TruthBook Religious News Blog

By Gale Bataille and Bill Berkowitz
May 22, 2009

Activists and advocates have launched an initiative to further the understanding of the role of religion and spirituality in mental health. Conferences next month will bring clergy and mental health workers together to break new ground.
The wall at the Quaker-founded York Retreat, founded in 1796. Image courtesy imago

Historically, religion and mental health issues have had an uneasy relationship—and it goes both ways: people with mental illness have long faced stigma in religious communities, and mental health professionals have, for the most part, been suspicious of religion.

Mental health professionals are often trained to bracket out a patient’s religion in the name of professional boundaries, and have been encouraged to consider religion in the context of a medical model that can view spiritual beliefs as potential psychiatric symptoms. As psychologist David Lukoff explains:

This tendency, representing a form of cultural insensitivity, can be traced back to the roots of psychoanalysis as well as behaviorism and cognitive therapy. Freud saw religion as “a universal obsessional neurosis,” Skinner ignored religious experience, and Ellis viewed religion as equivalent to irrational thinking and emotional disturbance. Similarly, spiritual experiences have been viewed as evidence of psychopathology.

But the understanding of the role of religion and spirituality in mental health is changing. The California Mental Health and Spirituality Initiative (which grew out of a grassroots movement founded by activist and advocate Jay Mahler and other consumers, family members, and service providers) was established in June 2008 at the Center for Multicultural Development at the California Institute for Mental Health to advocate for the “inclusion of spirituality as a potential resource in mental health recovery and wellness.”

In advance of two upcoming California Conferences on Mental Health and Spirituality I had the opportunity to interview the initiative’s Director, the Rev. Laura Mancuso, along with Jay Mahler.

Please click on "external source" to read the entire interview.

Labels: Bill Berkowitz, Gale Bataille, Jay Mahler, mental health, religion, Rev. Laura Mancuso, spirituality

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Spirituality Protects Against Depression Better Than Church Attendance

Spirituality Protects Against Depression Better Than Church Attendance

ScienceDaily (Oct. 26, 2008) —

Those who worship a higher power often do so in different ways. Whether they are active in their religious community, or prefer to simply pray or meditate, new research out of Temple University suggests that a person's religiousness – also called religiosity – can offer insight into their risk for depression.

Lead researcher Joanna Maselko, Sc.D., characterized the religiosity of 918 study participants in terms of three domains of religiosity: religious service attendance, which refers to being involved with a church; religious well-being, which refers to the quality of a person's relationship with a higher power; and existential well-being, which refers to a person's sense of meaning and their purpose in life.

Please click on "external source" to access the complete article.

Labels: depression, Joanna Maselko, mental health, religiosity, worship

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Sunday, April 05, 2009

More Than Medicine to Heal

Reported by: Liz Bonis

Researchers say what some call “The God Cure” seems to play a critical role in recovery.

Cole Jackson is an active college student now, but several years ago he needed serious surgery for condition called Chron's. It's an inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] where the immune system attacks the gastrointestinal tract. It is extremely painful.

“Before surgery I lost about 30 pounds,” Cold said. Medically, he has recovered so well that he now trains to run marathons.

At that time however, he said it wasn't just about the medical recovery; he made what you might call a sort of deal with God, and in the end, he says it may have played a significant role in his recovery.

“Lying in the hospital bed the night before surgery, I prayed to God and I asked him to show me my purpose in life. I placed all my pain and all my worries in the hands of God…to this day, I believe I will never have to endure as much pain as I did.”

A medical team has just published a new study which says he may be right. When Dr. Michael Yi and health psychologist Sian Cotton studied 155 adolescents with IBD and asked them about things like--how often they attended religious services, how often they prayed, whether they considered themselves to be spiritual--sure enough, they found when it comes to health and healing, with IBD or even without: “Spirituality had the biggest impact on quality of life,” Dr. Yi said.

That was found to be true not just for physical health but for mental health too. Researchers are now following up on this research to see if it applies to common childhood illnesses such as asthma.

“In general, the higher spiritual well-being was related not only to quality of life, but better emotional feeling…so less depression, less anxiety,” Yi said.

Cole said anyone who wants a spiritual connection can have one. The new study shows it helps well being, even without a chronic disease.

Cole said, “It's basically talking to God, and talking to Him like He's your best friend, say anything that's on your mind, that's what I did, and ever since, my life has changed for the better.”

Labels: Dr. Michael Yi, God, healing, Liz Bonis, mental health, Sian Cotton, spirituality

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Religion Reduces Anxiety—A Matter of Faith or Fact?

March 06, 2009
by Rachel Balik

This article reference a number of studies, and provides links for further exploration of this most interesting topic.

Two studies show that the brains of religious people have less intense responses to error, suggesting that faith in God can reduce anxiety.

God on the Brain

Many previous studies have tried to determine whether religion has a positive effect on mental health. In February 2008, the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at Oxford began a three-year study to develop a scientific understanding of why humans believe in God. Researchers will look for evidence that faith in God is a desirable evolutionary trait, and attempt to discover what aspects of religion can be attributed to nature, and which must be taught.

Psychologists compared a group of students trained for a month in mindfulness meditation with another that was taught somatic relaxation. Both techniques reduced stress, but meditation was more effective at reducing “distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviors,” indicating that it offered a “unique” method for minimizing distress.

Mindful meditation has also been found to alter the structure and functioning of monks’ brains, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2004. Five neuroscientists visited the Dalai Lama to explore neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire itself) and its relation to meditation. The brains of novice and experienced monks were scanned as they meditated; the experienced monks showed a significantly higher level of gamma waves, a type of brain activity that plays a key role in consciousness.

Religion’s effect on the brain has yet to be fully assessed. However, research suggests that incorporating spirituality into children’s lives can help them navigate the difficult choices of adolescence. Several studies have shown that children raised with a spiritual or religious tradition are less likely to make poor choices about drugs and alcohol.

And in hard times, many find comfort in religion. In September, as the foundation of Wall Street began to crumble, many financiers turned to God and organized religion for support. Churches and synagogues throughout New York City reported a higher number of congregants in business suits.

Labels: believers, God, meditation, mental health, Rachel Balik, religion, science, Stroop

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Cost of Unbelief

By: Simon Smart
Posted: Tuesday, 10 February 2009, 9:43 (EST)

This is the first of a three-page article - well worth reading. Just click on "external source" to access the entire article.

Australian atheists were recently prevented from running a series of ads on buses with the message, “There’s probably no God, so sleep in on Sundays.” It was a funny ad and should have been permitted, and if the Bureau of Statistics A Picture of a Nation report is anything to go by, there’s a generation of young people who don’t need convincing. According to the latest figures young Australians are increasingly secular with the proportion of people stating ‘no religion’ on their census form up from 6.7% in 1971 to 19% in 2006; the younger generation leading the charge to the beach on Sunday mornings (or perhaps staying under the doona). 23.5% of 15 – 34 year-olds did not specify a religion compared with 7.9% of Australians 65 and older.

No doubt this finding will be good news to those who believe religion has only paranoia, superstition, violence and hypocrisy to contribute to society, and there are plenty of them. Freud famously articulated the notion that religion is a neurosis. Likewise, Psychologist Albert Ellis saw only the pernicious effects of religion on individuals, claiming that ‘Religiosity … is in many respects equivalent to irrational thinking and emotional disturbance.’ (Ellis, 1980, 67)

But the latest scientific data on the effects of religiosity on health, might give us reason to pause. In 2001 Duke University researchers conducted a large survey of 100 evidence-based studies of the correlation between religion and well-being and found that 79 reported a positive correlation, 13 no correlation, 7 mixed correlation and 1 a negative correlation.1 The masses of research completed since then has largely pointed in the same direction.

This is a growing field. It reflects a more serious attempt to integrate ‘whole-person care’ in medical areas that previously gave little importance to the spiritual side of patient management. Of the 141 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada 70% now offer courses on religion, spirituality and medicine.

This is largely a response to the vast amount of data emerging over the last eight years that reveals positive correlations between commitment to religion and better outcomes for dealing with depression and anxiety, strength of immune systems, cardiovascular health and even longevity.

It is well accepted that stress and depression have serious adverse health impacts and studies that show religious coping improves outcomes in this area need to be taken seriously. It is the scientists who are telling us that religious involvement is associated with lower rates of a host of stress-related medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, stroke, immune and endocrine functioning, cancer—especially gastrointestinal, breast and oral—and better outcomes for cancer in general.

It is worth quoting some research to give a small taste of the sort of data being reported:

Labels: atheism, depression, mental health, religion, science, Simon Smart, spirituality

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Friday, January 02, 2009

Economy takes a toll on mental health

Edward Guthmann, Chronicle Staff Writer
(01-01) 17:17 PST --

In October, the American Psychological Survey reported that 83 percent of American women and 78 percent of American men were experiencing heightened stress over job stability, housing costs and the loss of retirement savings.

