Mental Health Religion & Culture

Hepworth, Margaret; Simonds, Laura Maria; Marsh, Robert

doi: 10.1080/13674670903092177pmid: N/A

Scrupulosity is a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder concerned with religious themes. It is unclear how religious leaders understand scrupulosity, the support they offer, or how they view collaboration with mental health practitioners. This study was designed to address these issues. Eleven Catholic priests took part in a semi-structured interview based on a vignette describing a person with scrupulosity. Data were analysed using a grounded theory approach. Priests understood scrupulosity as a psychological problem that they felt unqualified to deal with but for which they could offer spiritual guidance. Scrupulous individuals were perceived as difficult to develop a supportive relationship with and were sometimes a challenge to priests’ emotional well-being. Collaborative working between priests and mental health services was suggested as a way to address these issues, although priests recognised some difficulties in implementing this. Further research, with other religious groups and with people with scrupulosity, would be beneficial in order to expand the current conceptual framework.

Jaspal, Rusi; Coyle, Adrian

doi: 10.1080/13674670903127205pmid: N/A

This study explores how a group of young British-born South Asians understood and defined their religious and linguistic identities, focusing upon the role played by heritage languages and liturgical languages and by religious socialisation. Twelve British-born South Asians were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. Interview transcripts were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four superordinate themes are reported. These addressed participants’ meaning-making regarding “the sanctification of language” and the consequential suitability of “the liturgical language as a symbol of religious community”; the themes of “ethnic pride versus religious identity” and “linguistic Otherness and religious alienation” concerned potential ethno-linguistic barriers to a positive religious identity. Findings are interpreted in terms of concepts drawn from relevant identity theories and tentative recommendations are offered concerning the facilitation of positive religious and ethnic identities.

Aird, Rosemary L.; Scott, James G.; McGrath, John; Najman, Jake M.; Al Mamun, Abdullah

doi: 10.1080/13674670903131843pmid: N/A

Recent studies have shown that delusion-like experiences (DLEs) are common among general populations. This study investigates whether the prevalence of these experiences are linked to the embracing of New Age thought. Logistic regression analyses were performed using data derived from a large community sample of young adults (N = 3777). Belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God was found to be significantly associated with endorsement of 16 of 19 items from Peters et al. (1999b) Delusional Inventory following adjustment for a range of potential confounders, while belief in God was associated with endorsement of four items. A New Age conception of the divine appears to be strongly associated with a wide range of DLEs. Further research is needed to determine a causal link between New Age philosophy and DLEs (e.g. thought disturbance, suspiciousness, and delusions of grandeur).

Lavery, Megan E.; O’Hea, Erin L.

doi: 10.1080/13674670903131850pmid: N/A

Thune-Boyle, Stygall, Keshtgar, and Newman's (2006) literature review generated inconclusive findings regarding the relationship between religious coping and illness adjustment in cancer patients. This paper aims to review studies following Thune-Boyle et al. (2006), as well as to categorise trends not previously addressed. Increasingly, current research conceptualises religious coping multidimensionally. Separating religious coping into positive and negative dimensions, negative religious coping appears negatively associated with illness adjustment, while the relationship between positive religious coping and adjustment is unclear. Findings are mixed when examining whether religious coping affects adjustment directly, with nonreligious coping and stage of cancer as potential mediators and moderators. Research suggests that religious needs assessments, as well as spiritually focused therapy may positively impact illness adjustment. Further, causal conclusions are generally curtailed by universal limitations in the design and methods of the religious coping research.

Abdel-Khalek, Ahmed M.

doi: 10.1080/13674670903154167pmid: N/A

The objective of the current research was to estimate the relation between religiosity and both subjective well-being (SW-B) and neuroticism (N). A sample (N = 487) of Muslim Kuwaiti undergraduates took part in the study. Their age ranged between 18 and 31 years. They responded to six self-rating scales to assess religiosity, religious belief, physical health, mental health, happiness, and satisfaction with life, as well as the Factorial Arabic Neuroticism Scale (FANS) and the N subscale of the revised NEO. It was found that all the correlations between the six self-rating scales were significant and positive, whereas these rating scales were significantly and negatively correlated with both the FANS and N (NEO) scale. In applying the principle components analysis to the correlation matrix (8 × 8), a high-loaded and bipolar factor was extracted and labelled “Well-being and religiosity versus neuroticism.” The main predictor of religiosity in the stepwise regression was religious belief and satisfaction with life. The present findings are comparable with the wider literature on the association between religion and SW-B among English-speaking participants as well as a Kuwaiti Muslim context. By and large, those who consider themselves as religious were healthier, enjoying SW-B, and obtained lower scores on neuroticism.

Walker, Steven

doi: 10.1080/13674670903196721pmid: N/A

Children and young people have the capacity to conjure feelings of faith and hope when experiencing emotional and psychological distress. World myths, legends and fairy stories as part of early child development offer a rich source of material to draw from and enlist in the therapeutic endeavour. Fairies often act in a healing capacity in mythology, or they appear as agents between the world of human affairs and the invisible forces of nature. Mythological beings also possess helping powers in advance of mortals achieving superhuman tasks, but they can also when used as metaphor, frighten children and potentially cause psychological harm. This paper suggests that mental health practitioners can utilise such powerful narratives therapeutically and in a culturally respectful and spiritually innovative way. Harnessing the child's imagination can be a powerful vehicle for a transforming experience at the psychic level with consequent positive benefits for emotional well-being.

Williams, Emyr; Francis, Leslie; Village, Andrew

doi: 10.1080/13674670903203766pmid: N/A

This paper draws on the three waves of the European Values Survey across five countries (Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Spain and Sweden) to investigate the relationship between indicators of positive psychology (conceptualised as feelings of happiness and satisfaction with life), religiosity (conceptualised as self-assigned religious affiliation and self-reported religious attendance) and marital status. The results demonstrate that religiosity is, in general, positively correlated with both indicators of positive psychology. Further, across all waves and all countries, the pattern emerges that those respondents who are married are likely to report higher levels of happiness and greater satisfaction in life. These data provide contemporary support for the classic Durkheim thesis linking the two institutions of marriage and religion with human flourishing.

Dyer, Anne E.

doi: 10.1080/13674670903128898pmid: N/A

doi: 10.1080/13674670903273819pmid: N/A