Research on Religion, Spirituality, and Mental Health: A Review
http://cpa.sagepub.com/content/54/5/283.short (Paid subscription only)
Religious and spiritual factors are increasingly being examined in psychiatric research. Religious beliefs and practices have long been linked to hysteria, neurosis, and psychotic delusions. However, recent studies have identified another side of religion that may serve as a psychological and social resource for coping with stress. After defining the terms religion and spirituality, this paper reviews research on the relation between religion and (or) spirituality, and mental health, focusing on depression, suicide, anxiety, psychosis, and substance abuse. The results of an earlier systematic review are discussed, and more recent studies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other countries are described. While religious beliefs and practices can represent powerful sources of comfort, hope, and meaning, they are often intricately entangled with neurotic and psychotic disorders, sometimes making it difficult to determine whether they are a resource or a liability.
Religion, Spirituality, and Schizophrenia: A Review
Religion and spirituality exert a significant role in the lives of many individuals, including people with schizophrenia… Given the importance of religion and spirituality for many patients, biopsychosocial model of schizophrenia should integrate the same, in order to achieve a whole-person approach to treatment. Findings also suggest that clinicians are rarely aware of the importance of religiosity for patients, even if spirituality needs are to be integrated into patient care
Spirituality and Religious Practices Among Outpatients With Schizophrenia and Their Clinicians
http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ps.57.3.366
Delusions and hallucinations with religious content
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Samuel_Pfeifer4/publication/287591768_Delusions_and_hallucinations_with_religious_content/links/577a4b3f08aece6c20fbc5cd.pdf
Religious delusion: a stigmatizing category for patients
Suppressing the category of religious delusion will not only lead to a better understanding of the psychopathology of delusion, but also to a more respectful attitude toward the spirituality and religiosity of the persons involved. To label a delusion as “religious” leads to a suspicion of pathology of the spiritual and religious life of the patients: this labeling is indeed stigmatizing. Like many people who turn towards religion to cope with stressful events in their life, psychiatric patients often lean up on religion to cope with their symptoms and the consequences of their illness (24). However, the spiritual needs of psychiatric patients are often neglected (77). But it is not because someone displays at time some delusions with religious content that all his/her spiritual and religious life is symptomatic of psychiatric illness.