Stress, loneliness, mental illness—where is our world headed?

Not a week goes by without a call from someone affected who asks me for a good psychotherapist. People suffer from constant pressure at work, stress in their neighborhoods, losses within their own families, and fear of an uncertain future. Time and again, they withdraw completely from the community, becoming lonely and ill.

Never before have so many people been affected in our Western societies. Stella Marie Hombach refers to this as the “long shadow of society” [1]. And authors F. Rosenbach and M. Richter call the rampant depression a “societal illness” [2]. And that is why, in their desperation, people seek out a psychotherapist.

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In the past, they might have turned to a priest or pastor, but people have long since stopped expecting to find help in the church

In the past, they might have turned to a priest or pastor, but people have long since stopped expecting to find help in the church. People don’t turn to me because I’m a pastor, but because I studied psychology, among other things.

The situation in society must be taken very, very seriously. In Germany, for example, more than 60.7% of the population suffers from symptoms of loneliness that lead to severe depression and other mental illnesses [3]. That is well over half the population. And among adolescents and young people, the number of those affected is even higher.

Where does this wave of mental health issues that is currently sweeping over us come from? Experts point to several reasons, with individualism—the strong self-centeredness of the individual—likely ranking first. Added to this is the meritocracy typical of capitalism, which constantly builds up the pressure to prove oneself, and the pervasive media-induced isolation caused by the glut of social media. People are now simply tossed back and forth between expectations and reality, which constantly confronts them with the fact that they have once again fallen short. 

Tina, a young woman in her late teens, puts it this way: “For a long time now, I haven’t been able to please anyone—least of all myself. I’m constantly torn between big dreams and the feeling that I’m worthless. My self-esteem is crumbling. I need help”.

 

Is psychotherapy enough?

Tina, too, turned to a psychotherapist. But as helpful as those sessions were, they did little to help her. Her therapist supported her desire for freedom and self-actualization, repeatedly pointed out the faults of others, and affirmed Tina’s personality. Yet the more she did so, the greater the girl’s doubts became. A lot of money was quickly spent on treatment, but Tina only withdrew deeper into her loneliness.

People are now simply tossed back and forth between expectations and reality, which constantly confronts them with the fact that they have once again fallen short

Psychotherapy, then, does not always help and is only of limited use—presumably in part because it recognizes the underlying personality issue only partially and then, in a classically individualistic manner, seeks solutions that a person is capable of overcoming on their own.

Unfortunately, any connection a person has to God—and often also to the collective, to community with others—is ignored. Yet it seems that self-centeredness and estrangement from God are precisely two of the most important causes of human isolation.

 

Individualism, self-centeredness, alienation from God

The Apostle James writes in his letter to the believers of the first century: 

“Where do conflicts and wars among you come from? Do they not come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have; you murder and envy but cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight; you do not have because you do not ask; you ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your own desires.” (James 4:1–3).

James attributes the self-destructive spirit within people to their selfishness. They seek to satisfy themselves, hoarding things only to squander them on their own desires. The result, however, is strife, envy, and fighting to the bitter end—and yet nothing remains but emptiness. Not even prayer helps such people, because they ask God only to satisfy themselves.

 Many have set a trap for themselves and focus on their own happiness without realizing that this is flip side of frustration

Focusing on one’s own “I” is thus one of the worst forms of misdirection in modern humanity. James calls it “friendship with the world,” which alienates people from God, their fellow human beings, and themselves. If one wishes to help such a person, they must be freed from their selfishness. According to the Apostle Paul, being driven by one’s own desires is the most significant symptom of a person under the devil’s influence. Ephesians 2:1–3 states:

“You, too, were dead because of your transgressions and sins, in which you used to walk according to the ways of this world, under the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit now at work in those who disobey. Among them, we too all once lived our lives in the desires of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and the mind, and by nature were children of wrath, just like the rest.”

People who orient their lives toward the needs of their own bodies and souls—and who devise rational solutions for this purpose, or receive recommendations from so-called experts—are potentially children of wrath, because they inevitably discover that even good advice very quickly proves insufficient, and instead of satisfaction, they reap frustration. And those who are constantly frustrated soon become depressed and ill.

So what makes today’s society so vulnerable to depression and loneliness? The answer is—the orientation of life toward the satisfaction of one’s own desires, or, in other words, selfishness. People have set a trap for themselves and focus on their own happiness without realizing that this self-made happiness is always just the flip side of frustration.

 

Help is possible

Is there any help for the masses of people who are frustrated with themselves and the world? Absolutely—there is help for all those who struggle and remain frustrated, who burden themselves with an endless stream of new “recipes for happiness” and still cannot find happiness. And this help is found in God!

Jesus Christ invites all who are weary and burdened to come to Him; He can and will restore them (Matt. 11:28). One day, while attending the great Jewish festival, he witnessed the ceremony in which a priest, accompanied by thousands of people weary of life, went to the Pool of Siloam, drew water, and then carried it through Jerusalem to the temple, where he poured the water onto the altar, thereby giving hope to the crowd following him that simply participating in the ceremony would bring fresh energy into their lives. Jesus stepped in front of this procession and called out to the crowd: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And whoever drinks from me, rivers of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37).

It is Jesus who gives new vitality to the weary and burdened. Psychology can identify certain forms of human misconduct and address them therapeutically, but it cannot remedy the root cause of human suffering. Here, one needs supernatural help, which only God can provide. One would therefore hardly be wrong in stating that the psychological state of people in the enlightened West is due in no small part to the turning away from God by the vast majority in our societies. Distancing oneself from God leads to loneliness and restlessness in people’s hearts. The secular zeitgeist constantly dangles new variations of happiness and fulfillment before people. And the longer this goes on, the more misguided its alternatives become.

Nothing is more urgently needed by our society today than God. And this once again raises the question of a new evangelization of our countries

Holger, a typical spoiled only child, received everything his parents could give him within his family. Time and again, he tried out new identities, only to abandon them again. “I’ve been everything,” he confided to me one day, “straight, gay, and then bisexual again, but none of it made me happy. I had the impression that I was quickly becoming a pawn in the hands of people who were only using me to get their own thrill. In the end, everyone was just looking out for themselves, and when things didn’t turn out as hoped, they’d just throw the relationship out the window. And whether it was people or drugs—with every new experiment, I became lonelier.”

During an evangelistic meeting, Holger finally decided to place his life in God’s hands. I warned him not to think of Jesus as some kind of religious drug. “Jesus wants you completely. He wants to give you a new birth; then the old has passed away, and the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). And that is exactly what the young man did. People Holger meets today hardly recognize him. And when they do, they quickly want to know who helped him so much. ‘Jesus,’ he answers, his whole face beaming.

Nothing is more urgently needed by our society today than God. And this once again raises the question of a new evangelization of our countries. Unfortunately, our churches have long since withdrawn from evangelism and have followed the spirit of the times—tolerance. The result is obvious—a sick society. It is high time to wake up.

Johannes Reimer, Professor Emeritus of Missiology at the Ewersbach Theological University
(THE) and the author of numerous publications.

 

Notes