Anton Boisen

January 29, 1876 (age 88)

Bloomington, Indiana, United States

We know more about Boisen than about most men of his time and circumstance because he left "My Own Case Record" (1928), later revised and published as Out of the Depths: An Autobiographical Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience (1960) - a documented account of his "valid religious experience which was at the same time madness of the most profound and unmistakable variety. " During his life Boisen experienced at least five "major decisions" (1898, 1902, 1904, 1905, 1919) "marked by deviation from the normal, " as well as at least six psychotic episodes (1908, 1920, 1921, 1928, 1930, 1935). His lifework, from 1920 on, was to focus on how such crises represent the mind's attempts toward cure. Having decided that modern languages were too stimulating, Boisen resolved in 1902 to become a forester, in honor of his father's interest in botany. This decision came to him "automatically, " just as three years later, while studying forestry at Yale, there came "surging" into his mind words that he took to be his call to the ministry. It also reflected Boisen's complex relationship with Alice L. Batchelder, whom he courted over the thirty-three years between their meeting in 1902 and her death. The vicissitudes of Boisen's relationship with her accounted directly for two of his six psychotic episodes (1930, 1935), and indirectly for a third (1928). The "surging" words, with reference to Alice, led him to realize that his was "an appeal to a beloved person stronger" than himself, and "for her sake" he was thus "led into the Christian ministry. " Boisen entered Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1908, concentrating on "scientific, " as opposed to "scholastic, " theology, under the tutelage of psychologist of religion George Albert Coe. In 1911 he was ordained in the Presbyterian Church. He then spent two years (1911 - 1912) doing rural survey work in Missouri and Tennessee for the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions; five years as a pastor in rural Iowa, Kansas, and Maine; almost two years with the Overseas YMCA in France; and about a year directing a rural survey in North Dakota for the Interchurch World Movement. He was forty-four years old, and his lifework had not yet begun. On October 11, 1920, Boisen's role in life suddenly became clear to him. That evening he discovered a "process of regeneration which could be used to save other people"; he found that he had "broken an opening in the wall which separated religion and medicine. " These thoughts were patently delusional; after twenty years of lesser emotional problems Boisen was finally suffering his first episode of "dementia praecox, catatonic type, " a form of schizophrenia. When the disturbed condition cleared, he pondered the meaning of the episode. In view of the extremely productive course his life now took, there may be some justification for agreeing with his belief that "the cure has lain in the faithful carrying through of the delusion itself. " Boisen concluded that "in many of its forms, insanity . .. is a religious rather than a medical problem, " and a later delusion prompted him to outline a definite "plan of cooperation between medical and religious workers. " After his release from a fifteen-month confinement at Westboro (Massachussets) State Hospital in January 1922, Boisen lived and studied at the Episcopal Theological Seminary and took additional courses at Andover Theological Seminary. He entered the Harvard School of Graduate Studies as a student of Richard C. Cabot (social ethics) and William McDougall (abnormal psychology). He also joined a seminar on the psychology of delusion and belief taught by C. Macfie Campbell, the psychiatrist who had earlier examined him. Campbell later allowed him to do social work with those cases at Boston Psychopathic Hospital "in which the religious factors were in evidence. " Boisen persuaded Worcester (Massachussets) State Hospital to take him on as chaplain in July 1924. A year later, when he offered his first summer program of "clinical experience" for seminarians, he had already published several studies on the relationship between mental disorder and religious experience. In June 1928, and especially in November 1930, Boisen suffered relapses that ultimately necessitated his giving up the chaplaincy at Worcester. Since 1925 he had been spending part of each year as lecturer and research associate at Chicago Theological Seminary, so with minimal difficulty he transferred his chaplaincy to Elgin State Hospital in 1932. A final relapse in 1935 sent Boisen to Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, Baltimore, but otherwise this was a very productive period. Between 1925 and 1938 he published Lift Up Your Hearts (1926) and Exploration of the Inner World: A Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience (1936), as well as four scientific articles and fifteen religious articles focusing on discovering the "laws of spiritual life" as revealed at times of crisis. From 1938 to 1942, Boisen was in residence at Chicago Theological Seminary. In this period he wrote fourteen articles - four for psychiatric journals - and dozens of book reviews. World War II brought him back to Elgin as chaplain in 1942, despite his age. He retired in 1945, continuing to live at Elgin, but from 1947 to 1950 and again from 1951 to 1954, he was pressed into service. During these later years he published Problems in Religion and Life: A Manual for Pastors (1946), Religion in Crisis and Custom: A Sociological and Psychological Study (1955), and thirty-four articles, six in scientific journals. Boisen died at Elgin.

Anton Theophilus Boisen

Edit Profile

psychologist theologian

Background

Anton Boisen was born on October 29, 1876, in Bloomington, Indiana, the son of Hermann Balthazar Boisen and Louise Wylie. His father taught modern languages and botany at Indiana University, later moving, with his family, to Williams College, Massachussets, and to the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. Contemporary accounts speak of his father as "eccentric" and "a mental enthusiast with a surprising genius. " Boisen's mother was one of the first women to enroll at Indiana University. Boisen lived an energetic yet structured childhood, spurred on by his father's enthusiasms. But his father's death when he was seven was soon followed by an accident in which he lost the sight in his left eye. Henceforth he felt overwhelmed at times by shyness and insecurity.

