Spirituality vs Mental Health

[Nakosis]

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.
Research on religion, spirituality, and mental health: a review - PubMed

With regard to mental well-being, do you see religion as a resource or a liability?

In the long run, I see faith based religions as liabilities. IOW, you have to believe in some final reward of benefit that will happen in some conceptualized afterlife. The product is hope. Hope can motivate the individual to continue on and overcome the struggles of life.

Whereas something like Buddhism provides tangible benefits to mental well being that can be experienced as a result of the practice. Which improves mental agility allowing one to deal directly with things like depression, loss, fears etc.

 

[The Hammer]

I see it as both, and it depends on the person.

In the long run, I see faith based religions as liabilities. IOW, you have to believe in some final reward of benefit that will happen in some conceptualized afterlife. The product is hope. Hope can motivate the individual to continue on and overcome the struggles of life.

Whereas something like Buddhism provides tangible benefits to mental well being that can be experienced as a result of the practice. Which improves mental agility allowing one to deal directly with things like depression, loss, fears etc.

Maybe that's the right distinction, but I'm not sure it's really that clear cut.

 

[exchemist]

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.
Research on religion, spirituality, and mental health: a review - PubMed

With regard to mental well-being, do you see religion as a resource or a liability?

In the long run, I see faith based religions as liabilities. IOW, you have to believe in some final reward of benefit that will happen in some conceptualized afterlife. The product is hope. Hope can motivate the individual to continue on and overcome the struggles of life.

Whereas something like Buddhism provides tangible benefits to mental well being that can be experienced as a result of the practice. Which improves mental agility allowing one to deal directly with things like depression, loss, fears etc.

I agree with @The Hammer . It can be either.

It is perfectly obvious that huge numbers of people derive contentment, solace, community and a sense of identity from the ideas and practice of their religion. In a way it is a bit of joke that these guys have said "recent studies" have shown this to be so, when it has been the core role of religion for centuries. Any parish priest can tell you that a large part of their job consists of helping people, psychologically, to manage events and conditions in their lives. The priest and the doctor were traditionally the people to whom citizens turned for help.

On the other hand, some people have most certainly been damaged by religious ideas too and some with fragile mental states may get tipped over into psychosis by dwelling on concepts from their religion in an unhealthy way.

 

[Spirit of Light]

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.
Research on religion, spirituality, and mental health: a review - PubMed

With regard to mental well-being, do you see religion as a resource or a liability?

In the long run, I see faith based religions as liabilities. IOW, you have to believe in some final reward of benefit that will happen in some conceptualized afterlife. The product is hope. Hope can motivate the individual to continue on and overcome the struggles of life.

Whereas something like Buddhism provides tangible benefits to mental well being that can be experienced as a result of the practice. Which improves mental agility allowing one to deal directly with things like depression, loss, fears etc.

If it wasn't for my spiritual belief, i would have given up this life a long time ago.....
And yes my mental wellbeing has become better from a combination of psycolog theraphy and spiritual practice.

 

[an anarchist]

With regard to mental well-being, do you see religion as a resource or a liability?

For me, when I am regularly practicing my religion (praying, meditating, reading) my mental health greatly improves. When I stop doing those things, it greatly deteriorates. Major resource religion is for me

 

[robocop (actually)]

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with schizophrenia. Sometimes I mistake my schizophrenia for the Holy Ghost, but with the gift of the Holy Ghost I still get help to avoid temptation.

 

[DharmaCatLamp]

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.
Research on religion, spirituality, and mental health: a review - PubMed

With regard to mental well-being, do you see religion as a resource or a liability?

In the long run, I see faith based religions as liabilities. IOW, you have to believe in some final reward of benefit that will happen in some conceptualized afterlife. The product is hope. Hope can motivate the individual to continue on and overcome the struggles of life.

Whereas something like Buddhism provides tangible benefits to mental well being that can be experienced as a result of the practice. Which improves mental agility allowing one to deal directly with things like depression, loss, fears etc.

It seems to me rather unlikely that it is solidly either. It's going to depend quite a bit on the person, their overall mental health, stressors etc. I also think we live in weird times for things like this because it seems to me there is a general lack of meaning in the lives of people in general. We could talk about the comfort people feel from religious practices but I have often suspected some of that comfort is just being in a group in general. That same comfort can be turned into something more traumatic if that person becomes an outcast from that religious group.

We should also be careful to attach things that might not be as related as we initially think. For instance is the actual connection between mental health and religion even there or are we over looking other factors that might be more important? If religion was more common among individuals of lower income than it was for people with higher income right off that bat you could make some connection there to overall health and religion. The question then becomes are we even associating the right things at this point?

Granted I take pretty much every study that attempts to make grand sweeping connections one way or another with a huge pile of salt. In other words claiming that religion is truly a resource or a liability seems to be kind of silly to me.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

With regard to mental well-being, do you see religion as a resource or a liability?

I see it as a net liability. People will do good without religion, and they can find comfort, meaning, strength, hope and community without religion. But doing things that emulate mental illness, hating people because of what a book says amd disowning your kids for being gay, we don't see that without religion. Religious trauma, obviously it's a liability of religion.
And this is before we get to fears of angry gods and eternal damnations. That is definitely a liability.

