Pastoral Considerations and OCD'.

Steve Bloem

2005 All rights Reserved.

Kregel Publications,Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel

Like You're Losing It Robyn and Steve Bloem

This brings us to a difficult pastoral question. What is the difference between temptation to sin and an obsession? All of us have to deal with thoughts that are sinful and even blasphemous. There is a difference, of course, between the temptation to sin and the actual act of sinning (James 1:13–17), yet we also know that thoughts can be sinful when we dwell on them.

Where, then, does theology fit in treating O.C.D.? Most secular psychiatrist, social workers, and psychologists do not believe in a literal devil or demonic hosts. That doesn’t mean everything these professionals say is wrong, but Christians should keep in mind that a therapist may not be able to recognize spiritual forces at work. Demons do have schemes by which to discourage, depress, and make the child of God feel that God is displeased. Think of how Satan can use unbidden thoughts of O.C.D. to burden one with guilt. A counselor or pastor must acknowledge that these thoughts are not sinful in and of themselves.

As a pastor though speaking more generally about temptation and sin, Lloyd-Jones has some helpful thoughts in how the devil can use OCD to bring sorrow upon sorrow to the Christian, 

All Rights Reserved Baker Book House

The Christian Warfare: Ephesians 6

D. Martyn Lloyd Jones

We move now to the consideration of another very fruitful source of trouble in the Christian life resulting from the “wiles of the devil,” namely, the confusion between temptation and sin. . . . It includes such problems as evil thoughts, thoughts which may at times be blasphemous, evil imaginations—the imagination tempted to play upon things that are wrong and evil and unworthy. . . . The devil deals with this along certain lines.

One line is to suggest that to be tempted at all is sin. . . . The devil comes in and he says, “Obviously you are not a new creature, you have not been born again, you have not got a new nature. Temptation belonged to the old life and to the past, therefore the fact that you are still tempted is a proof that you are not really what you think you are.” So he comes and says that either the temptation is sin, or else that as Christians we should not be tempted. 

Lloyd-Jones goes on to remind us, that we are neither perfect nor sinless, and that we should 
apply Romans 8:10, “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin,and that goes for the brain, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.”   We have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. We are being saved from the power of sin, but we live in this body that is dying We have disease and temptations and weakness. Some day when we are glorified, we will receive “our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23). Our minds while be without any sin, there will be no "gray" moments and problem with memory.

SB- Again.some Christians with O.C.D. get stuck on 1 John 1:9 and work at a continual, compulsive confession of sin. They fear that they might not have confessed according to God’s standards, so they do it over and over again, sometimes almost chanting the litany of their failings. O.C.D. can be a great trial for a believer. SB. 

Pastors and Christian counselors must remind, those who come to them, “who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us” (Rom. 8:33–34).

This book will be available to the public ,on June 26,2018.
How  would like to be one of first people to get this book? You can let me know by  going to my email at
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The Cost  is $23.00 and that includes the shipping to the United States.
How to pay?

1.You can do this by going to our web site and pay by using  our paypal site.2. You can can send us a check made out to Steve Bloem.








Please don't forget that Robyn and I have written a book called Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It. It is published by Kregel Publications. It was nominated by Forword Magazine to be the best non-fiction book of 2005. Broken Minds is a different book and I think you will like it.  We are having a sale right now, which will end soon.

You can see it by going to, http://www.heartfeltmin.org/resources.htmll 

I think that Spurgeon would like my new book, The Pastoral Hand book of Mental Illness; A Guide for Training and Review.

 

As the pastor of a large church, I have to observe a great variety of experiences, and I note that some whom I greatly love and esteem, who are, in my judgment among the very choicest of God’s people, nevertheless, travel most of the way to heaven by night. They do not rejoice in the light of God’s countenance, though they trust in the shadow of His wings. They are on the way to eternal light, and yet they walk in darkness.

Darkness has a terrible power of causing fear; its mystery is an influence creating dread. It is not what we see that we dread, as much as that which we do not see, and therefore exaggerate. When darkness lowers down upon the believer’s mind it is a great trial to his heart. He cries, “Where am I? And how did I come here? If I am a child of God, why am I thus? Did I really repent and obtain light so as to escape the darkness of sin? If so, why am I conscious of this thick gloom? Did I really joy in Christ and think I had received the atonement? Why, then, has the sun of my joy gone down so hopelessly? Where are now the loving-kindnesses of the Lord?”

