![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
A perennial theme in the literature of religion and mental health is the need for dialogue between psychiatry and faith-based organisations in the care of people with mental health problems. These worlds are often depicted as oppositional and antagonistic; at times the boundaries are so tightly drawn that it is hard to see where they might share values and concerns. This paper examines the interface areas of religion and mental health care in order to consider where consensus and from where collaboration might emerge. We suggest that while certainly there is a need for dialogue and mutual understanding, there is also a need for psychiatry and faith groups to explore the nature and boundaries of proposed relationships.
Notes
Notes
1. For example, in the case of sex education, the promotion of religious/moral values (such as the silver ring thing) may be at the cost of genuinely effective programmes aimed at reducing sexual-transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancies.
2. In fact, fundamentalist Christians and evangelicals generally, have tended to view the emotionalism and experientialism of Pentecostalism with suspicion and distaste.
3. Of interest, the concept of institutional racism has dominated the NHS agenda relating to mental health and ethnic minority patients often hinging on involuntary admissions to services. The assumption of NHS racist practice is currently being challenged and reassessed to allow for a more complex view of social and cultural factors.
4. Of course, the religious treatment (healing, deliverance) may be considered ineffective or failed, opening the way for secular healing modalities. More usually, there is an engagement with both medical and religious systems.