Thérèse of Lisieux and mental health
People who seek treatment for mental illness don’t often consult a 19th-century nun, but perhaps they should. St. Thérèse of Lisieux offers an entirely different—and liberating—way to think about mental health.
Not everyone venerates the obscure Carmelite who died at age 24, leaving a manuscript describing her “little way” of spirituality. Critics have derided her prose as childish, flowery and sentimental. Scholars have seen in her life the signs of neurosis and severe separation anxiety. The literature doesn’t mention bipolar disorder, but that’s what the intensity of her emotions—both ecstasy and gloom—reminds me of.
From the beginning, Thérèse was exceptionally sensitive, as her mother’s letters testify. She exhibited a fear of strangers and did not make friends easily at school. For a period of her youth, she suffered from scrupulosity, a pathological preoccupation with sin in her daily behavior. This echoes obsessive-compulsive disorder.
