Religion and the mental health field
Posted on: January 4, 2011 - 7:44pm
Offline
Religion and the mental health field
I work at a psychiatric hospital and at the facility that I work at they use religion as part of therapy. Preachers come in and talk to the patients. Therapists tell them to look to God for help. There are bible quotes on the walls. As a logical person I am confused that the goal of my hospital seems to be to help delusional people by telling them to turn to religion. This is so contradictory that it makes my head spin. What are your thoughts?
- Login to post comments
Well, a couple of things...
It might still work. Mental health doesn't have to hinge on rationalism, obviously, the main concern is a return to 'healthy' social function.
I'd be interested to know why they use religion. Are they using religion because of science-based evidence on efficacy versus secular treatment options, or are they using religion because the organization promotes religion as a matter of course? Psychiatry, like any medical practice, should be data driven.
Is the institution federally funded? If so, I'm not sure if it would be legal to push religion onto the mentally infirm. I suppose it would depend on how they went about it.
Finally, obviously I'd rather people have secular help, but if the choice is between severe dis-function and no treatment and a healthy return to society with religious treatment, I'd pick the religious option. Maybe they don't have a choice?
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
A bit disturbing if you ask me. People that have real emotional and mental problems being told that a "god" is their answer.
When I was a kid, I was told that all of my problems could be solved if only I "acted as though I believed" and "prayed to all the saints and the blessed mother" and "attended mass daily if possible".
Well, I prayed the rosary during some extremely tough times. The tough times only got tougher. The parish priest told me that "god worked in mysterious ways his miracles to perform and who was I to question god?". The times got tougher and secretly I began to believe that god was punishing me for just not being "worthy" enough.
At one point during childhood, I used to get up way before dawn, ride my bicycle down to the local church, light candles in the belltower area, bow at the altar of the saints and pray and pray and pray. Sometimes the situation would work out and I would be overjoyed that "god" had heard my prayers and answered me. Sometimes the situation got worse and I was left with that feeling of worthlessness and the secret conviction that "god" was deliberately punishing me because he knew how unworthy that I was.
Religious fervor made up a great portion of my life. If anything, it INCREASED my depressive tendencies and anxiety.
Coming to the realization that no "god" cared anything about me and I had to get up off of my butt and solve my own problems and make my own way did a whole lot of wonders for my own mind.
I think that mentally delusional people with fragile personality problems could be subject to more mental problems with religious based treatment.
I look at it this way, someone is suffering from depression, starts incessantly praying and reading the Bible and the depression does not go away, then what are they going to think ? They are going to feel like they have absolutely no place left to turn for help.
Even worse, look at people with paranoid tendencies that think everything and anything has to do with them. People that may see signs of an Apocalypse when none are present and may feel a need to act on those things.
I could be totally wrong, but I think that delusional people need to be taught some form of self sufficiency and not to rely upon a "higher power" to do it for them.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
My mom spent about a year in a psychiatric hospital built around a convent. Apart from a voluntary mass attendance, the religious nonsense was pretty much kept at bay. But what they did have was quite a few nuns as patients. Turns out nuns bully and ostracise each other. One of them cut her wrists with a sharp piece of plastic while my mom was there.
So I'd say "religion as therapy" doesn't seem to work. But they'll keep using it, because it has some built-in excuses for when it inevitably fails (demons, satan, didn't pray hard enough, etc...), and you don't need any actual skills or expertise.
My minister claimed that there were experiments done and religious people are generally less stressed.
The person who wrote www.debunkingskeptics.com/Christian_Story.htm got very depressed because his family who didn't believe would go to hell and it was his fault for not converting them.
I completely agree that they need to learn self sufficiency. The whole thing is just hard for me to wrap my head around because to me religious people are delusional. Therapeutically, how can we claim to be treating delusional people by feeding into their delusions or adding more. We don't give into other delusions. We have had people who believed they were Elvis, someone who swore they had just given birth to a litter of cats, people who claim to be CIA agents, etc. and we don't humor these people and feed into those delusions. Even people who claim they have to have brand name drugs because they won't work otherwise don't get humored. It is similar to drug addicts seeking treatment just to get hooked on the drugs used to aid in their detox.
A famous youtube Atheist that goes by the name AronRa, who answers people's questions and rebuts theists, addresses this issue quite nicely I think ,when answering a young man's question on whether or not any religious belief is beneficial or necessary for people. First part of the video is the viewer's question on whether or not religious experience can be helpful and the remainder is his answer, for which I agree wholeheartedly. I think it would touch upon some of your concerns :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzBE3LNmKK8&NR=1
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno