St. Dymphna’s Playbook
A Catholic Guide to Finding Mental and Emotional Well-Being
by Tommy Tighe

“If you experience mental health symptoms or love someone who does, you will find Tommy Tighe’s book moving and helpful. He provides hopeful, practical tools to utilize immediately and blends wisdom from saints, scripture, and clinical experience into the perfect mix of relatability and sound psychological advice. I will be recommending St. Dymphna’s Playbook to many people.”
--Regina Boyd, Catholic mental health professional and host of the podcast Connecting Out Loud

Why St. Dymphna?

Dymphna was born in seventh-century Ireland, the daughter of a Christian mother and a pagan father. After her mother's death, her father fell into a spiral of grief, which eventually led to a madness that turned his affections for a new wife toward Dymphna. She knew that she needed to flee. She fled to Geel, Belgium, where she gained the reputation of compassion and kindness that would directly lead to her becoming the patron saint for those suffering from mental illness. She opened a hospice for the poor and sick which, according to some reports, particularly served those with mental or neurological illnesses. After Dymphna's death, traditions hold that mentally ill patients from her hospice were miraculously cured. Pilgrims began to flock to Dymphna's burial site, and more cures were recorded. .... St. Dymphna became the patron saint for those suffering from mental illness.

Features Inspiration from Saints Including:
St. Rose of Lima
St. Rita of Cascia
St. John Vianney
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
St. Teresa of Calcutta
St. Francis of Assisi
St. Vincent de Paul
St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi

A Message from Tommy Tighe

God wills that everyone be saved, not just from sin but also from depression, anxiety, past trauma, addiction, and everything else that brings us separation from the love and peace God so desperately wants to give us.
This is not meant to be a self-help book. While there are coping skills within this book, this book doesn’t intend to solve all our problems. It’s meant to remind us that others are suffering just like us. My hope is that this book provides the impetus to bring our mental health struggles out into the open without stigma and with a plan for moving forward.

Carol K, Reviewer
When prayer alone doesn't help us out of a dark place, what does? If talk therapy hasn't led us back to the land of the living, what will? Therapist Tommy Tighe offers a sweeping, comprehensive list of coping mechanisms, including Bible verses, a saint or sage who struggled with one of the many issues covered here, and a uniquely Catholic approach to mental well-being. When all else fails, he suggests prescription meds as a way to jump-start getting ourselves onto the path for healing.

I like the way Tighe organizes the chapters around words from the sisters of Lazarus, "Master, the one you love is ill." No need for explanations or specific requests: "Jesus knows what we need before we ask," he understands sorrow, and he weeps with us. The chapter titles repeat this like a mantra: Lord, the One You Love Feels Nothing, or The One You Love is tired, is worrying, is battling intrusive thoughts, feels helpless or detached, is hurting themselves, is isolated. Universal struggles such as grieving over a lost child are presented along with less common DSM-5 conditions, from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder to clinical depression.

The saints are fascinating and inspiring, and the community of saints is a great resource. It may seem that nobody hears our prayers, not even God, but a devotion to the saints has brought comfort to so many, it is not a concept I would discredit. Tighe quotes Dorothy Day: "We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community." Tighe recommends "trying to foster a Catholic community where we all suffer together, unafraid to walk forward with our sisters and brothers through their valley of tears."

This idea, too, is comforting: "the darkness and hopelessness we see all around us is not the final word." Does that make it any easier to overcome the heartbreak of burying a loved one? Only if we believe that God exists and we meet our loved ones again in some heaven after this life is over. Atheists, agnostics, skeptics, you may need to look elsewhere for help. Then again, even if you cannot believe the Bible is true, the examples and stories of others may be the key to helping us soldier on through the pain and sorrow of this world.

One takeaway from this book is that we may need medical assistance before we can find the wherewithal to crawl out of a deep slump. "Depresssion attacks our concentration, focus, and motivation, so we're quite frankly impaired in our ability to come up with solutions..... And it's not something we can just suck up and get over, as our culture often advises." Neurotransmitters in our brains affect chemical levels that in turn can leave us without energy and motivation, in which case, "therapy alone can even have a hard time making an impact, which is why medication is worth considering.... Therapy requires some motivation, some interest. If intense depression inhibits that drie, we should most definitely consider medication first."

Which meds? Which pills, and how long should we take them? That is for you and your therapist to discern. Never mind the stigmas on "mental illness" and drugs; "Medication for depression, even short term, can often be a crucial first step to feeling better."

Vitamin D, a healthy diet, keeping a diary, reaching out to others even if it means sitting on a park bench just surrounded by other people socializing with each other: these are just some of the tools, besides Rx meds, that Tighe offers.

I haven't even begun to summarize or touch on the many ways Tighe ties together the ways we can utilize the teachings of the Bible, the wisdom of the saints, the community of others who suffer with us and others who've survived and conquered, along conventional talk therapy and even prescription meds, which seem to be the tool of Last Resort, the thing we shouldn't need if we really trust in God to help us through all difficulties. Instead of laying the burden on us to just BELIEVE and we shall be healed, Tighe acknowledges that not everyone who prays for healing will receive automatic healing. It takes time and effort, and we have to do the work, but it may help us to know (believe) that we are not alone, and that there is no stigma to using a pill to jump-start the process.

I've debated: five stars, or four? For Christians, and especially Catholics, it's a solid five stars.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.