What Should You Do With Your Diagnosis? Responding Biblically to Mental Disorder Labels

Maybe you’ve received a psychiatric or psychological diagnosis from a doctor or a therapist. Maybe you’ve been told that you have General Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Bipolar Disorder, Conduct Disorder, or some form of Substance Abuse Disorder. Or maybe you’ve diagnosed yourself by looking up information on these disorders online.

However, you got it; now you’ve got a mental disorder diagnosis. You want to understand yourself rightly and honour the Lord with how you respond. What do you do?

Before even dealing with a particular diagnosis, the worldview behind the diagnosis must be understood. In a previous article, we explored the assumptions behind the psychological bible’s classification of mental disorders. In short, the DSM-5-TR can’t explain our spiritual problems sufficiently because it assumes a non-spiritual, unbiblical worldview. 

God’s Word, in contrast, is sufficient for “all of life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3) and to equip you for “every good work” (2 Tim 3:17). It’s important, then, when approaching psychological terminology to know the worldview behind it and the alternative worldview offered by Scripture.

Given the different approaches of the world and the Word, how should we understand a mental disorder diagnosis?

First, know that a diagnosis doesn’t define you. The defining reality of your life is your relationship with God. If you know God through Jesus Christ in the gospel, that’s what defines you. Paul writes to the Galatian church, “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal 3:26). If you are in Christ, then your primary identity before and above everything else is that you are God’s adopted child. Your relationship with God in Christ is the most important thing about you.

And Paul goes on to say, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Your ethnicity, freedom, and gender don’t define you in the body of Christ, so neither makes a psychiatric diagnosis. 

Paul likewise writes to the Colossians, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (Col 3:11). 

However you may think about yourself in light of this diagnosis, your struggle cannot eclipse the radiance of Jesus Christ as the glory of God. Here there is no “depressed”, “anxious”, diagnosed, or undiagnosed. Your identity is found in Christ and Christ alone.

There is so much comfort to be found in a Godward identity! Though we suffer, we are not our suffering. We are not our experiences. We are not the challenges and heartaches we face, as all-consuming as our pain may feel. God is the centre of the universe, the reason we exist, the goal of eternity, and the believer’s greatest pursuit. God’s pleasure is what drives us, and God’s Word is what defines us.

And God cares! 

God knows what you’re facing, loves you in the midst of it, and offers yourself to you as the only true comfort for your soul in the person of Jesus Christ. Who we are in God’s eyes is who we really are. 

What we experience through our eyes, or the eyes of a doctor, psychiatrist, or therapist, is secondary at best and often through warped lenses. How God sees us is what’s most true about us; in Christ, he sees us as his own. Your diagnosis does not define you.

Second, know that a diagnosis isn’t an explanation. 

The psychological categories in the DSM-5-TR are expressly presented as “symptom group labels,” terminology psychologists have developed to categorize experiences. The American Psychological Association (APA) explicitly says in the DSM-5-TR that its diagnostic terms do not explain “aetiology,” meaning the causes of certain phenomena or behaviour. 

So, don’t think of a mental disorder diagnosis as an explanation for why you are feeling or thinking a certain way, but instead, a secular attempt at naming your experience. Psychological categories like Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are like the names of galaxies: we’ve observed certain stars clustering together, so we’ve given them a label based on that observation. But like the stars, mental disorder diagnoses aren’t intended to explain how they got there or, by extension, what to do with them. It’s a name for it, not an explanation of it.

A psychiatric diagnosis isn’t an explanation for why you think and feel the way you do, which should be a relief. 

I’ve heard some say before that their depression is a chronic condition, genetically inherited and impossible to erase from their genes. In other words, they will always be depressed, and nothing can be done about it aside from managing the symptoms. 

But if these psychiatric labels are not actually explanations (only names), then the diagnosis of “depression” does not and cannot tell me whether it will get better, stay the same, or get worse. It just describes what’s going on right now or in the past.

To put it simply, a psychiatric diagnosis is not a prognosis. 

The future is not written in your mental disorder label. The future is controlled by God and God alone (James 4:13-15). Your present suffering is not necessarily your future suffering. You are in the Lord’s hands, and that’s where you want to be (John 10:27-30). So, take heart – that label you’ve been given isn’t an explanation for why you’re struggling, and it doesn’t determine whether you will struggle going forward. God is in control.

Third, know that a diagnosis needs biblical reframing. 

Because psychological labels come from a materialistic, non-spiritual worldview, they are missing critical insights necessary to understand how and why we think, feel, and behave as human beings made in the image of God. 

Psychology, as a secular discipline, ignores God, the definer of our lives, purpose, and destiny. The committees who created the diagnoses in the DSM-5-TR did not see fit to acknowledge God, so their labels can’t rightly grasp the situations God places us in. Our understanding needs to be reframed by God’s Word to see our challenges and struggles as God himself sees them.

