The Man with the Unclean Spirit: Serious Mental Illness, Stigma & the Church's Response

A Curriculum for Serious Mental Illness, Stigma & the Church’s Response

Explore serious mental illness, stigma, and the Church’s response through the story of the Man with the Unclean Spirit. Drawing from The Perseverance Model™ — the DTI-BB-MHE™ framework — this digital, trauma-informed, biblically-based, mental health education course equips you to walk with those whom the world has chained, feared, and pushed to the margins.

What You’ll Explore:

• Living on the margins and outside community
• Psychosis through a compassionate lens
• Community fear and exclusion
• The radical act of seeking the one left behind
• The clinical significance of Jesus’s direct engagement
• Restoration, dignity, and return to community
• An awareness overview of psychosis, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder
• The deliverance versus treatment debate and a both/and framework for the Church
• Stigma and silence in the Black Church
• Trauma-informed ministry for those living with serious mental illness
• Building a mental health referral network for your congregation
• Creating a mental health awareness ministry in your church

Course Mechanics:

15 lessons • Full lesson audio narration • 15 Student Reflection Journal PDFs

Who This Is For

Adult individuals wanting to learn how the Word of God connects to mental health, pastors, ministry leaders, churches, faith-based organizations, community colleges, universities, seminaries, and Christian counselors seeking biblical mental health education for their staff, clients, and/or students.

Organizations offering mental health education through a biblical lens for employee development will find this curriculum equally suited to their needs.