spiritual distress.” If you think about us as being holistic beings, if that in my core, Im a spiritual being. If I'm unsettled in my core, if I'm in distressed because of a lack of relationship with God, or an angry relationship with God or no relationship with God, then that distress impacts on my emotions, the way I think and how my body functions. So some of what were talking about sounds like emotional or psychological responses but I believe they all impact on one another. Spirituality being at the heart of much of what we experience emotionally and cognitively, morally.Male Speaker: For Dr. Rediger, psychology and medicine are often only looking at one side of a disease or malady.Jeffrey D. Rediger: Psychiatry and the medicine by their nature are very disease focused. They look at diseases and so because of that, psychiatry historically has often tended to look at what is wrong with the person. Its more deficits based, it looks for neuro chemistry or a childhood that needs some kind of repair.Male Speaker: The leading American textbook of psychiatry has hundreds of lines devoted to the negative emotion such as hate, terror, shame, guilt, anger and thousands of lines on depression and anxiety. Whereas it has just a few lines devoted to the positive emotions such as love, compassion, and forgiveness. Dr. Rediger sees the meeting of the two disciplines as invaluable.