For example, the secular psychological worldview behind the DSM-5-TR rejects the idea of a human soul, an immaterial, spiritual, inner person distinct from our physical bodies. Instead, it tends to focus on how the human brain interacts with the body via neurological and chemical processes. 

So, when a psychiatrist presents you with a mental disorder diagnosis, that diagnosis assumes (generally speaking) that you are solely the product of physical processes in your body and brain. In other words, modern secular psychology largely sees your struggle as merely a “chemical imbalance”.

In contrast, the Bible teaches us that we are body and soul. Jesus says, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). 

As human beings, we are a complex unity of material and immaterial, physical and non-physical, body and soul. Our bodies can affect our souls (like hormonal changes), and our souls can affect our bodies (like palms sweating when you’re nervous).

Therefore, any diagnosis rejecting our bodies or souls is incomplete and likely misleading. If you have a psychiatric diagnosis, it’s crucial to reframe your understanding of your experiences with a biblical framework that can make sense of who we are as humans. 

We are created in God’s image (Gen 1:28) to love him and to love each other (Matt 22:34-40). We have bodies and souls intricately woven together by God (Ps 139:13-16) and can experience the full range of human emotions (Phil 4:7). 

We are responsible before God for our choices (Rom 2:6). Christ is merciful and gentle with us in our weakness and affliction (Heb 4:14-16). All these truths are critical for understanding our struggles and come from Scripture, not psychology.

In his book Blame It on the Brain, biblical counsellor Ed Welch divides our experiences into three categories based on biblical anthropology: Physical, Physical-and-Non-Physical, and Non-Physical. Alzheimer’s is a physical disease, depression can be both physical and non-physical in its source, and greed is a non-physical, sinful motive. 

Just recognizing the spiritual dimension that’s inevitably at play in almost every life situation is an important step in reframing our self-understanding. Our bodies can be influential but not determinative of the choices we make in our inner man. God holds us accountable for what we think and feel, and choose. The spiritual dimension of our lives is critical if we want to rightly understand ourselves.

Fourth, know that a diagnosis is not a solution. 

Secular psychologists quickly assert what the DSM-5-TR also affirms: psychological diagnoses are not “treatment plans.” As we already noted, mental disorder labels are names given to experiences. 

And while modern psychiatric and psychological communities have reached some consensus on the diagnoses offered in the DSM, there are constant, evolving debates about every aspect of “treating” those diagnoses. Just having a diagnosis does not guarantee that a genuine solution has been discovered.

Ongoing experimentation with different solutions for mental disorders can be confusing because psychological diagnoses are often treated as equivalent to medical diagnoses. 

We know, for example, that the medical label “type 2 diabetes” describes poor blood-sugar regulation due to low insulin production or insulin resistance, and the solutions offered for that condition directly address those chemical issues. But psychological issues are not so cut and dry. 

Because of the complex unity of our bodies and souls, neurologists, psychiatrists, and endocrinologists simply can’t provide a chemical explanation for why we think, feel, and choose the way that we do. And we shouldn’t expect them to! The solutions that the psychiatric world has to offer today are based on theories and educated guesses, but they regularly change with developing research. 

As Christians, we know that there never will be a magic pill that makes us think and feel exactly how we should because that transformation is mainly the work of the Holy Spirit. So, we shouldn’t think of psychological diagnoses as presenting us with solutions from hard science.

Instead, the best course of action with any mental disorder diagnosis is to approach it with the complexity it deserves. If you’re struggling, for example, with anxious thoughts and feelings, it would be valuable to go to your primary care doctor, get a physical checkup, and take care of your body physically. Good sleep, a healthy diet, and exercise can profoundly impact how we feel.

But more importantly, if you’re struggling with anxiety, you should also attend to the needs of your soul. The greatest need of our souls is to be satisfied in God (Ps 73:25-26). 

God gives us more and more of himself through his means of grace – his Word, prayer, corporate worship, fellowship with the saints, and so on. Our souls will always be helped by the normal, glorious avenues of God’s kindness. 

Your local church body should be indispensable in dealing with your pain. And if you want additional help, you can reach out to a trusted pastor or biblical counsellor who can walk alongside you as you seek God’s will in your struggle. 

Ultimately, our goal shouldn’t be freedom from our diagnosed suffering but love and obedience to God in Jesus Christ. God is always at work in us – even in our suffering – to accomplish his purposes (Phil 2:13). Our souls need our Creator, and our Creator knows our souls’ needs.

So, if you have a psychiatric diagnosis, know that in God’s eyes, you are far more than a label, and there is always hope in Christ. Use the rich bounty of resources that God has placed in your local church to help you navigate the sores and strains of life under the curse. Pay attention to the needs of your body and your soul. And do it all to please and glorify the God who loves you and draws you to himself in Jesus Christ.

Dan Crabtree