 

[Fool]

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.
Research on religion, spirituality, and mental health: a review - PubMed

With regard to mental well-being, do you see religion as a resource or a liability?

In the long run, I see faith based religions as liabilities. IOW, you have to believe in some final reward of benefit that will happen in some conceptualized afterlife. The product is hope. Hope can motivate the individual to continue on and overcome the struggles of life.

Whereas something like Buddhism provides tangible benefits to mental well being that can be experienced as a result of the practice. Which improves mental agility allowing one to deal directly with things like depression, loss, fears etc.

the words spiritual and mental are synonyms. isn't really a leap of faith in that people act from their belief systems; which can make them mentally/spiritually health/unhealthy.

 

[sun rise]

Reading the summary and especially the following, it strikes me as an "apples/oranges" situation: this paper reviews research on the relation between religion and (or) spirituality, and mental health.

Mental health is about the functioning of the "ego" or personality. Religion is about belief and rituals. Spirituality is about getting free of the "ego" or lower self. It's complicated beyond this simple point which leads me to agree that, in the words of the abstract difficult to determine whether they are a resource or a liability.

So my thought is "it depends".

For example, there's a concept in the East called "mast-Allah" meaning "intoxicated with God" as contrasted with mentally ill because of the ego functioning. It's like the ego being overpowered compared to the ego having structural problems.

 

[PureX]

Religion is basically a set of tools intended for 'self-repair'. Those tools can be used well or badly, and to one's benefit or one's harm. Be warned!

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Imo there are far, far more religions in the world than don't have hell, vengeful gods, or even especially exclusivity or proselytic behavior. But we grew up barraged by a specific and destructive Christian and Islamic narrative, so thats all the religions that gets talked about.

But I'd argue that the problem isn't even religion, because you can have tribalism and traditionalism without it. And some of the most close-minded, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, xenophobic people I've met are atheists who have reinforced their bigotry with 'science.' And a culture without religion can push those sentiments just as strongly.

So the real deleterious pov, to me, isn't religion but virtue ethics as opposed to consequentialist ones. Especially ones which laud authoritarian driven moralism.

 

[exchemist]

I see it as a net liability. People will do good without religion, and they can find comfort, meaning, strength, hope and community without religion. But doing things that emulate mental illness, hating people because of what a book says amd disowning your kids for being gay, we don't see that without religion. Religious trauma, obviously it's a liability of religion.
And this is before we get to fears of angry gods and eternal damnations. That is definitely a liability.

Yes they can do or achieve these good things without religion, if they find suitable ways of doing so, but that is beside the point. The fact is that religion is the resource where many people find them.

It's why people go to church. They don't go out of fear, you know. Just take a look at your average churchgoer on a Sunday after the service.

 

[icehorse]

With regard to mental well-being, do you see religion as a resource or a liability?

Sadly, the link in the OP gets you to only the abstract.

Using only the title as my guide, I'd question the study's premise. It strikes me the "religion and spirituality" are in two different categories. And that even if it was just a study about religion, there are many widely different religions so that category seems too broad as well.

 

[icehorse]

So the real deleterious pov, to me, isn't religion but virtue ethics as opposed to consequentialist ones. Especially ones which laud authoritarian driven moralism.

I don't know much about "virtue ethics", but it sounds like you're saying they often end up being tied to authoritarian approaches?

 

[ADigitalArtist]

I don't know much about "virtue ethics", but it sounds like you're saying they often end up being tied to authoritarian approaches?

Not always but yes, often. Be the authoritarian a deity, 'natural law' or a individual or body of science one feels is authoritative.

Edit: this also depends on how much you differentiate virtue ethics from deontology which focuses more on rules and duty. But both the question of 'who makes the rules' and 'who decides what is virtuous behavior' can be authoritarian.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If it wasn't for my spiritual belief, i would have given up this life a long time ago.....
And yes my mental wellbeing has become better from a combination of psycolog theraphy and spiritual practice.

That's true but there is a danger involving religion and one's expectations.

 

[George-ananda]

I see spirituality as a great boon to mental health. It provides peace and perspective on life.

Now you may find examples of 'bad religion' (often fundamentalism) causing mental health issues but that again is 'bad' religion.

 

[Nakosis]

Sadly, the link in the OP gets you to only the abstract.

Using only the title as my guide, I'd question the study's premise. It strikes me the "religion and spirituality" are in two different categories. And that even if it was just a study about religion, there are many widely different religions so that category seems too broad as well.

Ok, if there exist religions who purpose is not the mental well-being of the believer, what would they be.
An example to disprove the premise?

 

[icehorse]

Ok, if there exist religions who purpose is not the mental well-being of the believer, what would they be.
An example to disprove the premise?

Ah, I see the confusion, sorry.

I wasn't claiming that there are religions without mental health goals. There might be, I don't know.

What I was trying to say is that the various religions' ability to help with mental health will vary widely from religion to religion.

 

[Heyo]

this paper reviews research on the relation between religion and (or) spirituality, and mental health, focusing on depression, suicide, anxiety, psychosis, and substance abuse.

... and disregards the one malfunction that is most prevalent in the religious: delusion.
I think it can't be healthy to be separated from reality. I'm not saying all believers are and the risk is different for different religions or denominations but I think almost all religions carry the risk of drifting off into make believe.