S. Taylor Williams Mother Teresa Summary

S. Taylor Williams reads Mother Teresa’s personal writings to analyze her internal emotional state in the article, Illness Narrative, Depression, and Sainthood: An Analysis of the Writings of Mother Teresa. Williams searches through Mother Teresa’s writings looking for certain words, a difficulty of describing feelings, and a search for meaning, which could all indicate Mother Teresa suffered from the mental illness, depression.
S.T. Williams uses her psychiatric knowledge to inquire whether Mother Teresa suffered from Major Depressive Disorder or a spiritual problem, known as “Dark Night of the Soul.” According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fourth edition), Major Depressive Disorder consists of two types,
Mother Teresa writes to her spiritual advisor, Fr. Picachy to explain her troubles. Mother Teresa describes a physical pain that she suffers from. She writes, “the pain is sometimes unbearable. You don’t know how miserable and nothing I am.” Fr. Picachy tried to comfort Mother Teresa by explaining that like other saints, including St. John of the Cross, she was suffering from “Dark Night of the Soul.” She would be forced to endure much pain and suffering, but it is believed that this trial strengthens one’s
Mother Teresa wrote about a darkness surrounding her and her desperate attempt to understand why she was suffering. She was crying out for help from her advisors, who continued to assure her that it was actually a meaning of her closeness with God. Mother Teresa accepted this explanation, but it did not help the pain she felt.
Williams explains that Mother Teresa could have been suffering from “compassion fatigue” or “secondary trauma.” “Compassion fatigue” is when a helper watches terrible suffering of another and begins to take the suffering on as their own. This causes the helper to suffer and can lead to depression, loss of compassion, and burnout. This is why it is helpful for helpers to seek out help from someone else to ease the burden. However, Mother Teresa’s advisors looked at the suffering as a blessing. They offered the advice to pray, write, and remain busy with work.
This article explains that it is sometimes difficult to draw the line between a psychological and spiritual problem. Each side does not always look at the problem through both perspectives. It is easy for the Church to declare Mother Teresa’s suffering as “Dark Night of the Soul” because this proves that she had a closeness to God, while psychologists would quickly diagnose Mother Teresa with depression due to her overwhelming symptoms that match the list from the