"We want to make sure that members of the church get help that's consistent with gospel principles," says Fred Riley, commissioner of LDS Family Services. The church has 63 offices around the world, including 11 in Utah, that provide counselors; it also has a list of professionals it sanctions.

"People call me and ask me my religious preference," says Salt Lake psychotherapist Christine Norman about both her Mormon and non-Mormon clients. "They say, 'I want to make sure you understand the issues.' " They worry, she says, that she's going to challenge their core beliefs or pull them away from something that's important to them. But all reputable therapists, she says, no matter what theory they've been trained in, have been taught to work within the patient's belief system.

University of Utah psychiatry professor Tomb says that LDS bishops are happy to refer church members to him — "when I'm acting as a biological psychiatrist" who dispenses medications — but are more reluctant when he wants to do talk therapy.

Although, traditionally, psychotherapy has been a purely secular endeavor, there is a growing subset of therapists who have added a spiritual component to their work, says Salt Lake clinical psychologist Janet Warburton, public education chair of the Utah Psychological Association. These therapists are responding to studies in the past decade that show the healing power of faith and prayer, she says, even if it's not clear whether that healing results from positive thinking, divine intervention or a feeling of connection to something bigger than themselves. Therapists, she says, are now more likely to ask their clients, "Do you have a religious belief system? Do you find it helpful?"

"It's healthy to have spiritual support, whether it's from the Zen Center or a church or a synagogue," says psychotherapist Norman.

Like mental illness itself, "spirituality" is a big umbrella that includes not only God and church but what some might term existential questions about purpose and meaning. The Utah-based SHIM (Spirituality and Healing in Medicine) Foundation, says executive director Dr. Jerry Sonkens, has defined the seven principles of healing as faith, hope, purpose, social connections, a sense of control, forgiveness and gratitude.

For the faithful, these elements are self-evident. Salt Lake orthodox rabbi Benny Zippel of Chabad Lubavitch of Utah says he refers his mentally ill patients to mental-health experts — but that's only part of the solution, he says. He prays with his troubled flock, he says, and studies the Torah with them. Healing, he says, requires "a certain level of inner peace and spiritual fulfilment."

Prayer and scripture study are essential elements to healing, for both the person suffering from the mental illness and the family members who suffer along with him, echoes Lasater. "It reawakens in the mind of the individual who they really are, and that there is someone up there who really loves them. When you begin to feel important to someone, that you are a daughter or son of God if you want to put it that way, it makes the job easier." When it comes to mental illness, he says, "we use every tool we can."

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