Spiritual assessment appears to be useful for patients with psychosis. This is in accordance with the recommendations of the World Psychiatric Association which promotes considering the whole person in clinical care. Spiritual assessment is quite simple to perform, providing that clinicians do not prescribe or promote religion, and that no critical comments are made concerning religious issues. Clinicians do not need to know in depth the religious domains of each of their patients, as it appears that each patient accommodates his/her religious background his/her own way.
When I was in the hospital a priest came to see us every week. Asked if I wanted to speak with him and I said no, that I prefered to speak to a buddhist representative. The nurse tried to get a hold of the buddhists here in lisbon they said for me to come by when I was out of the hospital. I never did. I go to lunch sometimes at a hindu temple, good food, lots of gods.
Well I won’t deny I’m clearly at a disadvantage being a nihilist and atheist compared to someone with religion who feels a weight lifted off their shoulders by placing the burden of it on some higher power, whether it be make believe or real. I however cannot do this because this would go against everything I do to cope with schizophrenia as well as I do.
I think however it’s more satisfying for me to overcome a problem on my own than relying on someone else who might not even exist.
I’ve had a weird spirituality forced on me by this disease. My psychiatrist has a policy of not talking about religion. I think that may actually be sensible.
That’s actually the standard approach to religion according to DOCTOROFMINDMD on YouTube because as he says he has no way of knowing if it’s real or not due to the nature of religion.
@Malvok I’m totally with you on that one. Honestly I just think religion is an outdated thing we used to do as cavemen to explain things we had no way of understanding at the time so we’d feel safer about the world around us and now we have science to figure out the world so religion is out of date but as humans we get so attached to our beliefs even in the face of evidence proving them wrong that religion still persists a lot today.
The religious-sect-operated school I went to practically pointed guns at their students to prove this. I do agree that social-proof-driven, pseudo-spiritual coping can keep a psychotic patient from total decompensation (meaning “breakdown”) in many cases. But it is clearly evident to many who assess, interview and work with such patients – and their families – that religious beliefs that conflict intensely with what the patient can see, hear and feel often stand at the crossroads of the child’s concentration of the family’s delusuions
your comment reminds me of one of my favorite quotes “a delusion held by one person is a mental illness, held by a few is a cult, held by many is a religion”