Sin and Psyche.

http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=1447

Mental illness is increasing and, according to the World Health Organization, "will be the second biggest cause of death and disability by 2020."

"An estimated 20 percent of children have a mental illness that causes at least mild functional impairment, but only 5 percent receive any kind of mental health care (1,2,3). Antidepressant medications are among the psychotropic medications most commonly prescribed for children and adolescents, and their use is increasing dramatically (4). In 1993-1994, children below the age of 18 years were six times as likely as in 1985 to receive a prescription for an antidepressant; between 1990 and 1996, the total number of prescriptions of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) for children and adolescents increased by 69 percent (5,6,7). Despite this dramatic increase in use, there is little understanding of what mental health conditions these agents are being used to treat. It is possible that their use is outpacing existing clinical evidence of their efficacy."

http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/53/11/1444

From the Christian perspective, mental illness is not caused by unresolved parent-issues or repressed desire, but by sin, and by suppressing the truth in unrighteousness:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them..."-Romans 1:18-19

"...you always resist the Holy Spirit."-Acts 7:51

"...and when He [The Holy Spirit] comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see Me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged."-John 16:8

"For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water.”-Jeremiah 2:13

“O LORD, the hope of Israel, All who forsake You will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the LORD.”-Jeremiah 17:13

The reductionist approach to psychology, as the term implies, "reduces" one's illness to stemming from this or that source. A Freudian psychoanalyst will reduce it to sexual hangups or unresolved father-issues, an Adlerian'll reduce it to an inferiority complex, a behaviorist will reduce it to maladaptive habits, a cognitive psychologist will reduce it to intellectual distortions about the world, etc. It doesn't take a lotta philosophical gymnastics to consider that maybe mental illness can have a fundamentally theological origin. Even Carl Jung, a one-time colleague of Sigmund Freud, suggested that, rather than God being a projection of parental idealization, the reverse, on purely philosophcial grounds, could be true. Why couldn't idealization of parents be rooted in a Sensus Divinitatis, or indwelling sense of the divine, as theologian and Reformer John Calvin posited (and there are certainly passages that seem to read that way: Rom. 2:12-16)?

King David is notorious for his bouts of depression, and his notorious "frenemy" King Saul is also well-known for his mental instability. Both of their problems, Scripturally, are clearly related to sin.

"^B)">(B) Have mercy on me,^a]">[a] O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your^C)">(C) abundant mercy
^D)">(D) blot out my transgressions.
^2E)">(E) Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and^F)">(F) cleanse me from my sin!

^3G)">(G) For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
^4H)">(H) Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil^I)">(I) in your sight,
^J)">(J) so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
⁵Behold,^K)">(K) I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
⁶Behold, you delight in truth in^L)">(L) the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

⁷Purge me^M)">(M) with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
^N)">(N) wash me, and I shall be^O)">(O) whiter than snow.
⁸Let me hear joy and gladness;
^P)">(P) let the bones^Q)">(Q) that you have broken rejoice.
^9R)">(R) Hide your face from my sins,
and^S)">(S) blot out all my iniquities.
^10T)">(T) Create in me a^U)">(U) clean heart, O God,
and^V)">(V) renew a right^b]">[b] spirit within me.
^11W)">(W) Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not^X)">(X) your Holy Spirit from me.
¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will^Y)">(Y) return to you.
¹⁴Deliver me from^Z)">(Z) bloodguiltiness, O God,
O^AA)">(AA) God of my salvation,
and^AB)">(AB) my tongue will sing aloud of your^AC)">(AC) righteousness.
¹⁵O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
^16AD)">(AD) For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
¹⁷The sacrifices of God are^AE)">(AE) a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

^18AF)">(AF) Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
^AG)">(AG) build up the walls of Jerusalem;
¹⁹then will you delight in^AH)">(AH) right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and^AI)">(AI) whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar."-Psalm 51

This is probably the most famous of the Penitential Psalms. David confesses his sins and asks God to restore to him the joy of God's salvation - and we see this even more explicitly in another Penitential Psalm, Psalm 32:

^1A)">(A) Blessed is the one whose^B)">(B) transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
²Blessed is the man against whom the LORD^C)">(C) counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit^D)">(D) there is no deceit.

³For when I kept silent, my^E)">(E) bones wasted away
through my^F)">(F) groaning all day long.
⁴For day and night your^G)">(G) hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up^b]">[b] as by the heat of summer.
Selah

⁵I^H)">(H) acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, "I^I)">(I) will confess my transgressions to the LORD,"
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
Selah

⁶Therefore let everyone who is^J)">(J) godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you^K)">(K) may be found;
surely in the rush of^L)">(L) great waters,
they shall not reach him.
⁷You are a^M)">(M) hiding place for me;
you preserve me from^N)">(N) trouble;
you surround me with^O)">(O) shouts of deliverance.
Selah

⁸I will^P)">(P) instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will^Q)">(Q) counsel you with my eye upon you.
^9R)">(R) Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with^S)">(S) bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.

