COMMENTARY: If psychiatry were used in the biblical era

c. 1999 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is national interreligious affairs of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ A Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s famous play,”Death of a Salesman,”has recently opened to rave reviews, and a news story reported that two psychiatrists have carefully studied Willy Loman, the drama’s central figure, and reached the same […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is national interreligious affairs of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ A Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s famous play,”Death of a Salesman,”has recently opened to rave reviews, and a news story reported that two psychiatrists have carefully studied Willy Loman, the drama’s central figure, and reached the same clinical diagnosis: Loman, the”Salesman,”is”manic-depressive with hallucinatory aspects.” Miller sharply disagreed:”Loman is not a depressive. He is weighed down by life. There are social reasons for why he is where he is.” Wendy Wasserstein, another prominent playwright, said,”Heck, why don’t you get Electra and Lear in there and get them some family counseling?”The ancient Greek daughter has a”father thing”and hates her mom for killing dad, and the Shakespearean king has severe emotional problems with his daughters.


Applying psychiatry to dramas set me thinking how different the world would be if some biblical figures had been treated for”manic-depressive”illness back in ancient times.

The best known manic-depressive in Scripture is Saul, Israel’s first king. In the biblical book of Samuel we read that an”evil spirit”descended upon Saul, causing moods of despair. Saul’s therapy was to listen to the soothing music that David, a young shepherd from Bethlehem, provided on the harp.

Indeed, music is a great blues chaser for many people.

But David’s melodies provided only temporary relief for the mentally disturbed king, and soon Saul grew to hate David. The king became wildly jealous of the handsome youngster who was not only a superb musician and poet, but a heroic warrior as well. David’s totally unexpected victory over the fearsome Goliath excited the people of Israel, and drove the insecure Saul into deeper depression.

It was not long before the disturbed king attempted to kill the youthful therapist-musician turned soldier. David fled to the wilderness to escape the paranoid ruler, and in time David became king following Saul’s self-induced death on the battlefield. And the rest, as they like to say, is history.

But imagine if Prozac, the anti-depressant medication, had been available back then. Perhaps the troubled monarch would have grown mellow and not threatened David. Saul might have taken up a musical instrument himself and joined David in duets. Maybe Saul, the soldier, would have inaugurated a diplomatic peace process with Goliath’s people, the hostile Philistines. Saul might have lived a long life, with Jonathan, his son, succeeding him on the throne.

Because Jonathan and David were great friends, the new king might have appointed David the poet-laureate of Israel. In this scenario, David would be remembered only as a heroic poet who killed Goliath. Of course, there would have been no royal house of David and no royal love affair with Bathsheba that produced the wise king Solomon.

And what of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel who lived as an exile from Jerusalem in ancient Babylonia a few hundred years after Saul and David?

Poor Ezekiel. He really needed to”see someone”about his intense mystical visions which jump off the page beginning with the first chapter of his book. He writes about divine heavenly chariots roaring through outer space.


And in his 37th chapter the poor guy goes wild with his graphic description of a valley filled with sun-bleached dry bones. Ezekiel sees the bones coming to life as a symbol of the exiled people of Israel returning to the Promised Land. Like wow! Space chariots and dry bones becoming live bodies. I can imagine what psychiatrists of Ezekiel’s day might have written in their casebooks:”The patient is clearly a gifted writer, but he has recurring delusions. In our first session, the patient described hallucinating aspects like chariots in the sky and a valley of dry bones. In a non-directive way, I urged him to abandon these highly speculative and disturbing images. I’m not certain he understood where I was trying to lead him. He needs to work hard in his psychotherapy and damp down his psychotic writing style. I need to explore whether these delusions are a result of mood-inducing drugs.

As his psychiatrist, I prescribe Prozac medication combined with three-times-a-week counseling. Ezekiel needs to join an authors’ therapy group that could offer him constructive criticism about his wild and chaotic writings. Maybe he needs to be hospitalized.” If on the advice of his physician, Ezekiel had”abandoned”his prophetic writings, the world would have been greatly diminished. But fortunately, no such treatment was available 2,500 years ago and because of Ezekiel’s”delusions”_ his magnificent writings _ millions of oppressed peoples throughout history have drawn continued hope for their physical and spiritual redemption.

DEA END RUDIN

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