Hospitable Witnessing: Using Autoethnography to Reflect Theologically on a Journey of Friendship and Mental Health Problems

Drawing on her own experience of befriending a person suffering from a long-term mental health challenge, Priscilla Oh reflects on the meaning of care and friendship theologically. Using autoethnography, she goes beyond the personal experience and examines various issues surrounding mental health. Hospitable Witnessing candidly takes readers into the everyday life of being with a mentally ill person. There are emotional challenges and contingencies in sustaining friendship and caring for a person with a long-term mental health problem. Oh points out that those who care for a loved one during a long-term illness inevitably experience ""burnout"" resulting from the constant care requirements. Under such an enormous disruption, we need to be compassionate toward another's suffering and be willing to be present and available for them. This book suggests our need of one another and identifies three important Christian practices: caring as we are being made in the image of God, compassion as being present with the sufferer, and lament as to revitalize our faith and hope. ""Hospitable Witnessing is an unusual and necessary book which investigates the author's experience of caring for her mentally ill friend. Readers will find themselves deeply engaged in the psychological pain and confusion of both the author and her friend. This honest and compassionate book will be of great value to families, church members, and professionals engaged in the care and treatment of mentally ill people."" –Mary Fawcett, Former Lecturer, School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol, United Kingdom ""This tender and compelling work offers a challenging theological reflection upon mental illness. It fully acknowledges the pain and ambiguity that accompanies mental anguish but through the use of deeply reflexive and profoundly spiritual tools it helps to bring this suffering within the reach of prayerful contemplation and ethical response."" –Heather Walton, Professor of Theology and Creative Practice, University of Glasgow ""Hospitable Witnessing is a delicate filigree of longing and loss held together with twisted threads of lived experiences. As a reader and relational psychotherapist, I am impacted by the gentle invitation of entering the enchanted world of another's faith and the realm of possibilities which open up in the spaces between presence and absence of illness when exploring the nature of the divine."" –Salma Siddique, Director of Counselling, Psychotherapy and Experiential Therapies, School of Education, University of Aberdeen, Scotland ""'Our real humanness, as God brings us into being, is not that of separateness and isolation, but that of belonging to God and being the partaker of God's unfailing love. . . For the Hebrew word, Shalom is the near term to health to express a person's well-being of life and fullness.' I see the work of Priscilla as one driven by and for shalom, especially in the story of her ministry with these two close friends. And I believe her work can direct others toward similar lives of service."" –Gary A. Parrett, Former Professor of Educational Ministry and Worship, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary Priscilla Sun Kyung Oh is a practical theologian and author. After her formulative studies in Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Massachusetts, USA and her PhD at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, her research became focused on stories of people with mental health problems and how practical theology might help them. Recently, she began to explore the idea of identity formation practice for people with dementia and their families, and pose a meaningful question: What does dementia mean for the body of Christ as a whole?