Spirituality and religion in psychiatry: the impact of policy

ABSTRACT

Research and debate on the importance of spirituality and religion in psychiatry has led to a number of national and international policy initiatives, intended to clarify the boundaries of good practice and improve the way in which such matters are managed for the benefit of patients. Significant amongst these is the 2015 position statement of the World Psychiatric Association, the only such policy statement to date which has been internationally agreed. Preliminary evidence available suggests that this is having good effect in generating professional debate and further national policy initiatives in different countries. There is a need for further research on such policy initiatives to confirm whether or not they have the intended impact upon clinical practice and whether or not this in turn is beneficial for patients.

KEYWORDS:

• Spirituality
• religion
• psychiatry
• policy
• impact

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Christopher C. H. Cook http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7700-7639

Notes

1 The first draft of this document was written by me. It was redrafted in the light of comments from other members of the SPSIG Executive Committee before submission to Peter Verhagen, who was then Secretary of the WPA Section on Religion, Spirituality and Psychiatry.

2 The story of work undertaken to achieve this objective is told more fully in an article by Peter Verhagen elsewhere in this special issue of Mental Health, Religion & Culture.

3 The author invites readers to be in contact by post or e-mail ([email protected]) with any information that they may have concerning local, national, or international impact of the WPA position statement.