The good man begins to question himself as to every point of his profession, for in the dark he cannot even judge his own self. What is worse, he sometimes questions the truth which he has before received, and doubts the very ground on which his feet are resting. Satan will come in with vile insinuations questioning everything, even as he questioned God’s Word when he ruined our race in the garden. It is possible at such times even to question the existence of the God we love, though we still cling to Him with desperate resolve. We undergo a life and death struggle while we hold on to the divine verities. 

We are at times sorely put to it, and scarcely know what to do. Like the mariners with whom Paul sailed, we cast four anchors out of the stern, and look for the day. Oh, that we could be certain that we are the Lord’s! Oh, that we could apprehend the sure promises of the Lord, and our portion in them! For a while the darkness is all around us, and we perceive no candle of the Lord, or spark of experimental light with which to break the gloom. This darkness is very trying to faith, trying to love, trying to hope, trying to patience, trying to every grace of the spiritual man. Blessed is the man who 
can endure this test.

The quote by Spurgeon above is a quote I use in my new book. The Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness: A Guide for Training and Review. Why did I use Spurgeon? It is because he suffered from severe depression. He eventually had to leave his huge church six months out of the year which numbered over fifteen thousand people for light therapy on the sunny coast of Menton, France.

 If you would like to be put on the waiting list for The Pastoral Handbook,  email me at revstevebloem@gmail.com. I will give you an alert as soon as I get the copies. The list is going and I will sign it.




 Robyn and I wrote about Spurgeon's Seasonal Affective Disorder in our book, Broken Minds, Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It. Kregel is the publisher for both books.

 If you would like to get this book, (no one can beat our price), please use the link below to order Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It , go to  http://heartfeltmin.org/resources.html

Sometimes your antidepressant (s) poop out. Don't give up!

 Steve's expertise is dealing with mood and anxiety disorders. He provides answers and knows that a person can be spiritually depressed. He is a certified DBT Therapist. He also is an experienced marriage counselor.  He does in person and phone counseling, including Skype.


Hi to All,
I found this article interesting. I have experienced the 'poop out' effect while on Zoloft, Paxil. and fluvoxamine,  I would cycle into a deep depression. I would have another one of the above prescribed
medications but they did not last.

Antidepressant Medication “Poop Out”

A reader from Roswell, Georgia asks: “I have been taking 20 mg/day of Celexa (citalopram) for about a year and a half for depression. It was the first medication I tried, and it worked great. For the past two months or so, however, I haven't been feeling great. I have been sleeping a lot, crying a lot, and feeling antisocial. Is it possible for Celexa to "poop out" and just stop working over time? Should I talk to my doctor about increasing my dosage or changing medications? Or maybe this bout with depression is just extra bad and I should tough it out?” Here’s our advice.

Antidepressant tachyphylaxis -- known less formally as the "poop out" effect -- was first described in 1984 when researchers observed that some patients experienced relapse of mood symptoms on antidepressants that had previously been effective therapies. There is some suggestion that serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, such as Celexa, are more prone to tachyphylaxis than other antidepressants, such as tricyclic medications like nortriptyline and serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) like Effexor.

When antidepressants appear to "poop out," there are four options available to the physician and patient. 

The first is to increase the medication dosage in an effort to boost the antidepressant effect, assuming the maximum dose is not already prescribed. For example, the maximum dose of Celexa is 60 mg daily. A common pattern with SSRIs is for there to be an initial response to a lower dose that is not sustained, requiring titration over time to higher doses. Increasing the dosage alone may be sufficient to jumpstart recovery.

The second option is to switch antidepressant medications, either to another medication within the same class or to a different class. This method has the benefit of simplicity, in that it continues to be a single medication regimen.

The third and fourth options involve augmentation of the current antidepressant, either with the addition of a second antidepressant or a non-antidepressant augmentation drug. If a second antidepressant is chosen, it is common to add a medication with a different mechanism of action. For example, if someone is already taking an SSRI, the physician might add a tricyclic antidepressant. Non-antidepressant augmentation strategies include lithium, low-dose atypical neuroleptics such as Zyprexa or Risperdal, thyroid hormone, the blood pressure medication Pindolol, or the anti-anxiety drug Buspar (buspirone).

