📚 Scholar Spotlight: McCarthy Anum-Addo Autoethnographic Manuscript Titled, Hold Me While I Break

📝 Research Title:Hold Me While I Break

🔍 Summary:In this deeply reflective manuscript, McCarthy Anum-Addo explores the complex relationship between faith, trauma, and mental health within religious communities. Through a blend of personal narrative, pastoral reflection, and applied scholarship, Anum-Addo advocates for a holistic, faith-integrated model of care that honors both spiritual and clinical paths to healing.

💡 Key Insights from the Manuscript:

• Mental illness is often misunderstood in religious spaces, leading to silence, stigma, and spiritual shame.

• Faith and therapy are not opposites—they are co-pillars in the journey toward emotional wellness.

• Positive religious coping (prayer, scripture, service) can support healing, but must be balanced with professional care.

• Harmful beliefs such as “prayer alone should fix you” or “therapy shows weak faith” must be challenged by trauma-informed theology.

• Faith communities should normalize mental health conversations, partner with clinicians, and provide tangible resources for support.

  
  

📣 Quote from the Manuscript:

“Faith, therapy, and self-care are not mutually exclusive disciplines. They are the trifold strands of a healing braid—distinct; but interwoven.”

📄 Type of Work:Autoethnographic manuscript | Faith + Mental Health Hybrid Summit Submission, 2025

To read the entire work submitted by McCarthy Anum-Addo be sure to register for the Faith + Mental Health Hybrid Summit.

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Photo of McCarthy Anum-Addo shared with permission (2025)