Women, the study said, are today more concerned with money issues than their personal health. Women of the Baby Boomer generation are especially distressed: Worries about the economy rose from 18 percent in April, to 92 percent in September.

Coping with crisis

For anyone touched by the economic crisis - and very few aren't - the escalating levels of stress and anxiety require tools that weren't needed in less troubled times. Bay Area psychotherapists suggest these coping mechanisms:

-- Exercise, rest, eat healthful foods.

-- Talk to people. Don't hold worries and anxiety inside. Not talking about fear and stress only reinforces those feelings.

-- Volunteer - be of service to others.

-- Look for positive distraction. Start a new hobby; watch a favorite movie.

-- Get some support. Seek professional help, or go to one or two friends who are good listeners and won't judge you.

-- Socialize. Get out of bed, out of the house. See family members and friends on a regular and frequent basis.

-- Meditate. Take long, deep breaths. Getting oxygen to the brain gives your body the message that you're not in danger.

-- Talk with your kids. Give them a context for understanding the economic crisis and your own anxiety. "Fear is the No. 1 threat to our collective mental health right now," says Mill Valley psychotherapist Jan Edl. "I believe the best antidote is to support a cultivation of staying awake and present. It's a good time to have an inner life or spiritual practice."

Labels: coping mechanisms, Edward Guthmann, mental health, the economy, women

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Study: Family behavior key to health of gay youth

By LISA LEFF – 4 days ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Young gay people whose parents or guardians responded negatively when they revealed their sexual orientation were more likely to attempt suicide, experience severe depression and use drugs than those whose families accepted the news, according to a new study.

The way in which parents or guardians respond to a youth's sexual orientation profoundly influences the child's mental health as an adult, say researchers at San Francisco State University, whose findings appear in Monday's journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Among other findings, the study showed that teens who experienced negative feedback were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use.

One of the most startling findings was that being forbidden to associate with gay peers was as damaging as being physically beaten or verbally abused by their parents in terms of negative feedback ...

Please click on "external link" for the complete article.

Labels: American Academy of Pediatrics, family, gay youth, Lisa Leff, mental health

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Friday, December 05, 2008

Being Grateful is Good for Us

Here’s an encouraging note as Thanksgiving gatherings give way to Christmas shopping during the current economic meltdown:

When older adults feel grateful for what they have in tough financial times, they’re less likely to be depressed than fellow seniors or middle-aged Americans who don’t feel grateful. And when older adults frequently go to church or otherwise are more deeply involved in their faith, they’re more likely to be grateful during tough times than peers who aren’t.

So, clinging to your faith is good for your mental health?

That’s what the evidence shows, says Neal Krause, Ph.D., professor of health behavior and senior research scientist at the Institute of Gerontology, University of Michigan School of Public Health.

“Given the very difficult economic times that confront our nation,” Krause writes in a new paper, “it is imperative that we find ways to help those individuals who are confronted by ongoing financial problems.”

His study, Krause adds, suggests “one potentially important option may be found through religion.”

Many middle-aged and elderly Americans believe God has a purpose and a plan for their lives, Krause notes. This plan often includes difficult experiences, or trials, but their faith teaches that God’s goal is to promote personal and spiritual growth.

“If religion helps people feel grateful, and older people are more likely to be involved in religion,” Krause suggests, “it follows that church-based interventions that are designed to enhance feelings of gratitude may be especially effective for our aging population.”

But hold on, it’s not just your mother’s faith. The mental health of young adults also gets a boost from the religious practices of their families, according to another participant in the “Religious Practice and Health” conference, Elizabeth C. Hair, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Child Trends, which — along with Baylor Institute for the Studies of Religion — is a Heritage research partner for the event

Specifically, Hair says, her study found parents’ strong faith is associated with their children’s own strong religious beliefs, “which are, in turn, associated with positive mental health in young adulthood.”

Labels: Elizabeth C. Hair, faith, God, gratitude, Ken McIntyre, mental health, Neal Krause

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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Speaker Recommends Spiritual Connections For Elderly

REBECCA RAKOCZY, Special To The Bulletin
Published: May 8, 2008

ATLANTA—A person’s faith and religious life may change as he or she enters into old age, but that doesn’t diminish the need for spiritual connections to nourish mental health.

Finding out how to spark those connections in elderly populations was the topic of the second annual Spirituality in Aging Partnership series, a half-day conference sponsored by Catholic Charities Atlanta.

With keynote speaker Nancy Kriseman, who is a licensed clinical social worker in gerontology and author of “The Caring Spirit,” more than 100 people—comprised of pastoral care staff, personal caregivers and health ministry nurses—were given advice on how to connect to their clients in a more holistic and spiritual way. The gathering took place at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in midtown Atlanta.