Bottom line: In most cases like yours, the simplest intervention is to increase the dosage of the antidepressant medication you're already taking, particularly because it has been effective in the past and you're not currently taking the maximum dosage. The key to successful treatment of depression is ongoing communication between you and your physician and not settling for partial recovery resigning oneself to "toughing it out."Johns Hopkins Health Alert

I would like to give one more option.  Iwas on Paxil and Zoloft and Luvox, three SSRIS. They all "pooped out."  My long time psychiatrist said that I maybe suffering from bipolar two disorder. He first  tried Lithium, from which I become toxic, and almost died, and then he decided to try a new drug at the time called Seroquel (Generic Quetiapine). Seroquel acts a mood stabilizer.  It has been about sixteen years and I have never had a severe depressive episode since then. SB








It will soon be in the bookstores and online. If you like, I could give you a signed copy. I am not collecting money now, but I can put you on alert status. I will inform you when it is available.

Please read the following review.

I applaud Steve’s courage and professionalism in coming forward with this much needed book. The church is made up of everyday, real people and mmental illness is a real problem that cannot be swept under the rug. 

As God gave us doctors to help us with heart attacks, back surgeries, and diabetes, he also gave us doctors to help us with mental illness. Of course God can heal somebody

immediately of any disease or illness, but oftentimes he uses doctors, medicine, and other tools to help. In that regard, I believe Steve’s book is a godsend.

It gives pastors the knowledge, information, and tools they need to successfully and confidently address this critical issue with those they oversee.

God bless you Steve for having the courage to come out of the darkness and shine

a light on your own experience so that others may be helped, healed, blessed,

and God glorified throughout it all. 

Steve Bloem delivers the information in a way

that will help pastors and impact the kingdom of God today and in the ages to

come. God has used Steve’s personal journey mightily to help him understand

the tragedy, effects, trauma, solutions, and answers for dealing with mental

illness. This book is a must read for every pastor and I believe should be taught

as a course in every seminary.”

—Jack Alan Levine,

Executive Pastor, Purpose Church,

Orlando, Florida

Do you know what OCD is? Did you think it did not have a biological origin? Think again@

Largest-Ever Cortical Imaging Study of OCD Patients Offers Clues to Causes

A study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on May 1, 2018 gives researchers new clues into which parts of the brain may be disrupted in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Abnormalities were identified in both pediatric and adult patients.

OCD is a common disorder that causes recurring, uncontrollable thoughts and behaviors. Its causes remain poorly understood. Abnormalities in certain information-processing circuits have been implicated, but these do not seem to explain all of its symptoms.

The new study is the work of the ENIGMA-OCD consortium, a large international team of researchers who share a research interest in OCD, led by 2009 Young Investigator Odile A. van den Heuvel, M.D., Ph.D., a psychiatrist at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands. They used MRI scans to compare brain structure in 1,905 people with OCD with that of 1,760 healthy controls. Their study, which used clinical and imaging data from 27 sites worldwide, is the largest analysis to date of the structure of the brain’s cortex in people with OCD. The cortex is the brain’s outermost layer, and the portion that performs its most complex functions, which give rise to memory, attention, perception, cognition, thought, language and emotion.

Dr. van den Heuvel and colleagues used the brain scans to create detailed maps of each study participant’s cortex. Comparing these maps, they found that the surface area and thickness of certain regions of the cortex were smaller in people with OCD. Because the study was so large, the team was able to link subtle structural differences to the disorder, something that hasn’t been possible to corroborate in previous smaller studies.

In particular, they noted that the parietal lobe—a part of the brain thought to be involved in attention, planning, and response inhibition—was thinner in people with the disorder. These brain functions are often impaired in people with OCD, and such abnormalities might contribute to patients’ recurring thoughts and repetitive behaviors, the team says.

The parietal cortex was found to be consistently implicated in both adults and children with OCD. More widespread cortical regions were found to be thinner in medicated adult OCD patients (versus controls), and more pronounced surface area deficits (mainly in frontal regions) were found in medicated pediatric OCD patients (versus controls). Because of the way the study was designed, it’s not possible to determine whether or to what degree medication contributes to changes in patients’ brain structure. That will be the subject of future studies, the team says.