Education

In 1897 Boisen graduated from Indiana University, but while he was pursuing further studies there in modern languages, his inner tensions reached a peak and he was overcome by despair. Fortunately, he was able to share this experience with his mother and a respected professor. The disturbance subsided, but it presaged the course of his later life. He graduate from the Yale University School of Forestry in 1905. He also entered the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and graduated in 1911. Later he studied at the Episcopal Theological Seminary and Andover Theological Seminary from 1922 to 1924.

Career

We know more about Boisen than about most men of his time and circumstance because he left "My Own Case Record" (1928), later revised and published as Out of the Depths: An Autobiographical Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience (1960) - a documented account of his "valid religious experience which was at the same time madness of the most profound and unmistakable variety. " During his life Boisen experienced at least five "major decisions" (1898, 1902, 1904, 1905, 1919) "marked by deviation from the normal, " as well as at least six psychotic episodes (1908, 1920, 1921, 1928, 1930, 1935). His lifework, from 1920 on, was to focus on how such crises represent the mind's attempts toward cure.

Having decided that modern languages were too stimulating, Boisen resolved in 1902 to become a forester, in honor of his father's interest in botany. This decision came to him "automatically, " just as three years later, while studying forestry at Yale, there came "surging" into his mind words that he took to be his call to the ministry. It also reflected Boisen's complex relationship with Alice L. Batchelder, whom he courted over the thirty-three years between their meeting in 1902 and her death. The vicissitudes of Boisen's relationship with her accounted directly for two of his six psychotic episodes (1930, 1935), and indirectly for a third (1928). The "surging" words, with reference to Alice, led him to realize that his was "an appeal to a beloved person stronger" than himself, and "for her sake" he was thus "led into the Christian ministry. "

Boisen entered Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1908, concentrating on "scientific, " as opposed to "scholastic, " theology, under the tutelage of psychologist of religion George Albert Coe. In 1911 he was ordained in the Presbyterian Church. He then spent two years (1911 - 1912) doing rural survey work in Missouri and Tennessee for the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions; five years as a pastor in rural Iowa, Kansas, and Maine; almost two years with the Overseas YMCA in France; and about a year directing a rural survey in North Dakota for the Interchurch World Movement. He was forty-four years old, and his lifework had not yet begun.

On October 11, 1920, Boisen's role in life suddenly became clear to him. That evening he discovered a "process of regeneration which could be used to save other people"; he found that he had "broken an opening in the wall which separated religion and medicine. " These thoughts were patently delusional; after twenty years of lesser emotional problems Boisen was finally suffering his first episode of "dementia praecox, catatonic type, " a form of schizophrenia. When the disturbed condition cleared, he pondered the meaning of the episode. In view of the extremely productive course his life now took, there may be some justification for agreeing with his belief that "the cure has lain in the faithful carrying through of the delusion itself. " Boisen concluded that "in many of its forms, insanity . .. is a religious rather than a medical problem, " and a later delusion prompted him to outline a definite "plan of cooperation between medical and religious workers. "

After his release from a fifteen-month confinement at Westboro (Massachussets) State Hospital in January 1922, Boisen lived and studied at the Episcopal Theological Seminary and took additional courses at Andover Theological Seminary. He entered the Harvard School of Graduate Studies as a student of Richard C. Cabot (social ethics) and William McDougall (abnormal psychology). He also joined a seminar on the psychology of delusion and belief taught by C. Macfie Campbell, the psychiatrist who had earlier examined him. Campbell later allowed him to do social work with those cases at Boston Psychopathic Hospital "in which the religious factors were in evidence. "

Boisen persuaded Worcester (Massachussets) State Hospital to take him on as chaplain in July 1924. A year later, when he offered his first summer program of "clinical experience" for seminarians, he had already published several studies on the relationship between mental disorder and religious experience. In June 1928, and especially in November 1930, Boisen suffered relapses that ultimately necessitated his giving up the chaplaincy at Worcester. Since 1925 he had been spending part of each year as lecturer and research associate at Chicago Theological Seminary, so with minimal difficulty he transferred his chaplaincy to Elgin State Hospital in 1932. A final relapse in 1935 sent Boisen to Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, Baltimore, but otherwise this was a very productive period.

Between 1925 and 1938 he published Lift Up Your Hearts (1926) and Exploration of the Inner World: A Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience (1936), as well as four scientific articles and fifteen religious articles focusing on discovering the "laws of spiritual life" as revealed at times of crisis. From 1938 to 1942, Boisen was in residence at Chicago Theological Seminary. In this period he wrote fourteen articles - four for psychiatric journals - and dozens of book reviews. World War II brought him back to Elgin as chaplain in 1942, despite his age. He retired in 1945, continuing to live at Elgin, but from 1947 to 1950 and again from 1951 to 1954, he was pressed into service. During these later years he published Problems in Religion and Life: A Manual for Pastors (1946), Religion in Crisis and Custom: A Sociological and Psychological Study (1955), and thirty-four articles, six in scientific journals. Boisen died at Elgin.

Achievements

Anton Boisen is known as founder of the movement for clinical pastoral education. He believed that some mental illnesses could be interpreted as one's attempts to solve "problems of the soul" and could be cured by the power of religion. He developed program of clinical experience for seminarians, which first was incorporated at Worcester State Hospital in January 1930 as the Council for the Clinical Training of Theological Students, and soon grew to embrace chaplaincy training programs nationwide. He published his ideas about religion and mental health in Exploration of the Inner World (1936).