Kriseman asked audience members about their own definitions of spirituality and spoke about her experiences with her aging parents, while also encouraging the audience to share their experiences. Her mother suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, and died recently; her father had pulmonary lung disease and dementia and passed away several years ago.

“A lot of times we think if an older person was not a spiritual or religious person, they don’t need spiritual care,” Kriseman said. “But the majority of people in the world are spiritual in some way.

“For caregivers it is important to ask the question,” she said. For example, “How do you know the spiritual state of the person who has dementia? If you don’t know, ask their family members, ‘how has their faith carried them through life?’”

Even if the person did not have a strong faith foundation or did not demonstrate that faith to the outside world, spiritual connections can be made through music, like singing a familiar hymn or song, in ritual or prayers, or in comforting scents, like baking bread or cookies, she said. “It can mean asking ‘what does faith mean to you,’ or ‘what does grace mean to you,’” she said. It’s also important that you encourage a spiritual connection by asking questions about pictures of people and things that matter to them, she added. “We need to help our elders find their jingle,” she said.

Connecting with an elder’s spiritual side to “find that jingle” doesn’t have to be reserved for pastors, she said, although she acknowledged circumstances when pastoral intervention was needed.

“The work of the spirit is not just for pastoral folks,” Kriseman said. For caregivers—including those taking care of parents—it’s important to refresh their own spiritual life and not become “dispirited,” especially in the knowledge of an incurable condition, like Alzheimer’s disease, she said.

“People do need the space to grieve every time (their loved one) changes,” she said. “But if you’re caring for a parent, it’s important to remember this is a role change, not a role reversal—your mother will always be your mother.”

Kriseman also encouraged those in attendance to give permission to embrace their own spirituality, even as they care for someone who is not their relative. “Very rarely do caregivers get to talk about their own spiritual care,” she said.

“It’s a blessing to work with older people—you’re helping them finish well,” she said.

Patti Miller, coordinator of family faith formation at St. John Neumann Church in Lilburn, was listening to Kriseman’s words carefully. Miller came to the conference not only to learn more about spirituality and aging to pass on to her congregation, but also because she has three family members who are elderly.

“This is at the forefront for me,” she said. She came with fellow parishioner Sherry Johnson, who has worked with adult faith formation and RCIA at their church and has been a trauma care nurse for years. “This (spiritual side of care) was not always at the forefront, but it’s becoming more a part of nursing,” Johnson said.

As their parish ages, said Miller, “a lot of families are asking these same questions (that Kriseman brought up.) We wanted to find out what’s new out there from a Christian and Catholic perspective.”

Said Krygiel of Catholic Charities, “ It’s our responsibility to take care of our senior population.” He cited the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops 1999 statement, “The Blessings of Age.”

All parishes and churches are called to respond to this,” he said. “We cannot sit idle.”

Labels: caregivers, elderly, faith, mental health, Rebecca Rakoczy, spirituality

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Monday, March 24, 2008

The Doctor Is In: God, the 'Wonderful Counselor'

Author and therapist points troubled souls toward Great Physician

Longwood, FL (PRWEB) March 23, 2008 -- Presenting Jesus as the best mental health therapist on the face of the planet, and the Bible as the best mental health book, Therapy with God: Wonderful Counselor, Comforter, Friend (paperback, 978-1-60477-587-7; hardcover, 978-1-60477-588-4) by Susan Henderson McHenry teaches you, step by step, how to meet with Him on every page, how to see yourself through His eyes, and how to turn to Him for lasting freedom from mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering.

"In my therapy with clients, I have discovered that although they love the Lord, they don't know how to go directly to Him for their mental health therapy," says McHenry, a licensed mental health therapist. "I have written this book with the goal of bridging that gap. As the reader applies the techniques in Therapy with God, they will learn to see Jesus on every page of their Bibles, find a deep and abiding love of Scripture and Jesus, and learn to find biblical solutions to their struggles and suffering."

McHenry said most of the books on the market either help people grow closer to God, but do not have mental health as a focus, or, conversely, they address mental health and teach what the Bible says, but don't teach readers how to go into the Bible to find answers for themselves. Her book is unique in that it interweaves, in a single volume, how to apply what they learn in the Bible directly to their mental, emotional, and spiritual issues for lasting change. It specifically targets people who know that Jesus is the answer, but do not know how to go to Him for help.

