PREVENTION OR CURE: THE WORK OF THE CHURCH

• Published in: American journal of orthopsychiatry Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 107 - 119
• Main Author: Sweet, Esther Colby
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK American Orthopsychiatric Association, Inc 01-01-1934; Blackwell Publishing Ltd; American Orthopsychiatric Association; Educational Publishing Foundation
• Subjects: Behavior Problems; Human; Mental Health Services; Pediatrics; Prevention; Religious Buildings
• ISSN: 0002-9432; 1939-0025
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1939-0025.1934.tb06279.x

This article discusses the role played by the Churches in providing mental health services. Good spiritual health needs good mental health as a basis on which to build. Although the church has, from time immemorial, been interested in education, its policy has been to inculcate doctrine in the minds of the young, under the assumption that such verbal learning would be put into practice. Such teaching has in recent years been confined to the Sunday school, rather than to the weekday schools that the church sponsored in earlier days. By giving children the conditions of everyday living under its protection and guidance, by extending its work throughout the week, the church is teaching its younger members an attitude toward life that will enable them to solve its problems, and will obviate the necessity of such clinics as Emmanuel. Since the proper attitudes toward life are so important for the future happiness of the individual as a personality and as a member of society, the earlier such training is begun the more firmly will the foundations be laid. Since the church nursery school aims to prevent problems rather than to solve them as did the Emmanuel Clinic, the first step is the provision of a suitable environment for the child. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)