Psychology and religion do not get along. At least, that was the attitude for decades when it came to treatment of mental disorders, argued Kate Finley, professor of philosophy at Hope College, at a lecture on March 4.
Finley spoke to students on “The Relationship Between Mental Disorders and Religion” during a lecture sponsored by the department of philosophy and religion.
There are now shifting views on the connections between psychology and religion, Finley said.
“A lack of certain kind of attention is being paid to this topic,” Finley said. “This was surprising given how prevalent mental disorders are even within the Christian community.”
She said there are studies about the interactions between mental disorders and religious engagement, and she herself conducted two.
The first study found that out of 157 participants with mental disorders that had contact with the Christian church, 44% saw the contact as positive.
While some see it positively, church engagement is not a solution to mental illness.
“Prayer and meditation doesn’t make the pain positive,” she said. “It doesn’t make the mental pain positive. It does make it a place where learning can happen.”
The first study discovered this information using a lengthy questionnaire and a follow-up interview. Negative interactions came from what Finley referred to as the “Emotional Prosperity Gospel,” which is the idea that some Christians struggling with mental health believe that faith alone will cure it. Unfortunately, this is not true and actually causes negative interactions, she said.
Junior Dylan Leebrick said Finley’s work is fascinating and relevant research that I want to be a part of.
The second study focused on how the narratives taught in Christian churches affect mental disorders. From questionnaires and interviews with 42 participants, Finley determined that the narrative does have a strong impact on those with mental disorders in terms of how the afflicted view themselves or their disorder after significant contact with the church.
Another attendee, Professor of Psychology Collin Barnes, said he found Finley’s dive into a field outside his own doctoral realm of philosophy to be a “welcome effort to bring psychology and religion into conversation.”
Finley referenced one separate study by another researcher in which groups with schizophrenia in the United States, India, and Ghana were interviewed about their auditory hallucinations (i.e. hearing voices).
In the United States, the voices were overwhelmingly hateful, telling the afflicted individual to hurt themselves or others. In India and Ghana, the schizophrenic patients tended to like their voices, which spoke kind words and told them to take care of themselves.
The contributing factor to this phenomenon is society’s view of the role that the mind plays. In the United States, the mind is typically viewed as something belonging to the individual. In India and Ghana, their culture and religion guide the view of the mind as a form of a community.
The recommendation that Finley provides is a simple one: While the church shouldn’t be more integrated into psychology, we should “spend more time and effort to try to elevate the level of understanding in congregations about mental disorders.” Simply put, the congregation should be informed about mental disorders in order to provide a more supportive community to its afflicted members.