^10T)">(T) Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who^U)">(U) trusts in the LORD.
^11V)">(V) Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous,
and^W)">(W) shout for joy, all you^X)">(X) upright in heart!"-Psalm 32

A true Christian can tell you about a distinct and unmistakable melancholy that overcomes us when we sin - and the supremely light, airy, and indescribable joy that comes with successful walking with God. Sin, for both believers and unbelievers, causes an agonizing disconnect from God:

"Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear."-Isaiah 59:1-2

Not being disconnected from God causes immense joy:

"...God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."-Romans 5:5

"The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God..."-Romans 8:16

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace..."-Galatians 5:22

"...whoever drinks of the water that I will give him^L)">(L) will never be thirsty again.^b]">[b] The water that I will give him will become^M)">(M) in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."-John 4:14

"Whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst"-John 6:35

From a Christian perspective, all this comes from man rebellion against God, which, in reality, is rebellion not only against God, but against his own nature. This rebellion has taken a peculiar form in our society. As Christopher Lasch writes in his famous The Culture of Narcissism:

“Plagued by anxiety, depression, vague discontents, a sense of inner emptiness, the “psychological man” of the twentieth century seeks neither individual self-aggrandizement nor spiritual transcendence but peace of mind, under conditions that increasingly militate against it. Therapists, not priests or popular preachers of self-help or models of success like the captains of industry, become his principal allies in the struggle for composure; he turns to them in the hope of achieving this modern equivalent of salvation, “mental health.” Therapy has established itself as the successor both to rugged individualism and to religion; but this does not mean that the “triumph of the therapeutic” has become a new religion in its own right. Therapy constitutes an antireligion, not always to be sure because it adheres to rational explanation or scientific methods of healing, as its practitioners would have us believe, but because modern society “has no future” and therefore gives no thought to anything beyond its immediate needs. Even when therapists speak of the need for “meaning” and “love,” they define love and meaning simply as the fulfillment of the patients' emotional requirements. It hardly occurs to them - nor is there any reason why it should, given the nature of the therapeutic enterprise - to encourage the subject to subordinate his needs and interests to those of others, to someone or some cause or tradition outside himself. “Love” as self-sacrifice or self-abasement, “meaning” as submission to a higher - loyalty - these sublimations strike the therapeutic sensibility as intolerably oppressive, offensive to common sense and injurious to personal health and well-being. To liberate humanity from such outmoded ideas of love and duty has become the mission of the post-Freudian therapies and particularly of their converts and popularizers, for whom mental health means the overthrow of inhibitions and the immediate gratification of every impulse.”- page 13

Man submits himself to nothing when he should be submitting himself to God. The sociologist Durkheim described the sort of postmodern condition we exist in now as "anomie," a kind of cultural anarchism he associated less with liberation and more with despair (which, as we see in Christopher Lasch's "The Culture of Narcissism", is more or less on the mark). I find it somehow apropos that the Greek word used in the New Testament for lawlessness is "anomos", used in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 to describe the Antichrist - which Nietzsche, practically a patron saint of postmodern philosophy, described himself as.

“Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”-John 6:35

“I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.”-Ecclesiastes 2:1

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”-Matthew 11:28

"For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes."-Jeremiah 31:25

“Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.”-John 7:37

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.”-Isaiah 55:2

Christ's sacrifice on the cross liberates us from the misery of sin and puts us into direct connection with God. It allows us to "know" God. The word used in the Bible for "know" in the Bible, when used in relation to God, typically signifies an intimate relationship. But we can't have this relationship with God as long as we're in bondage to sin:

"You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong..."-Habakkuk 1:13

The moment we call on Jesus and truly Christ in His sacrifice as all-sufficient for payment of our sins, a real, metaphysical pathway is opened up to God. We are then in a position to "know" God:

"...if anyone loves God, He is known by God."-1 Corinthians 8:3

"But now that you have come to know God, or rather be known by God..."-Galatians 4:9

"Those whom He foreknew He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son..."-Romans 8:29

"No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him"-1 John 3:6

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are made right with God the Father freely through His free gift - that free gift is Christ's sacrifice on the cross. Jesus lived a perfect life so that His sacrifice would be acceptable to God the Father. Nothing we can do can be acceptable to Him since we are already guilty of sin, and need an atonement to have that sin forgiven, thus opening up contact with Him once again. Christ lived a perfect sacrifice only to be punished as though a sinner so that sinners who actually deserve that punishment could have Christ's righteousness credited to them, provided He did this for them.