Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry

Spirituality and the Care of Madness 15and remarkable theme to revive the modesof thought and sensation of his healthystate. (p. 347) (33)In fact, Griesinger was concerned aboutthe possibility of developing various forms ofpsychiatry that were religiously oriented.Several medical psychologists would havethe whole treatment of the insane to bespecifically Christian. But Jews also requirethe aid of the alienist and his science, andthere is no abstract, only a confessionalChristianity. Therefore there would requireto be a special Protestant, Catholic, etc.,and again a Jewish, heathen, psychiatrie.Possibly even this may be yet desired(p. 348).(33)Griesinger’s concern was that physiciansneeded to treat patients who came their wayregardless of religious background, and a form ofpsychiatry that was too sectarian would not servethe field of psychiatry, or patients, well.There were those who had concerns about therelationship of religion to mental health for otherreasons as well. While Benjamin Rush, writing atthe beginning of the nineteenth century, believedthat religion tended to be a positive influence,others, even in the United States, did not sharehis view. Amariah Brigham (1798–1849), anAmerican asylums superintendent and the firstpresident of the American Psychiatry Association(then known as the Association of MedicalSuperintendents of American Institutions for theInsane), wrote an entire book about the effect ofreligion on mental health, Observations on theInfluence of Religion upon the Health and PhysicalWelfare of Mankind (1835). He was particularlyconcerned about the effects of “religious excitement”on mental health, observing, “It should,however, never be forgotten, that of all the sentimentsimparted to man, the religious, is the mostpowerful,” and, therefore, like other “excitinginfluences,” could cause insanity (p. 285).(34)Similarly, Isaac Ray (1807–1881), an Americanalienist known, among other things, for hisexpertise in forensic psychiatry, wrote in MentalHygiene (1863) that religious excitement couldbe a powerful force in creating mental imbalancein those predisposed to insanity. Because religioninvolved nothing less than a person’s eternaldestiny, it was bound to have a negative effect onpeople who were emotionally unstable (p. 190).(35) So Ray counseled that people should “carefullyavoid all scenes of religious excitement, andindulge their religious emotions in quiet and byordinary methods, always allowing other emotionsand other duties their rightful share ofattention” (p. 193).(35)7 . LATE NINETEENTHAND TWENTIETH CENTURYDuring the latter part of the nineteenth century,psychiatry itself in Europe and the UnitedStates tended toward a view of mental illness thatwas more pessimistic and focused on heredityand biology. The number of people in psychiatrichospitals increased substantially. In the latenineteenth century, however, there was also anincreased interest in hysteria and the effect ofthe mind on the unexplainable presentations ofdisease. This period also saw the increased professionalizationof medicine, medical specialization,and the beginnings of outpatient psychiatricpractice and psychotherapy. With the interest ofphysicians in milder forms of mental disorderand in psychotherapy came a concurrent interestin the role of religion in psychological development.In the United States, psychologist WilliamJames (1842–1910) of Harvard explored, inVarieties of Religious Experience (1902), the role ofreligion in the life of ordinary individuals seekingto make sense of existence. James saw religiousexperience as a major way through which humanbeings dealt with the emotional complexities oftheir lives. It was also the way people made senseof the good and the evil that they experienced asthey lived their lives.(36)For medicine, however, the most importantinfluence of the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies was the work of Sigmund Freud(1856–1939), who, more than anyone else, was