Religious leaders’ trust in mental health professionals

ABSTRACT

Religious leaders are often the first recourse for people facing mental health challenges. Efforts have been made to understand faith leaders’ mental health literacy, but little is known about the extent to which faith leaders trust mental health professionals, which likely influences their referral practices. To address this gap, this paper examines faith leaders’ perceptions of mental health professionals using data from interviews with leaders of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Sikh communities in Texas and the mid-Atlantic region conducted between 2017 and 2019 (n = 67). Analysis shows that when asked about the extent to which they would trust their members to the care of mental health professionals, faith leaders adopt one of four orientations (1) Unqualified trust; (2) Conditional trust; (3) Distrust and (4) Dismissal. The paper elaborates on each of these four orientations and leaders’ rationales for them, followed by implications for faith leaders and mental health professionals.

KEYWORDS:

• Trust
• distrust
• religious leaders
• clergy
• mental health professionals

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Gabriel Acevedo and Gaurav Pathania for their assistance with interviews. Research was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of Institutional Review Boards at the University of Texas San Antonio and The Catholic University of America. Informed consent was obtained from all participants in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by John Templeton Foundation [Grant # 61107]; H. E. Butt Foundation.