The author reviews ways of looking at psychosis as one lay person�s attempt to make test borings, as it were, into its nature, in an attempt to understand the mentally ill. Each view has its contribution to make. An element of alienation may be seen in the loss of control over self, the confusion of thought, the loss of contact with reality, the breakdown of the self-concept, and the mingling of hate with love in personal relationships.
What causes such illnesses? There has been much discussion of whether the causes lie in mind or body. This may best be resolved by remembering that a person is a whole wherein mind and body echo each other.
The author shows how religion and mental illness are deeply relevant to each other. The mentally ill are human beings who show us in the large the blind-alley defenses, the confusion, the alienation from self, society and God from which we all suffer in some measure. In learning how to meet the tremendous need of these people, we discover both our own weakness and also the underlying structure of relationship which can use us as its binding and healing agents. We come to see that this work is basically religious, being the reconciliation of the world to God as Truth by God as Love.