Xulon Press, a part of Salem Communications Corporation, is the world's largest Christian publisher, with more than 4,000 titles published to date. Retailers may order Therapy with God: Wonderful Counselor, Comforter, Friend through Ingram Book Company and/or Spring Arbor Book Distributors.

Labels: Bible, Jesus, mental health, Susan Henderson McHenry, Xulon Press

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Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Shrinking religion

SURVEY | A third of psychiatrists do not believe in God -- so where does that leave religious patients?

September 3, 2007
BY Jim Ritter

A new survey has found that psychiatrists are much less religious than other doctors.
Decades after Sigmund Freud declared religion an "illusion," the rift between religion and psychiatry seems to be as wide as ever.

The survey found that 17 percent of psychiatrists have no religious affiliation, compared with 10 percent of other doctors.

One-third of psychiatrists do not believe in God and fewer than one-half believe in life after death. Only 29 percent attend religious services twice a month or more, compared with 47 percent of other doctors.

"Religious patients who prefer to see like-minded psychiatrists may have difficulty finding a match," University of Chicago researcher Dr. Farr Curlin and colleagues wrote in the journal Psychiatric Services.

Researchers asked non-psychiatrist doctors how they would refer a hypothetical patient who is deep in grief two months after the death of his wife. Religious doctors were more willing to refer patients to clergy members or religious counselors and less willing to refer to psychiatrists.

Researchers surveyed 1,144 doctors, including 100 psychiatrists. Twenty-nine percent of psychiatrists were Jewish, compared with 13 percent of other doctors.

Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, knocked religion. While psychiatrists have largely replaced Freud's talk therapy with drug therapy, Freud "remains a very dominant figure within psychiatry," said Dr. Harold G. Koenig, a Duke University psychiatrist and co-author of the study.

Religion is faith-based, while psychiatry is science-based. Some psychiatrists have expressed fears that religious influences might destabilize patients, Koenig said.

Koenig has heard anecdotal reports that as recently as the early 1990s, patients in at least one psychiatric ward were prohibited from having Bibles, and chaplains could not visit without a psychiatrist's permission.

Clergy as competition?

Some psychiatrists also might see the clergy as competition, Koenig said, although as many as 80 percent of patients with mental disorders could benefit by seeing clergy members.

Some studies have shown practicing religion can be good for your mental health. And in recent years, there has been a movement to merge psychiatry and religion. Christianpsychiatry.com connects patients to psychiatrists and other providers who believe prayer "can be a powerful adjunct to their treatment."

Despite such fledgling cooperation between religion and psychiatry, "the long-standing tension seems to be an enduring one," Curlin said.

Labels: God, Jim Ritter, mental health, Psychiatric Services, psychiatrist, religion, Sigmund Freud

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Saturday, September 01, 2007

The Relationship Between Psychiatry and Religion Among U.S. Physicians

Farr A. Curlin, M.D., Shaun V. Odell, B.A., Ryan E. Lawrence, M.Div., Marshall H. Chin, M.D., M.P.H., John D. Lantos, M.D., Keith G. Meador, M.D. and Harold G. Koenig, M.D.

OBJECTIVE: This study compared the religious characteristics of psychiatrists with those of other physicians and explored whether nonpsychiatrist physicians who are religious are less willing than their colleagues to refer patients to psychiatrists and psychologists.

METHODS: Surveys were mailed to a stratified random sample of 2,000 practicing U.S. physicians, with an oversampling of psychiatrists. Physicians were queried about their religious characteristics. They also read a brief vignette about a patient with ambiguous psychiatric symptoms and were asked whether they would refer the patient to a clergy member or religious counselor, or to a psychiatrist or a psychologist.

RESULTS: A total of 1,144 physicians completed the survey, including 100 psychiatrists.

Compared with other physicians, psychiatrists were more likely to be Jewish (29% versus 13%) or without a religious affiliation (17% versus 10%), less likely to be Protestant (27% versus 39%) or Catholic (10% versus 22%), less likely to be religious in general, and more likely to consider themselves spiritual but not religious (33% versus 19%).

Nonpsychiatrist physicians who were religious were more willing to refer patients to clergy members or religious counselors (multivariate odds ratios from 2.9 to 5.7) and less willing to refer patients to psychiatrists or psychologists (multivariate odds ratios from .4 to .6).

CONCLUSIONS: Psychiatrists are less religious than other physicians, and religious physicians are less willing than nonreligious physicians to refer patients to psychiatrists. These findings suggest that historic tensions between religion and psychiatry continue to shape the care that patients receive for mental health concerns.

Labels: mental health, psychiatrist, Psychiatry Online, religion